There is one thing you can take to the bank from TSA administrator John Pistole’s statement that he wants to shift to “risk-based” screening at airports: it hasn’t been risk-based up to now. That’s a welcome concession because, as I’ve said before, the DHS and its officials routinely mouth risk terminology, but rarely subject themselves to the rigor of actual risk analysis.

What Administrator Pistole envisions is nothing new. It’s the idea of checking the backgrounds of air travelers more deeply, attempting to determine which of them present less of a threat and which prevent more. That opens security holes that the risk-averse TSA is unlikely to actually tolerate, and it has significant privacy and Due Process consequences, including migration toward a national ID system. 

I wrote about one plan for a “trusted traveler”-type system recently. As the details of what Pistole envisions emerge, I’ll look forward to reviewing it.

The DHS Privacy Committee published a document several years ago that can help Pistole with developing an actual risk-based system and with managing its privacy consequences. The Privacy Committee itself exists to review programs like these, but has not been used for this purpose recently despite claims that it has.

If Pistole wants to shift to risk-based screening, he should require a full risk-based study of airport screening and publish it so that the public, commentators, and courts can compare the actual security benefits of the TSA’s policies with their costs in dollars, risk transfer, privacy, and constitutional values.