Given discussion of total information awareness, it is unfortunate that we have only two disputed viewpoints to such alleged events in a public point of transit. Since passengers have successfully defended in-plane attacks, maybe their eyes can defend the integrity of legitimate inspections.
False positives are a double denial of service. First in on-locale opportunity cost to detection resources. Second in public triage of narratives like the one being discussed.
The right to a fair trial is due both passenger and security inspectors. When we asked security inspectors to make snap judgements on passenger safety, we agreed to compromise due process for the sake of immediate caution. An audit trail restores due process to snap judgements.
There are collaborative, self-organizing, spontaneous defenses against such denials of service. Below is a generic proposal and a citation. The defense pattern is not limited to preflight screening.
Client Inspection Auditing HOWTO 0.01 (draft proposal)
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1. For each client inspected, select one male and one female client as inspection witnesses.
2. Each witness audits at least two inspections.
3. Witness rotation is done on alternate inspections to reduce collusion.
4. Body inspections are audited by same-gender witness.
5. On-locale claim of improper inspection requires confirmation by at least one witness.
6. Tune by public feedback from witness, client and inspector.
"Soft security" is inseparable from "hard security".
O'Reilly's 2001 P2P conference (powerpoint):
http://sunir.org/meatball/SoftSecurity/p2p2001.pptWiki notes (html):
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity
