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Defending The Skies Against Congress And The Elderly
theodp writes "After watching a burly airport screener search her lymphoma-stricken father, forcing the frail and faltering 78-year-old to hand over his oxygen meter, stand at attention with arms spread for a wand search, take off the Velcro strap shoes that he'd struggled to put on, and strain to keep his balance as his belt was tugged repeatedly, a Newsweek columnist wonders: have we lost our common sense when it comes to passenger screening?" An anonymous reader writes "CNN reported that Kennedy wasn't alone in being listed in the airport watch list as reported in a Slashdot article. Rep. John Lewis, D - Georgia, a nine-term congressman, has been stopped many times because his name appeared on an airline watch list as told to Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on border security. He contacted the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security and executives at various airlines in an effort to get his name off the list, but failed. Instead, he received a letter from the TSA indicating he has cleared an identity check with the agency even though he might still be subject to extra security checks."
An elderly man with medical devices that include metal components would make an excellent suicide bomber. The metal components of his bomb? "Oh, that's my pacemaker/air filter/cancer thingamajig." Bomb dog smells something? "Oh, I take these tablets of such and such for my heart." He's not suspicious in the least no matter how suspicious he's acting. Plus, he doesn't have much time and wouldn't mind as much giving up his life for some radical cause. Keep up the good work, men!
I think it's really dumb that pilots are frequently stopped. My dad is a pilot, and sometimes he flies one way trips on other airlines. He has to do that in order to get to whereever the company plane is so that he can fly it. People with one way tickets frequently come up on security lists, so my dad and other pilots are searched very often. Shouldn't the pilots not have to put up with this? As much as he flies one way, it really annoys my dad...We need a separate system to deal with pilots and flight attendants.
I just returned from a trip to the Middle East via commercial airlines - I was seached more times than I can recall, and I must have shown my passport to at least a dozen folks - the really stupid thing is that the people checking the passports are just going through the motions anyway - not one person actually compared the passport photo to my own face (which is an older photo and I had a beard then). I think that the collective airline security is in a ridiculous state - I doubt they could actually catch someone trying to do wrong without prior knowledge.
I haven't seen my mother in well over ten years. She lives in Dayton, Ohio, and I live in Seattle, Washington. I'd love to see her at least once more, before she finally kicks the bucket, but ...
See, I'm disabled. I'm stuck in a wheelchair. At the moment, I can still stand by myself, for short periods, I can even put my shoes on (Velcro is my bestest friend), I cannot, however, spend multiple hours waiting in line to be screened - MS has left my bladder very functional, but taken away my ability to sense "fullness" (and no, the drug that's advertised will not help. Tried that. Nada).
So, flying is out. Greyhound is even worse - those toilets are *not* very handicapped accessible. Amtrack? They keep cutting off routes because Congress won't give them adequate funding for anything but the East coast corridor. Driving? Ha! Got no vehicle that can carry my power chair, and I for sure can't drive myself any more.
So I'm stuck here in Seattle, likely until I die. Thank you, TSA, and your over-zealous "screeners" who really can't stop a determined terrorist (or even a half-determined amateur who wants to demonstrate gow ludicrous the "Homeland Security" really is).
Bah. A pox on all their houses.
Lemon curry?
As well as biometric passports, and biometric scanning until those are available, all visitors to the US from every countryhave to have their own passports regardless of their age.
So, whereas in the past, a family of British tourists to the US would have a couple of adult passports and one or two for the older kids, with the younger kids and the new baby travelling on one of their parent's passports, they now have to all have their own individual passports and all be photographed and fingerprinted on entry.
Now can someone please tell me how requiring babies to have their own passports adds to the security of the US? All this is doing (together with the treating visitors to the US like criminals before they've even set foot on US soil) is giving people every incentive to spend their holidays anywhere but the US. Watch whilst the US tourist industry takes a dive because of this bureaucratic stupidity.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I'm guessing I was a random target for extra security, but who knows?
As for seraching the elderly and children, smugglers have used such people before, and the successful terrorist groups look for loopholes in security before striking. For example, if knives and metal toy guns get caught too often in "dry runs", then they use box cutters instead once they know that they can get them past security.
I'm sure other threads will bring this up, but Bruce Schneier has a great term for this: he calls it "security theater".
Fortunately terrorism isn't a threat in the US. The chances of dying of terrorism here are less than the chances of being killed by lightening or many other things. We shouldn't worry about it.
Ok, here's a link about responsibility and human rights.
This is interesting. Right now I am traveling in Australia and New Zealand on business and the general impression I get here is that there has been a movement in America by the Republican party to take the country away from the people. There is lots of support for the American people, but very little for our government, and this is starting to cause problems with foreign companies wanting to work with US companies. Already we are having huge problems attracting foreign talent for projects in the US because of the visa restrictions that have been put in place and that is affecting more than just academia. It WILL trickle down into business and make the US less competitive.
I would hope that the Democrats start looking into this and do more than their standard "launch an investigation", because I would suspect this problem is a little more intractable because of the fairly strong partisanship in the US right now.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
hell, I had more trouble explaining my ZIPPO lighter than I did all the other electronic stuff I carry.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
#1. Change the cockpit doors so the terrorists can't get into them.
#2. Rotate the first 2 seats in the plane to face the rest of the passengers.
#3. An air marshal with a pistol or uzi and rubber bullets (no hull penetration) sits here, facing the passengers.
#4. The air marshal has an intercom to the pilots.
#5. Improve training at the baggage inspectors. They are the first line of defense.
That way, a terrorist has to get past the first inspectors, get past the air marshal who will have alerted the pilot who will be calling in for emergency landing instructions and military support and then get past the door to get to the cockpit.
Defense in depth.
Weak old guys and fat senators don't pose any problems to that system.
Now you can fault the airlines or the government for having accessed all our private information just to train and calibrate the systems, but there's a more fundamental problem: they didn't usefully train or calibrate those systems at all. They just wasted time and money. And they give at least some people a false sense of security when all it really is, is mumbo-jumbo.
Everything terrorists do is, by definition, stupid.
I have to disagree. 9/11, while horrific and twisted, was still brilliant.
Nobody's ever going to make us safer by overestimating the intelligence of terrorists.
Yet everything they do is, in your words, "by definition, stupid"? Methinks you're underestimating them...?
Besides, if you read the 9/11 Commission report, you saw just how close we came to losing Flight 93.
If flight 93 crashing with the loss of all on board doesn't count as "lost", I don't know what does...
And those precious locks on the cockpit doors that so many short-sighted people fought for will do an excellent job of keeping the passengers and crew out of the hijackers' way.
If the passengers and crew can't get in, neither can the terrorists (at least, not without explosives or taking apart the door, but that'd make it accessible by the passengers anyways).
Funny that you accuse others of being short-sighted...
India's former defense minister was strip-searched twice on US airports. He has vowed never to return to US. And you wonder why the world hates you.
This isn't about making anything "safer". This is about providing the ILLUSION that we are "safer" now because we are "taking these steps".
After all this "security" stuff was enacted their were polls that asked how "secure" people felt. One company did the poll and it said 70 some % of people felt safer now. Then they added another question "have you flown on an airplane since 9/11?" After factoring in that answer it was 7% of people who have flown since 9/11 felt safer, where as the vast majority of people who hadn't flown felt safer. It was over 90 some %.
So now we have the most annoying security in the world at our airports that makes people who don't fly feel safe!
Arn't we glad we are making our lives a pain in the ass!!!
Well, having Bill Clinton in office was certainly helpful to Al Qaeda (Clinton was overall a far better president than I expected him to be, and that whole impeachment deal was a crock), but he was pretty soft on terrorism. Lob a missile here, a missile there, do no real damage. What was needed was a decisive reaction to Al Qaeda way back, which should have included an invasion of Afghanistan during Clinton's first term.
The last real war-fighting Democrats we had were FDR and Harry Truman. It's true that Johnson is the one who really ramped up US involvement in Viet Nam, however, he A) Didn't really want to do it, and B) Did it rather poorly. If the military had been given the mission in Viet Nam that they were given in Iraq (invade the country, shatter its army, and invest the capital, followed by the rest of the country), that mission would have been achieved. Since they were given an impossible mission, however, it had a predictable result.
John Kerry would no real war-fighting president. He's the kind of Democrat bin Laden wants in the oval office. You can bet he sure doesn't want Bush re-elected, and that alone is adequate reason to vote for Bush.
Yes, I know Kerry fought in Viet Nam and was decorated there, and Bush was in only in the Air Guard and never had an overseas tour. However, neither of those makes a person a war-fighting president or not. Indeed, I don't much care what Kerry, Bush, or anyone else did during the Viet Nam era, and neither should the rest of the voters. We should care what they are doing and seem capable of doing right now, and that's why I support Bush.
I think it's a shame that neither Colin Powell nor Condoleeza Rice are running for president; I believe them both to be far more qualified than either Kerry or Bush.
And if anyone on the Bush campaign is reading this, you need to jettison Cheney and put Rice on the ticket as VP. Really. Not only would she be a marvelously better VP than Cheney, she would easily beat any other contender to become Bush's successor in four years,
I'm not convinced that would be enough. They have the resources to turn to private jets and stuff. I say we get their staff on the list. Someone that's important to them, but not important enough that they'd pay to charter rates to fly 'em around.
One thing thats is prevelant while I have been traveling around the world lately is that many govt workers just dont care one way or another.
While in other countries I noticed regardless of position the person doing it knew checking the papers was something that was of utmost importance and it was their job.
The passport checker would take my papers look them over for about 3-7 minutes and then allow me to move forward, or in some instances ask a gentleman to the side for some sort of re-verification with someone else. People gathering luggage carts did it speedily and was smart enough to see that when someone needed one take it out if their train and give it to the weary traveler.
Upon arrival at LAX I noticed people asked to see various forms of ID while traveling through the terminals about 4 times before luggage claim, with each time no one even glancing at the paper they are asking for, but simply taking it and handing it back. As if passing time till next pay day. Cart gatherers would take carts and if someone needed one direct them to where they should get them, with a life sucks type attitude. No one around to provide information to foreigners on where to get a taxi or even where to proceed next.
Ever since the boomer generation and subsequent generations it seems no one cares one way or another about much of anything, Im beginning to believe my grandparents stories on how they had a work ethic over us. What we need is people taking pride back in whatever it is they do and I would say almost all the things that frustrate us daily would disappear.
My father died about 2 years ago. His last 6 months of intense suffering was made possible by modern medicine. Keeping him alive was no favor to either him or my family.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
How about if they are doing this to Edward Kennedy et al on purpose. So far the US has asked us for their trust and if Mr. Kennedy is a suspected terrorist and under review will not be given a clean slate in terms of flying on an airplane then should he be holding office?
Why is it that they are not arresting any of the people that they flag as terrorists (or likely to be)?
They are swinging a big stick and pointing it all around but not 'doing' anything rather than threatening to use it again.
If they want all of this trust, patients and understanding why don't they ever accomplish anything other than moving the 'terrorist alert' level?
With all this intelligence and lists they have compliled why have they not made any arrests? Its been 3 years (almost) now but the same thing over and over again, "if you dont do what we say you will die at the hands of some religious freak".
I don't know about you but if I had a list of bad people that were gonna do bad things I would do a little more than wait for them to get on a plane to just ask them questions and waste their time, then of course let them go on thier marry way.
Common Bush give us some reason to buy your bullshit it can't be that hard you have a lot of intelligent people working for you just give em more tax payer money, because in my opinion you are the worst terrorist of them all
my $0.02 take it or leave it
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Bin Laden wrote a letter stating his demands. Here is a excerpt. Maybe you can pick out a few of the demands that he makes that would require changing the way Americans live today. Just to give you a head start, I'll sum it up, although this isn't complete: Convert everyone in America to Islam, drop the Constitution and separation of church and state, impose Sharia (Islamic) law, stop all gambling, drug use, alcohol, pornography, and prostitution, adultery, fornication, homosexuality under pain of appropriate Islamic penalty (usually death), stop preventing genocide against the Jews, stop charging interest on bank loans, etc. No changes there, right?
is the second guy got himself off the list because he ADDED HIS MIDDLE INITIAL to his name!
Think about the stupid programming!
All a terrorist has to do is add something to his name and he drops off the list!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Your tax dollars at work!
If this doesn't prove that the whole thing is purely a) for show and b) to increase the government's ability to harass the citizenry for no reason at all except to prove they can, I don't know what does.
And, yes, some morons say some of the 9/11 terrorists used their own names when they traveled. What does this tell you? They weren't terrorists, that's what. Either that or the names they used weren't actually theirs and the FBI/CIA is too stupid to determine their real names.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
True. But the aliance also used a "secret" weapon, called Superior Force.
I recoment the book On War, by Karl von Clausewitz. Even tho it is from 1832, it explains in great details why the aliance won WWII, and why USA lost on Vietnam and North Korea. And why USA is currently loosing the war against terrorism. And I mean "terrorism", not necessarily the Al Quaeda, or Saddan.
Quotes from the book (free translation):
"Always keep your forces concentrated, and in the best possible disposition."
"The greater possible number of soldier should be put in action at the decisive point" (Emphasis by me).
And, the one the terrorist always follow:
"If you can't get absolute superiority, you should get a relative superiority at the decisive point, by masterfuly using all the forces you have."
Also, since I'm quoting, lemme give you one from Mao Tsé-Tung:
"When the enemy advances, we withdraw. When he camps, we taunt. When he gets tired, we attack. When he withdraws, we pursue them."
Okey, I'm done with this subject. Thank you all for your patience.
morcego
Which is exactly why we (the United States) had (initially) a democratic republic as opposed to a pure democracy. Some/most U.S. citizens are:
n 't think for themselves"/un-informed.
stupid/ignorant/evil/jerk-offs/small-minded/"ca
Just because they are citizens does not mean that they should be allowed to make policy. Viz, just because they happen to be human doesn't mean their opinion is useful, important, or valuable.
If you flew back in the sixties (yes, I am old enough to be authoritative about this) you were fed decent meals and lavished with extreme courtesy by very well turned out flight attendants. Just generally you were dealing with a high end, high cost transport method and that's how you were treated. It was fun and it was interesting and it wasn't all that expensive, though I can't say it felt cheap. Throw in a limo at both ends and we're talking something to truly look forward to.
Sadly, today we're dealing with a low end, cut-rate, cattle-call transport method and that's how you're treated. Aside from some extremely misguided women's liberation / political correctness bonehead moves attempting to reject and/or hide femininity, most of this is IMHO due to government interference with the airlines. Deregulation on the one hand, and over regulation on the other.
So some of the makings of a decent conspiracy theory seem to be there.
However, after quite a bit of consideration, I've decided that it is probably stupidity on the part of the government, rather than any organized attempt to destroy the industry. Mainly, this is because I can't figure out why they would be trying to do so - no matter how clear it is that they are doing so.
But I'm not closed minded about it. Not everyone in government is an idiot, clearly, so maybe there is a conspiracy. Anyone have any wild ideas to flesh this out? The government might want to destroy the airline industry because... ???
As an aside, mainly because of what a lousy experience flying is these days, I don't take planes any longer; I drive. I've renewed an interest in high performance cars and added fun gadgets (like street-level mapping GPS, XM Radio, scanners, ham radio, radar and laser detectors, some pretty extreme car audio) and turned my steadily more-and-more annoying business travel back into a perk. Now all I have to do is avoid speeding tickets, which so far I've managed to do. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Of course, SOME kind of security is needed in airports and whatnot, but whether we have gone to far is up for argument.
Whatever the administration[1] does is wrong. If there is another attack, whatever they were doing wasn't enough. If there isn't another attack, whatever they were doing was too harsh.
[1] administration = whoever is in power, dem/reb/lib/tory/labour/socialist/whoever...
All over the world, people know that if you give the U.S. a big enough black eye, we'll turn tail.
The Iraqis know it too. How many GIs would they have to send home in a day to end this thing? Fifty? A hundred? Think tet. All they need is one big PR victory and the war's over and it won't be for the best.
These problems are solved with cash. Big fat fucking sacks of it. CIA finds the most radical mullahs and buys them off. Trust me, they're for sale. Next stop, make life livable in those countries, shit make it comfortable. Nobody with 500 channels straps a bomb on. People with air conditioned malls don't want to breed a generation of martyrs, they want to breed a generation of consumers. We win this thing by making nice, not by making more terrorists.
Fine... then it follows that a representative government is nothing more than a system where less than 1% of the people take away the rights of the other 99+%
I think a democracy has to win; it indeed sucks as per M. Jefferson's observation, but it is far better in principle than a representative system.
Our current system not only fits the 1% definition, but I am also under the very strong impression that it is doing considerably worse than a 50% majority of citizens would.
I have always found it telling that the US judicial system is set up so that a vote of your citizen peers is the trusted heart and soul of votes that affect you in major ways, unless you choose otherwise; but that politicians have set up a system where our peers have pretty much zero input, no matter how we choose. Citizens are OK to choose if you live or die; but apparently they're far too stupid to decide if you should be allowed to screw someone doggie style, or give/receive oral sex. We "need" politicians to do that for us. Thank goodness for politicians, eh? Seriously - it's OK for a jury to decide if you are guilty of murder, but not to rule on if piercing the labia is OK. The lesson is clear: In the current system, your life is less important than rulemaking, and the reason for that is because the politicians have voted themselves permanent pensions and other fabulous perks from parking places to travel junkets, and you are definitely not going to get to vote on those issues.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Actually, regarding Air France, they are a bunch of cretins, having already been in trouble for refusing passage to several disabled people, recently to a blind couple and their child (who could see all right). This after they had taken another flight with the same company with the same company with no problem whatsoever. There have also been many problems with mentally handicapped people (autonomous though) travelling alone. Do a google search on "Air France handicapés"
But then when you start digging a bit, you'll find these stories with a lot of airlines.
Regarding the anti-french sentiment here, it definitely is present, as well as a strong anti-US sentiment, an anti-arab sentiment, and anti-pretty much every thing sentiments which is pretty much what you'd expect when a community grows since the global intelligence quickly drops proportionally to the number of members (or is it to the square of the number of members?). And with the recent anti-french propaganda in the US, that was bound to leave some trace. I'm French and I don't really mind it. It just makes me sad that playing with people's opinions is that easy.
May contain traces of nut.
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