G.R. Patterson III wrote:



Andrew Gideon wrote:

Yes. They'd also need to identify the marshal amongst the passengers, as
you noted. However, relying upon these "secrets" is relying upon
something
called "security through obscurity". It doesn't work in the long term.

It doesn't have to work in the long term. It has to work for the duration
of that flight.

If there were no pattern to the marshals used, you'd be right. For example,
if we randomly selected a couple of police officers for each flight, the
chances of this information being abused would be relatively small.

If, however, there's a relatively small population of marshals, then even
the release of one identity can cause a problem.

But don't ignore the possibility that an entire class, or even the entire
population, will become known to some terrorist group. How many people
will have access to this information? How well vetted are they?

You'd think, for example, that we'd be sure about the people permitted to
speak to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Wups.

Does nobody remember Robert Hanssen?

Further to keep in mind is that we're not speaking only of TSA staffers.
We've "marshals" from other nations handling security as well. More, some
of these nations aren't taking this program terribly seriously.

How well secured are the identities of those "marshals"?

- Andrew