Slashdot Mirror
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."
Airport security has gotten worse and worse. What next, peopel without arms and legs cant get on planes? Oh wait, that already happened.
[sig]www.masterslate.org[/sig]
Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, and John Lewis... any republicans on this list?
Terrorists would be stupid to try to hijack planes again. It was a tactic they could use once, and they did, and now the rules have changed. It used to be the case if someone hijacked a plane, they wanted to make a statement or go somewhere, and you'd probably live if you cooperated. Now we know they want to use them to hit other things and kill people. If someone hijacks your plane now, you're going to fight back. You're dead if you don't, but you have a chance of surviving if you do.
That's not to say we shouldn't screen for bombs and such. We should. They could still try to bomb planes. But I'd like to see more screening of pilots, and more attention paid to other possible forms of attack.
I haven't got on an international flight for around a year and a half now just because it's such a fucking hassle these days it's just not worth it.
Congress and old people do far more damage to this society (and me personally) than any "real" terrorists. This all sounds fine to me. *shrug*.
The terrorists aren't going around telling us "we're the greatest generation" all while bilking my generation out of enormous quantities of cash via taxes to give them free medical care, free prescriptions, social security, etc. And Congress... well... that one is obvious.
In Soviet America, the system shits on you! ... oh wait...
I guess you must not have RTFP(previous)A:
In Japan, Yoshiyuki Sankai has built a robot suit, called Hybrid Assistive Limb-3 (or HAL-3), designed to help disabled or elderly people.
For once our government is being proactive -- this time to guard against the dangers posed by the superpowered mecha-old-people!
Didn't I just read last week in the slashdot story about Kennedy's problems that the extra screening line is "where all the people with dark skin or funny clothes go"?
Every time this sort of thing comes up, someone says that it's all the people with "brown skin" who get targetted, but then they cry fowl when the TSA seems to make an attempt to fairly apply their searches.
So which is it? The brownskins? The US senators? Elderly men? People with "funny clothes"?
As an aside, I'll agree, to a point, that this type of security largely does nothing more than provide a false sense of the very same. But if a "false sense" of security, as it were, is what it takes to make ordinary Americans travel by air, instead of cowering in their homes (as many did after 9/11), isn't it fulfilling its its goal? The goal may not be security, per se, but simply preventing the entire US air transportation industry from collapsing onto itself (issues of privacy and anonymous air travel aside, for the moment).
You're right: we can't stop "terror" or terrorist attacks, almost by definition. But we can do our best to make people feel like they're being protected, and the people whose job it is to protect the public can do their best jobs trying. Simple as it may sound. (And no, I don't mean a police state or "Papers, please". I mean honest people, at many levels, legitimately trying to do their best to protect others. There's nothing wrong with legitimately good airport and airline security, for example...not saying everything the TSA does is perfect.)
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.
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?
If you're suggesting that there's any age, sex, race, religious disposition, disability etc that procludes someone from being a terrorist trying to get onto a plane then I'd like to see your evidence.
What would you say to the metaphorical parent of a victim of that terrorists acts when they said to you `why did you assume a guy in a wheelchair was not carrying a bomb`?
If the system is so friggin' easy to fool, just why is it being used??
I can only shake my head and wonder. It is not that I'm upset about a few people being harassed; what bothers me is that this is such a lame measure, which is easily fooled, and yet there are people who think it is useful. It is the presence of such people in decision-making roles is what really bothers me. If these people can't even see the problems with this system, are we expected to put faith in their abilities to spot real problems and design real solutions???
Good point. Y'know, there are people called "actors" who are trained to give convincing performances of people whom they are not. Just because someone looks old and frail, how do we really know? You remember how convincing Patrick Stewart was at playing a bumbling old Jean-Luc Picard in "All Good Things..."? A little bit of makeup and several months practicing and I bet you could get a normally young, healthy person to look and act very much like an elderly man. At least well enough for an overworked security screener who's been dealing with huge crowds all day long. Like brandon said, he's already got a built-in excuse for setting the metal detector off.
GMD
watch this
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.
After watching a burly airport screener search her lymphoma-stricken father,--8<--8<-- a Newsweek columnist wonders: --8<--"
And I wonder: why does it take a relative of this Newsweek columnist being hassled for said columnist to write a column about this? the TSA and its secret black lists, and the circus show that goes on in airports across the country, bringing nothing but the sense of security, aren't these enough to call this journalist's attention?
But no, apparently it's business as usual for reporters these days, unless what goes on in America *right now* affects them personally. If the Washington Post and other news outlets behaved 30 years ago like they do today, Nixon would have stayed in office until the end of his term.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
There are a couple of problems here.
First, the TSA people on the ground have to use some freaking common sense. It kind of disturbs me that the people on the ground can't recognize someone like Kennedy. On the news yesterday, they said some other bozo has been using "Edward Kennedy" as an alias. I can see some lesser known people being stopped, but seriously... who hasn't seen Kennedy?
These people are stopping senators and grandmas, and letting people through that probably should be stopped, all in the name of "political correctness". If a guy is acting shifty and has a foreign passport, chances are the guy is just nervous about being in a foreign country's airport security, so ask the guy a couple of questions... not my grandma.
Second, these congress people have start getting to the airport AHEAD OF TIME, just like the rest of us. They pull up five minutes before flights, and expect to cruise right on through.
Maybe if they start getting delayed more, they'll authorize more money to lower the waiting times at airports.
What we're seeing now is exactly what they were trying to achive in the first place: scaring us into giving up our freedoms. Every time we increase "security" because of terrorism, we validate their actions.
This is one instance where ignoring* the problem really will make it go away, since terrorists lose if nobody pays attention to them.
*rather, mostly ignoring, but quietly fixing our intelligence agency issues too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Heheh, as far as USA is concerned, the terrorists don't need to do anything right now. The Americans are doing a great job of terrorizing themselves, living in constant fear of being bombed and hijacked, putting each other on lists, watching and tracking each other... Just look, there is hardly a single article on /. where someone doesn't bring up the terrorists. All this fear and terror for free, whee!
Most, if not all, airlines will not let you take an O2 tank on the flight.
I can see fixing the security on planes (mostly by fixing the door so no one can get to the pilots).
But you're right. Any terrorist would have to be an idiot to try that again right now. If nothing else, the passengers would fight back this time.
This isn't about making anything "safer". This is about providing the ILLUSION that we are "safer" now because we are "taking these steps".
But illusions are not reality. Rep. John Lewis used to be tagged by the "security" issue. But he can bypass that if he registers as John R. Lewis. Which tells you how reliable that "security" measure is.
The "security" we've put in place is whatever is easiest for the "security" people to do. And that results in the stupid incidents we keep reading about.
The biggest deterrent to air terrorism has already taken place: 9/11. If a terrorist attempts to take over a plane now everyone is going to remember what happened to the Twin Towers and to the people on board those planes, and no matter what the terrorists say they're going to believe that they're the next barbecue up on the list.
I'd wager that any terrorist takeover attempt will last a few minutes at most, before the news travels the cabin and several hundred passengers mob the sons of bitches and do unto them before they can be done unto.
The 9/11 terrorists did more for airline security than the government ever could, or can: by forcing the passengers to realize that if *they* don't end the threat then death will almost certainly follow.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
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?
...a Newsweek columnist wonders: have we lost our common sense when it comes to passenger screening?"
Is this from a member of the same media who seem to feel that President Bush is doing a great job and that the Patriot Act and Department of Homeland of Security are of no threat to the American way of life?
The same media who are holding on to their jobs for dear life instead of acting on their (and our) rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press? The same people who are hiding behind "what the public wants to hear" instead of "what the public needs to know". The truth.
It never ceases to amaze me how much people ignore these things until something inconveniences them. Then all of a sudden "Something MUST be done."
Who'da thunk it, but maybe the no-fly list is actually non-partisan. So much so that people who are used to special priveleges get none and may actually start getting pissed off about it.
Interesting. Very, very interesting. Can't wait to see who gets booted off or detained next.
I know it sounds awful, but it's true. If we don't use racial prfiling, then what we're really asking for isn't to stop targeting muslim males, but rather harass grandmothers and children. Because hey, no one wants to be biased.
People against racial profiling usually claim it's just racism. And by a narrow definition it is.
Or is it just playing statistics? Doctors usually check black men for prostate cancer because they are 100% more likely to get it than white men. Is that racism?
So if 9/10 terrorists are muslim males, doesn't it make sense that more scrutiny should be placed on them, rather than seniors with heart conditions? Security needs common sense, and if that hurts people's feelings then it's a worthy tradeoff.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Things like this (also: need for biometric data in passports, gathering passengers-data from airlines) prevent that i even consider a visit to the U.S. in this times.
And everytime someone brings up "giving up our freedoms" or other such rhetoric its seems to me like they are trying to scare us into voting their way. Its all scare tactics, just choose your flavor.
Sounds like Tom Ridge and GWB got drunk one night and put all the names of democaratic senators they could think of on that list. Bet Teddy was #1. ... or not.
FLR
But according to your post, we'd have let Mcveigh through security because he's white. See the logic error?
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
All I can say is.. lighters and matches are not banned while smoking is, no one in the government has bothered to explain or do anything about this, that scene in Farenheit 911 where the guard says the woman can only have 4 books of matches just sums up the whole security thing. No one even talks about this!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The disturbing thing is that for reasons that remain unexplained, people opposed to Bush's policies seem to get added quite readily. Combine this with Ashcroft's recent defense of using FBI resources to investigate (aka harass) Bush protestors and it's not hard to imagine how such a system could and probably is being abused.
When all else fails, run.
Wow, you really believe all that don't you? You're far more likely to be blown up by a baggage handler or ground crew than your fellow passenger. And what's more, your far more likely to be killed by a mugger or the guy living down the road than a terrorist. Wake up and smell the BS.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
With any security system, including the limiting case of no security system at all, it is easy to point out problems. What is hard is to come up with something better. And, to put it bluntly, it does not matter even slightly if a given system suffers from obvious and huge problems if it is still the best system anyone has come up with.
So what are the alternatives to a watch-list or no-fly list that uses names? We could have no identity check, so even if someone called Osama bin Laden shows up for a flight he gets waved through with all the rest. Sound good? We could have a list that uses universal unique ID's. Sound good? We could try to mash together a database that combines all the various existing forms of ID, like passports, drivers licenses, birth certificates, etc. Of course that would be more expensive, more intrusive, and only slightly harder to fool. Sound good?
Feel free to suggest your own scheme.
George: These democrats are really getting to be annoying. We must do something about them.
Dick: Let's put their names on the terrorist watch list so they can't fly!
paintball
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.
Just look, there is hardly a single article on /. where someone doesn't bring up the terrorists.
That's because the terrorists have already won!
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Well, in one sense, it is quite true, since if she could fly on her own, she wouldn't need Air France in the first place. However, since she was denied transportation only after her luggage was checked, it would appear that she could manage other forms of transport on her own.
I would hazard a guess that Air France is currently contemplating dropping off that particular employee mid-flight to allow him to demonstrate his particular ability to fly on his own using his arms and legs.
I'm certain that this would more than satisfy the poor woman who was so shabbily treated by Air France.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
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.
The old guy MAY be hiding a bomb in his oxygen mask.
On the other hand, if he wanted to destroy the plane, he's put the bomb in his checked luggage and the remote detonator in his cell phone.
This isn't about how convoluted you can make things. The real terrorists seem to rather simplistic and direct in their approach. The simpler the plan, the fewer things that can go wrong.
The problem is that we are focusing on the once in a lifetime and never to be repeated incidents rather than looking at the actual problem.
It's the ILLUSION of safety that we're pursuing here.
If the only viable attack method the terrorists have is some old guy's medical kit, then terrorism has long since been defeated.
On another, related subject...
The worst part of the black-list that Senator Kennedy was complaining about? The committee he was talking to is not thinking about getting rid of the list, but rather moving it from airline control, as it is currently, to government controlled.
While I think that the airlines have bungled things up royally with it, am I really going to trust the *government* to do things better?
Of course Senator Kennedy was not able get anywhere talking to the airline. The airline checks its manifest with the government. The government says "This person cannot fly. It is your responsibility to deal with that." What can the airline do?
Getting a new driver's license takes me an entire afternoon. What makes me think that the government is going to make it easier to get off the black-list?
The problem with these lists (and the reason people are suing so they do not have to show ID at the security checkpoint) is that *we do not have a list of terrorists*.
I mean, Senator Kennedy was kept off the plane, but he was not arrested. The FBI did not come talk to him. Rather, he was put through more rigorous screening.
What does that mean? It means that the government realizes it will get innocent people with similar names, and that it is fine with that. It has no motivation for getting people off that list. Delaying people at the airport does not cost the government one cent. Indeed, they can use it as "proof" that they are doing something about terrorism.
So instead of using "T. Kennedy", Senator Kennedy uses "Edward Kennedy" and gets on the plane without problem. Yeah, the terrorists will NEVER think of that.
It is like the "Free Speech Zones" that Bush erects whenever he speaks somewhere. The reasoning? Protesters can cause problems, and we want to avoid those security and safety concerns.
Yeah, since people that want to cause trouble (be they protesters or terrorists) are not smart enough to realize they can get a lot closer without an anti-Bush sign.
No, as a frequent airline traveler, I can tell you that most of what the government and airlines have done since Sept. 11th. is "feel good security", designed to make it look safer, but really not improve things too much.
I have argued with a TSA employee at a security checkpoint when he overstepped his bounds. Have you?
We need to start speaking up, even if we worry we might not make our planes.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
You're correct that there will never be another successful hijacking, as the passengers who died in Pennsylvania demonstrated on 9/11. The purpose of the TSA and the entire cabinet-level department of pretense and hand-waving was to head off the *real* danger as perceived by the government, which is that we might all realize that our safety can NOT be assured by leaving it in the hands of the people who brought us Amtrak and the Post Office.
Terrorism is a very diffuse threat, and the only practical response is that which Israelis practice every day: many, many citizens carry weapons, and when you hear about a terrorist attack in israel, you usually will hear that the perp killed two or three people before getting shot by passers-by.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The real war front is not in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is in our own societies: at the airport check in, the railway station, the stadium, anywhere we have to trust other people. If we lose on this front, we lose the power to even demand a stop to the violence in Iraq.
Such 'security' diminishes us as human beings. Why can't our leaders see that the terrorists WANT draconian security inside their targets. Our leaders are doing the terrorist's work for them. Distrust and alienation is fuel for terrorism, not a solution.
First step is to recognise the humanity in those around us. Next step is to break the cycle and recognise the humanity of those we share the wider world with.
people forget that the events of 9/11 did not happen from a break down in security they were organized and carried out with items that were allowed. Security has lost the point, a weapon is not just something that is sharp and pointed it is intent. Take a look at your desk and think about how many items you have there that could inflict sever bodily harm. There needs to be a major reform in not only security, but the attitude that security is carried out with.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
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.
Fair enough. I'm just saying the "threat" is way overstated than it is real. Most folks are in more danger just going to work than they are when flying.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I knew the airport security system was doomed when they started searching 86 year old Medal of Honor recipients
Chip H.
The article ponders the question, "Have we lost our common sense when it comes to passenger screening?"
The question assumes the purpose of the screening is security. It is not. The purpose of the screening is to build fear in the population.
Only a fearful population will sit back and do nothing while the gov't and its neo-cons pass laws like the Patriot Act and eviscerate the Bill of Rights. The corporate media plays into this fear-mongering, with everything from shows like "Cops" to overreporting crime issues and parroting whatever the gov't says.
One example: NYC (and some other areas) are supposed to be on a "High" level of terrorism alert. That's serious, right?! Yet it was just reported that NYC has dispatched dozens and dozens of police across the country to watch American citizens who might be coming to NYC to protest the Republican convention.
Given this, obviously NYC has all of its terrorism options more than covered, right? Why else would they be wasting their police manpower to send cops around the country to do 24hr surveillance on Americans with no terrorist background?
The emperor has no clothes. This terrorism hype is just like the airport security hype. They know there's little they can do to stop terrorism, so they are instead focusing on domestic issues and creating a fearful population that can be easily manipulated after the next inevitable terrorist attack.
have we lost our common sense when it comes to passenger screening?
Hell yes. Generics in the form of "Initial. Lastname" are going to match many thousands of Americans for all but the most unusual names.
Its also worth noting that security still varies wildly from airport to airport. I flew from my home (DC) to Orlando and back in July:
Leaving Washington National (aka Reagan National), you must take off your shoes, empty your pockets and step through the scanner. If your pacemaker sets off the scanner, you get wanded. Period. And the scanner has been tuned so just about anything metalic sets it off. Any but the thinnest carry-on bag will be hand searched. They were very polite and decent about it, but they also missed the screwdriver I left in my backpack by mistake (I'm a computer guy. I always carry a pocket screwdriver with me along side my pencil and pen and completely forgot about it. Screwdrivers are currently banned what with them being pointy metal objects and all.) The folks both machine and hand searched that backpack, by the way. And they make one of my companions throw away his toenail clippers.
Returning from Orlando (destination: Washington National), there was no fuss about my shoes and my bags were OKayed with a simple run through the machine.
All of this BS because of 9/11, when the crux of the 9/11 security failure is very straightforward: Pilots were required to cooperate with would-be highjackers. Period. Try to be a hero and you would be fired, sued, and probably brought up on criminal charges. The statisticians said that the chance of survival was much better if you cooperated and by God that was what you were going to do. The pilot had no latitude to judge the situation at all.
DUH! The surprising thing was not that 9/11 happened, but that it didn't happen sooner.
The pilot, by the way, still has no latitude to judge the situation. He just has an alternate set of instructions. And its the same in many other sectors of critical industry, leaving us very vulnerable to the next errant requirement that those bastards can ferret out. Think of it like a real-life buffer overflow just waiting for the script kiddies, only in real life people die.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I've got a bit of inside view of the TSA and what is going on in the minds of screeners and their superiors. Without a little Q&A I'm not sure what people really want to know but I will put forth the following assertions that should not at all be surprising:
1. There are *some* screeners with sensibility about them, but they are seemingly outnumbered by a collection of morons who seem to enjoy causing people pain and discomfort. I've seen it too many times. God help the screener who doesn't follow the rules when I go to the airport because I'll cause them a world of problems.
2. The logic behind the screening process is that "Anyone could be a terrorist." The training is very "politically correct" and does not leave much room for personal opinion or feelings to come into play. This means that even when they are following the rules, they're often duty-bound to be assholes. That said, some people still go "above and beyond" and seem to love it too much.
3. I have been to other airports and even to another country... Japan in this case. Security wasn't all that different in Japan. (I managed to breeze through without incident.) I have also heard from other travelling TSA screeners who have visited other countries because we were interested to know how it is out there. Spain, in particular, was pretty rude by comparison to the U.S. security measures. I've also heard that certain places will not allow anything on board that uses a battery. I'm not saying the TSA couldn't use improvment here, but by comparison, the U.S. airport screening process is VERY streamlined and efficient while allowing people to actually enjoy their flight once they get through.
While people sit back and judge how bad things are with the broken system, I invite anyone to consider how it could be run without violating any non-discrimination policies. I think it'd be impossible to be sensible and non-discriminatory at the same time.
In my opinion, I think all flights should have two or more armed FAMs on every flight and they should all but do away with the detailed passenger screening that is being done today. Baggage screening is pretty much on-target but should be handled with more over-sight because too many bad things go on there as well. (Things like theft, damage and laziness are a bit too common in my opinion...especially when bagage screening goes on away from public view)
Ask questions and I'll answer honestly. I might be stirring up a bit of trouble for myself, but I don't think anything I've said so far would be surprising in the least to anyone.
I think that it's a very good idea to keep track of the flights of people who may be dangerous to other passengers. However, I think that the list should be much more selective.
IMHO, I think it would make more sense to put two classes of people on the list. Those classes being anyone who was not born in the United States, and anyone who has a criminal record which includes a violent crime or a felony. We're primarily watching for terrorists and violent people. To me, it makes more sense to watch the types of people most likely to be a terrorist or a violent person. When was the last time you met a 78 year old man who wanted to hijack a plane and crash it into something?
Also, I think it would be a show of good faith for Homeland Security to send a letter notifying people that they are on the watch list and why, thus offering them a chance to correct the issue ahead of time if they shouldn't be on it. Many would say that would just be alerting the enemy, but if they are really doing something wrong, and we know who they are, it won't matter if they know we know about them.
They should get a copy of the bill of rights, and have it scratched to their cornea, so that they can have a copy within sight at all times, but that's a totally different issue.
However, in this case, if they hassle or stop the a Senator or Representative of the House, that is literally unconstitutional. Unless they are charging him with a Felony, Treason, or Breach of the Peace. He can't be stopped and questioned in any place except the House he serves in.
It's the reason why members of Congress can't get a speeding ticket in Washington D.C. If they guy was on his way to Washington D.C. he's literally got constitutional immunity from this sort of thing. I'd much rather it be fixed in the general case, but in this particular case, I'd be curious to see what happens if he challenges it on a constitional basis.
Kirby
USA has gone nuts. That is Usama bin Ladens ultimate victory.
The cockpit of a plane should be inaccessible via the cabin. An airplane should carry two pilots and two co-pilots, and they would board the aircraft from a different hatch than everyone else; a hatch which only opens into the cockpit. Hijacking problem averted.
Then we can return to our regularly scheduled NOT BEING SO FUCKING AFRAID OF EVERYTHING.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
http://www.thekcrachannel.com/news/3672459/detail
The report, compiled by the commission's staff, says 13 of the 19 hijackers applying for visas presented passports that were less than three weeks old, yet their visa applications were met with no increased scrutiny.
Two of the hijackers, the report said, lied on their applications "in detectable ways" but were not questioned about those lies. And all 19 of the hijackers' applications had data fields left blank, or were incomplete in some other way.
Three of the hijackers were carrying Saudi passports "containing a possible extremist indicator" present in the passports of many al-Qaida members, the report said. While it's not clear what that indicator was, the report added that it had not been analyzed by the CIA, FBI or border authorities for its significance.
The report is one of two staff addenda to the commission's final report, which was released last month.
The other report released Saturday analyzed the hijackers' financing.
It concluded:
- There is no evidence that anyone in the United States, or any other country, provided substantial funding to the hijackers. Most of the money came from al-Qaida.
- Gaps remain in the intelligence community's understanding of how the terrorist network moves its money. "Because of the complexity and variety of ways to collect and move small amounts of money in a vast worldwide financial system, gathering intelligence on al Qaeda financial flows will remain a hard target for the foreseeable future," the report said.
The commission officially disbanded Saturday, when its congressional mandate expired. The commissioners had not approved the final text of the reports.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...
As a non-American who has travelled frequently to the USA for work since 9/11, I can say that things are getting to the point that my co-workers and friends are reluctant to travel to the States. I've suffered through the embarrassment of an extended search multiple times because I frequently have to book return flights at a moment's notice and often travel with no checked baggage. The last time I left Houston, the check-in personnel actually apologized for what I was about to be put through at security - having seen me multiple times that month. My wife refuses to vacation in the US because she's reluctant to apply for a visa, go through the humiliation of fingerprinting, and then suffer the indignity of being photographed when she crosses the border. Its sad, because I want the opportunity to introduce her to some wonderful friends and places in the country -- but I understand her feelings. We don't subject Americans to such treatment when they visit Europe. I think its time for the US gov't to rationalize security -- no New Zelanders, Irish, or Icelandic people have ever committed acts or terrorism against the USA -- so don't try to tell them they're "increased risks"
What's to stop some psycho from derailing a train or cashing it into a busy train station? Nothing.
Yes, but there are far jucier targets. Train derailments usually involve a lot of minor injuries but few major ones, and even fewer fatalities.
A small bomb in Times Square on New Years would be far more damaging (not to mention fear-inducing).
Bruce Schneier has a great term for this: he calls it "security theater".
:-)
He hit the nail right on the head; that's exactly what it is.
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.
Shhh -- you're not supposed to say that, no matter how true it is.
But no matter how true that is, it is not what the general population believes. And when you think about it, you can't blame them too much.
When night after night the news talks about terrorism and our vulnerabilities, it sinks into people. It should, it's supposed to. It's just like crime -- if you overreport crime enough people will lock their doors, feel frightened of blacks, and support ever-increasing police budgets and prison populations.
It's simple propaganda.
I am currently a TSA employee. That said, I am a 19 year old university student earning a decent wage in one of the only locations possible to me in this crazy casino town. I honestly believe that the people I work with are crazy, with the exception of a few kind souls. They are also, in my opinion, mostly too old to be able to efficiently do their jobs. I don't disagree at all with the level of security; I do very thorough bag searches all day long, and honestly don't care if doing my job causes someone else to miss their flight. That said, I think that the people I work with really need to work on their skills concerning the attitude that they give off while they do their jobs. There is no reason why any medical disability cannot be accommodated. There is no reason why whatever crazy theory someone has (and I've seen my share of crazy) cannot be accommodated. Basically, there is no reason why whatever the passenger (who is a customer, even if not mine) wants cannot be accommodated. As long as we search both the passenger and the bag to determine security, we don't have to be jerks about it. Private screening is available at all times, although my collegues refuse to offer it. Alternative screening methods exist for just about everything (except laptops and other large electronics... only one choice there). Really, there is no reason why we can't make people happy. I think that random screening is a good thing. We are a smaller airport; not quite the middle of nowhere, but only a minimal amount of tourist traffic and a few international flights. We have found guns (about one every other week). We have had checkpoint breaches. However... I don't agree with 9 out of 10 calls that my supervisors make about whether or not some borderline maybe-maybe not prohibited item can fly. While I know a large part of my feelings about this are in defense of my good-paying job that's putting me through school, I do believe we need airport security. I just don't think we're going about it the right way.
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.
Actually, he eventually was allowed to carry it once the issue got raised high enough in the chain of command for someone to know what they were looking at.
The real problem with airport security is that too many politicans (hounded by Islamic pressure groups) think that nationality profiling is "racist". There is nothing racist about (1) checking the bags and bodies of all non-American citizens from the USA and (2) performing a less intensive check of American citizens. The threat is from the Middle Easterner, not the average American.
Unfortunately, because nationality profiling is considered "racist", the TSA has contrived an insane screening process whereby a handicapped American citizen, who could never be a threat to anyone, is subjected to an intensive check of all body cavities. At the same time, the airport screeners are forbidden, by TSA regulations, from intensively checking more than 2 Middle Easterners (i.e. without American citizenship) per flight.
Insane? Yep. You can blame the spineless politicians who refuse to stand up to Islamic pressure groups, La Raza, etc.
Then how about this: You are far more likely to be killed on the road by a drunk driver. I don't see cops with breath-alyzers standing outside of bars to stop people with blood alcohol levels over the limit from driving.
Just give everyone on the aircraft a gun.
:D
If one idiot gets up and says "I'm taking over!" then the other 240 passengers can take say "No you're not!" while training a nice red laser sight on the terrorist's sweaty forehead.
Sounds like fun!
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.
acutly most Israelis don't carry weapons, the security there is achived by having security people everywhere (grocery stores, bus stations, etc)
The mean time before death or serious injury for a hijacker would be about 10 seconds.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
They were all very polite and efficient about the whole thing---I learned a long time ago that the surlier you are with the people handling you, the surlier they're going to be. The older fellow doing the bag inspection joked about the title of one of my books---"Absolute BSD". He said "I know what BS is, what's the D stand for?"
When I left the security area, I realized two things. First, that I was flying on a one way ticket, all the way down the Atlantic coast, on a ticket bought by a third party at nearly the last minute. Add that to the fact I'm male and below 40 and you've got a very close match to the warning-bells profile.
The second thing I realized was that they forgot to check under my hat! All this song and dance and I could have had anything under there!
On the whole, an ugly fact of modern existance. So why search septugenarian invalids? Because if you only search guys like me, then you're profiling, I guess, and that's racist and naughty.
Atlanta, I vote the worst and most obnoxious airport out there, security-wise. I've seen lines stretch all the way through baggage claim, past ticketing and out onto the sidewalk on Monday mornings.
This is not my sandwich.
"also, had the people on the planes been aware of what was going to happen I doubt they would have let that happen"
"100-200 pissed off people would OWN 2-3 terrorists with box cutters"
You seem to have forgotten about United Flight 93, on which the passengers did just that.
Once the hijacking got underway on 93, some of the passengers were tipped off by seat-back and cell phone that three other planes had been taken over for suicide attacks and they logically concluded that their flight was due the same fate. While insufficiently armed to take control of the aircraft back from the terrorists, they were sufficiently armed enough (with a food service cart, it has been theorized) to deny the terrorists their mission.
In so doing, the Flight 93 passengers also forever changed the paradigm of hijacking aircraft. The message has gone out that if you try anything, there are going to be passengers and crew who will stop you.
I recently took a trip to Scotland. On the return leg the woman at the check-in desk was convinced that I had already check in. I told her repeatedly no, that I had not check in. It turned out that they had mistakenly checked someone else in as me (both our last names have 'Van' in them, I commonly have this problem, everyone who is Van* is lumped together in the dim-witted minds that run the world's bureaucracies)
Eventually they sort out the problem, and my wife and I board the plane. We find our seats and get comfortable (well, as comfortable as one can be with 19 inches of leg room). A few minutes later a women stops at our row, and claims we are sitting in her seats. I profer my boarding pass, which shows me in the proper seat, she looks at hers - it has my name on it!
Now think about this. We were stopped and our IDs compared to our boarding passes at no less than 3 check points in the airport. This woman managed to get on the airplane with a boarding pass that not only didn't have her name on it, it had an obviously male name on it. She was quite obviously not male.
The entire system is badly broken. In my situation at least three different employees utterly failed to perform the most basic component of their job - validating ID. I have absolutely no confidence in our airline security systems. If they ever catch someone in the act, it will be purely accidental. My sole consolation is that, as others in the thread have noted, the 'evil-doers' of the world have most likely abandonned hijacking as means to whatever nefarious ends they seek, as the passengers are no longer likely to be so compliant as they were pre-9/11.
-josh
Security is still not being taken seriously. And this just proves that the wrong things are being done.
The Federal Aviation Administration still has not upgraded the basic pilot license to a photo id. I know this because I have one.
Until and unless we have universal ID numbers (and I hope we never do have them, for various reasons), we use names to identify people. Now, the problem with names is that they're not a 1:1 mapping. John Smith may have other names - and more to the point, there are many John Smiths in the US.
Now, the point of the watch list is that you put the name of someone your looking for on it. This will allow you to find the person your looking for, should they travel, but it also will match everyone else with the same name when they travel. The system gets false-positives by design.
Everyone involved knows perfectly well that when you add the name John Smith (or T Kennedy, as the case may be), you're effectively flagging hundreds of perfectly innocent people along with the one person your actually interested in. That's a given from the moment you put the name on the list.
Now, if an innocent John Smith flies, and is flagged, and then complains, that isn't in any way, shape, or form a reason to take John Smith off the list. You knew when you put the name on there that there were innocent people with the same name. Equally, the fact that one of those innocent people has now complained adds zero new bits of data about whether the name should or should not be on the list.
The fact that Lewis's name is on the list doesn't mean that anyone thinks Representitive Lewis may be a security risk - and the fact that he is, presumably, not a security risk does not mean that the name shouldn't be on the list.
If your going to have watch lists at all (and I question whether they're really useful), then removing a name because someone who shares it complains is a profoundly stupid idea. If you're willing to remove the name without uncovering any new data, you should never have put the name on the list to start with.
Now, if we had universal unqiue ID numbers, the situation would be different. We'd no longer get any false positives unless the info was wrong, and if your ID number did get on the list, and you wearn't a threat, then of course it should be removed. But when we use names, that is NOT the case, and I find it most annoying to see our elected representitives attempting to pull strings in a fashion which decreases security. Well, decreases security if you accept the premise of watch lists at all. But if you don't think they add to security, the correct response isn't to try and pull strings to get your name off, its to legislate a better solution.
That the screenings are not needed. Sure we need to keep guns and explosives off of planes, but that's it.
The real security was put into place on Sept 11. The security system was installed flight 93 on that day. Once we learned what the hijackers where going to do the strategy failed. As we saw on Sept 11 and since then is that passengers are going to take action if threatened, because they know it's there best shot at surviving.
I say cut back on the screenings a tad, we are only hurting the innocent.
Change your name. Senator Kennedy should just legally change his name to something else, get some new ID, and his problems will be solved. If that's too much trouble, he could always buy or make a fake ID and use that... :-)
I play Nerd-Folk!
CNN reported earlier today that the 9/11 commission has published a couple of monographs exploring two issues: what laws did the 9/11 terrorists break when they acquired visas, passports etc; and how did they get funded.
I think that in about a year -- when it finally sinks in what has been going on -- that this "airline security" reported in the article will be viewed for what it is -- ineffective.
But the specifics on the "visas" monograph seemed to me to indicate something much more interesting -- that rather ordinary diligence using existing tools could be more effective than shaking down elderly people and congress critters.
More effective, but less visible. I think one of the biggest criticisms I have of the Bush Administration is that it has taken steps in the name of national security that is largely ineffective. And it seems to pride itself in a "bread and circuses" concept of national defense. Don't you feel safer watching some smuck getting shaken down?
I was in Israel a few years ago. I was in a market two days after it had been bombed and the place was full. They don't live in fear the way we do. Tons of random people carrying uzis isn't what makes them secure. By law, every public building has a security gaurd in front. That's a huge step from where we are now.
The post office is the best deal in the world. What else can you get for 40 cents? Neither Amtrak or the USPS is a government agency.
-B
It would take years to design and certify new planes or new variations with such large structural changes, and decades to finish phasing them in for the entire fleet. Hell, it's taking years just to get reinforced cockpit doors.
Now, in your solution, would you allow flight attendants to communicate with the flight crew, e.g. to tell them there is a fire in the cabin, or someone is having a heart attack and they need to divert? Because, if so, what flight crew will ignore terrorist demands if they start killing all 400 passengers one by one? Maybe a robot flight crew, that's the only one I can imagine. But then you still have the problem of not being able to inform the robot that the situation requires a change in the flight plan (fire, heart attack, etc). Or, if you allow that to happen, even via the ground, you still have the problem of the terrorists killing off the passengers while taunting the guys on the ground. Maybe you think officials on the ground can stand up to that pressure. I don't.
And, would you allow axes or other heavy tools in the cockpit to use in case of a crash landing? If so, do you really think your reinforced and doorless cockpit wall is going to stand up to them without weighing enough to cut the payload in half?
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!
> The threat is from the Middle Easterner, not the average American.
1) No it isn't. There are other nuts out there (think McVeigh, etc.) who might consider such attacks. Moreover, there are other folks who have betrayed this country and won't appear on this list simply because they're the not from one of the "terrorist" countries.
2) Any system which focuses our attention on "more suspicious" people can be abused by adversaries who plan ahead to be less secure than random searches. This has been proven mathematically; it was reported on Slashdot & elsewhere. It has also been published in reputable journals.
Thus, it is irrelevant whether the system you propose is "racist" or not--it only works to make us less safe, and is therefore should never be deployed if we want to be safer.
Our politicians may be spineless, but not implimenting this controversial and ineffective screening system is not something to complain about.
I've been sitting here, ove rthe past few days, thinking about how much the world I live in has actually changed since September 11, 2001. And you know? For a long tiem I was pretty happy. Things had, on a personal level, been looking up for me.
Recently, though.. I started thinking about how I went ABOUT my day to day life.
I've adopted a real hatred of air travel.
Everyone I know has.
We drive everywhere, we avoid airports and suggest to people they do the same. Why? Nothing to do with terrorism. It's the hassle of dealing with security around the airports. I live near a naval/air base and the local international airport has been in high alert ever since. Beautiful, freshly rennovated facilities are being entirely unused now, which I find rather amusing.
Security has skyrocketed. And none of it is out of a concern for safety. It's all flexing muscle and trying to look important, as if they have a reason to justify their existance.
Nobody REALLY gives any effort to it. It's all about shifting the grief of the job off on someone else.
So.. Yeah.
I'd hate to use the 'if we do such and such the terrorists win' cliche but.. well.. wake up, Grandma's dead.
They DID win.
Funny, ain't it?
I notice you posted anonymously. Afraid of something?
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.
How do we reduce the frequency of arson? Not purely by making it physically impossible, that's for sure. Instead, law enforcement derives its effectiveness by being able to identify the criminal(s) and bring them to justice. For the most part fireproofing is designed just to prevent accidental fires.
Terrorists can attack just about anything; airplanes are just one fairly juicy target among many. Trying to prevent terrorist activities with the TSA is akin to trying to prevent arson by forcing every building in the US to adhere to extremely rigorous fireproofing standards -- a ridiculously expensive measure that, pathetically, still doesn't do all that much to achieve its objective (any fixed set of standards still has a weakest point against which an attack is still probably realistic). Instead, the solutions lie in the direction of Brin's Transparent Society, with the NSA being the stopgap we currently have available.
I cannot believe no prominent politician understands this.
Most, if not all, airlines will not let you take an O2 tank on the flight.
That doesn't make sense considering many airlines have oxygen as part of their first aid kits.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
My mom is in no danger of dying. She's 61, and unless a miracle happens and a job opens up for a sweet, clueless older lady who has no real work skills, she's likely to "retire" early. She'll likely last another five or ten years. With luck, I'll be able to get there, somehow, by then.
As to the delays at SeaTac, the news keeps talking about waits being measured in hours, plural. Add that to the hour-long bus trip, and you can see that I'd need to be fully dehydrated to even think about it.
I can't drive - I have no vehicle that can take me and my Jazzy 1113 chair. Plus, I cannot drive, as my whole right side is about useless. No use of my right foot makes accelerating hard, and the stress from driving would bring on yet another attack, making my situation far worse.
A diaper? That'll hold me for, hmm, three, maybe four bladdersfull? Remember, I'm disabled, and changing my diaper would take a whole lot more ability than I have, even now. I think I'll save that option for when my mom IS dying.
Lemon curry?
Security in Israel has been achieved? That's news to me!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
" I am okay with that, because I cant remember the last time a Scandinavian, Frenchman, or German hijacked a plane."
Richard Reid (the inept shoe bomber) was a jamaican. Jose Padilla (the supposed dirty bomber) is hispanic. John Walker Lindh was as lily white as they come.
There was an article just yesterday about how Al Quada was recruiting in south america and the philipines. It has been known for quite a while that Al Quada is also recruiting in the prison system where there are millions of angry black people.
So it looks like we better start profiling everybody. Al Quada knows that we are looking at every arab with a skewed eye.
"99.9% of America does not live in fear of any sort, compared to many other places one could live."
I live in America and I call bullshit. People are afraid. They are uneasy and they are angry. Look at how divided this country is and look at the intensity of the hatred towards each other that we have. The fear is manisfesting in some unexpected ways but it's there. I bet 50% of the people who vote for bush are voting because they are afraid and think Bush will protect them.
evil is as evil does
When I travel, I see a badly designed security system in our airports. It *is* better than it used to be in many respects, but it is also worse. The no-fly list and mistreatment of elderly is a start (wonder if someone will eventually sue under the ADA).
The problem isn't that security has gone too far, but that it has been implimented in a way which leaves open the possibility of political harrassment or retribution, and offers very little security as a result. I am sure terrorists would have an easier time attacking our airports than in most third-world countries (they might not be able to attack the planes, but then it might not matter if they can cause massive economic damage without doing so).
What we need is an open and public political discussion about *how* to secure our nations' airports (except JFK, which is probably fundamentally insecure, at least in some terminals). We need to also recognize that if we can provide proper agility to our security measures, we can beat the terrorists to their attacks not with no-fly lists but by recognizing that they require *years* of preparation to launch any large-scale attack anywhere with the possible exception of places like Afghanistan where sufficient chaos exists to allow them to more or less freely operate in many parts of the country.
Once we identify weaknesses, we can count on havint at least a year, possibly three or more, to actually find and impliment a fix. As in computer security, we need to have a wide community of white-hats disecting the security of our nation's infrastructure looking for exploits.
No government can completely protect the public against terrorism by security measures or war (examples include N. Ireland and Israel). But we can ask our government to look for ways to reduce its impact. This means real, robust security at the airports which still respects civil rights, and it means the cultivation of "white hat" security communities who publically discuss the security or lack thereof to our nation's infrastructure. We can also ask them to make our country safer by pursuing a two-pronged strategy in combatting terrorism. This includes:
1) Hunting down terrorists and bringing them to justice.
2) Looking at the reasons why individuals might choose to support terrorist organizations and see how we can change our foreign policy to rob them of support (for example, we should start mixing actions with words regarding at least the Israeli settlement and assassination issues-- the words of opposition are simply not enough). Pursuing #2 should not mean that we stop working on #1. It means that the actual terrorists have no victory because even if we play against their rhetoric, they, as a group, still lose in the end.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Now imagine if an airline decided they wanted to do this. They'd need their own airport, and they'd probably be violating a dozen federal laws.
How we know is more important than what we know.
There is no smackdown possible. During an "emergency," the president can suspend any and all of the people's rights (e.g., freedom to travel, to own goods, to be pressed into a work gang, etc.). The last national emergency lasted from 1933-3-9 to 1976-9-14 (Google Public Law 94-412 for more info).
The current "emergency" began in 2001-9-11, with no end in sight. All the Shrub has to do is sign a piece of paper and you get all your property and posessions repoed by Uncle, and you & your family get a one-way ticket to joining a work-gang, clearing shanty-towns along the Potomac for as long as his Shrubness desires!
Isn't that neat how this works?
Yeah, right.
"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."
To further emphasize this point. 3K people died on 9/11. 3K people die from smoking EVERY WEEK.
evil is as evil does
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
It's probably going to come out in a few years that al-Queda is down to a dozen guys with cell phones, making calls once in a while to rattle the US.
Incidentally, if you haven't read bin Laden's writings, do so. His stated plan was to use terrorism to make western civilization more oppressive and thus less attractive. Bush is playing right along.
You've been watching way, way too many movies.
It was to illustrate a point (as I don't know what agent would be effective in that type of plot) - obviously, the full body chem suits for sarin would be a bit suspicious. Doesn't mean it's completely impossible.
But beyond that, your arrogance is disappointing. You're committing exactly the same sins that we all committed before 9/11: you believe it can't happen. You believe that there's something, some attack, some threat, that simply can't come to pass.
Not true, but I do think it's far more likely for someone to sail a nuke in a container on a ship up NYC harbour. Less posibility for detection, and a hell of a lot more damage.
Oh, and that whole "9/11 was brilliant" thing? Disgusting. You should know better than to express admiration for mass murderers. That kind of thing just isn't okay.
Brilliant doesn't imply any judgement on the morality of it. Hitler's blitzkrieg was a brilliant military move, no matter how repugnant the reasons and results.
Admiration? Hardly. Admission of the audacity and success of the plan? Yes.
The threat is from the Middle Easterner, not the average American
Hey, couple of trick questions:
What race was Timothy McVeigh?
What was his nationality?
Fanaticism isn't a monopoly of the Middle East you know. Give yourself a nice listen to a bunch of Bible belt holy talk someday. It can be a most refreshing learning experience as to what some of the religious right would do if there wasn't a constitution preventing them.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Let's see... how many years was it between attacks on U.S. soil that can be linked to Al Qaeda? Eight. So by your logic, our policies were working from 1993 until... oh yeah, Sept. 11, 2001. So much for that theory.
Hurry up and figure it out folks: Americans think a 30 second commercial is a long time. Al Qaeda plans attacks for YEARS. It could be several more years before they decide to show us that our policies have not accomplished shit.
If they keep all the Congresscritters from flying. They might have to stay in Wasington and actually do their jobs.
If brains were dynamite, no one in Washington could blow their nose.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Douglas Adams was on to something when he suggested the idea of Atheist Airlines:
"At Atheist Air, prior to boarding, passengers would be required to spout blasphemous remarks at a display of artifacts from all the major religions. This effectively weeds out anyone who has a secret plan to meet the Creator in the next few hours. Blasphemers would be allowed to carry-on pickaxes, blowtorches, chainsaws, nun chucks, whatever, under the theory that atheists generally try to avoid hurting other people in any situation where there isn't a clear escape route."
Ok, so my rant above is a bit harsh, but I've been feeling oppressed by the right lately.. :p
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
Over 3K people die from traffic accidents each month, every month, and have since well before 9/11.
We have spent vastly more on our "War on Terror", the most compelling incident of which killed 3k people, than we have been spending on research to improve the safety of the vastly more dangerous automobile. If we had taken the many tens of billions of dollars that we spent on invading Iraq *alone* (and we'll leave off the question of why exactly invading Iraq was part of the "War on Terror") and instead put it into, say, computer-guided automobile research and possibly deploying experimental support systems (like transmitters or indicators along roads to help cars guide themselves), we would have saved *far* more lives.
Iraq is a classic case of an administration being able to sell people on stupid abuses of budget because it allowed them to have direct Executive Branch control over funding and funnel money to companies (Halliburton, as always, being the most infamous offender).
May we never see th
If the post office is the best deal in the world, why is it illegal to compete with the USPS?
To Osama they have all the cards. With a friend of theirs in the White House he knew that he couldn't shake them. But let's get something straight. Osama isn't against them because they are secular, it is because he can't stop them. The Saudi's are worse than the Taliban because we literally look the other way when they act secular and execute people in the name of Islam. His beef with them is deep. They invited us to stay. They treat their people like crap. I know this is hard to believe but humanitarian efforts are one of the key aspects of Islam (as well as fair treatment of animals and the like).
It isn't Israel. It has nothing to do with them, its all the actions of the Saudi's alone. His family is very close to the Royals and they don't use their influence to better their nation either. They are all in it for the money. Bin ladin doesn't seem to be in it for the money however. His goals are much higher.
I know it's lame (see my nick) - but here goes:
What do you do if your biggest enemies are unstoppable? Anything. Its the same reason McVeigh did it, it's the same reason the IRA does it. Their enemies are too big to simply fight against them in the traditional sense. I'm not saying that Osama is completely sane, or that he is noble in his efforts. But you must understand where these thoughts and actions come from. It comes from a lack of control. He can't do anything - the IRA can't, McVeigh couldn't. When faced with a Goliath you may only be able to sling a stone, hopefully you hit him good. Osama did just that.
One mans barbarian is another mans freedom fighter.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush are voting because Kerry wants to make friends with terrorists instead of destroying them.
News for you: "destroying terrorists" has generally not worked well, because you can only oppress people to a certain point before you just get someone else willing to die. See Israel, see Ireland. The United States wiping out terrorism makes as much sense as Microsoft wiping out open source. It just doesn't *work*. There's no single organization. What say you manage to kill off every person currently in al Quada? Then you have a lot of angry people. It's been demonstrated that it only takes four guys who know each other willing to die with knives to take over an airplane. And, heck, that's a pretty elaborate plot. There are much easier routes -- make a fertilizer bomb, or release nasty chemicals next to building air intakes. As long as you have a lot of people who perceive that the United States is oppressing people and culture, there will be terrorism.
The US is good at marketing. Why can't we work in projecting a "the US is a bunch of good guys, not something you want to fight" image?
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush vote because Kerry would have us be nice to the terrorists so they don't hate us so much.
I don't think so, though I wish he would (well, "present a more appealing image to the Middle East", rather than "be nice to the terrorists", but pretty much, yes).
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush because the veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam say that he can't be trusted to lead the country.
[shrug] Some do, though the people in his boat disagree. Frankly, they knew Kerry years ago and knew him in the capacity of a combat boat commander. I'm dubious as to how well that reflects on Kerry's ability to be a government administrator (or acrobat, or sign painter, for that matter). I *know* that I've just lived through four years of the Bush administration, and I *know* that Bush doesn't do a very good job. There are a lot of times when what I wanted the US to be doing very much different from what Bush had the US doing.
I bet 50% of the people who vote for Bush are voting because Kerry would turn over our national sovereignty to organizations like the UN, which allowed Saddam Hussein to enrich himself with the thoroughly corrupt oil-for-food program.
(a) No president has ever had interest in "turning over our national sovereignty". That's absurd. If you mean "might have listened to the UN when they were condemning us for invading Iraq", I have to point out that that's a long way from "turning over national sovereignty", unless there are no other nations left in the world.
(b) The food-for-oil program was corrupt, yes. It was a mechanism of buying off the leaders of the country. We do the exact same thing (and have, for many, many years), with the same degree of corruption, by use of "foreign aid" for years. It keeps foreign administrations nicely in check, and it's cheaper than fighting wars.
May we never see th
change the slogan here from "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters" to "Kerry For President, Republicans Are Evil, and Democrats are 100% Perfect!"
I don't agree one bit. If anything, Slashdot has a Libertarian slant.
Disliking Bush as President certainly does not have to be because of party lines. I know one *very* ardent Republican who benefitted greatly from Bush tax cuts. He *hates* Bush -- Dubya is, frankly, a lousy president.
Now, McCain (or anyone more moderate, less violent, and more competent than Bush) could probably garner a lot more support on Slashdot -- I haven't seen much criticism of McCain, and the few times he's come up it's generally been pro-geek stuff. But as long as Bush insists on being:
(a) a religious fundamentalist, determined to hammer a traditionalist Christian value set down every American's throat by use of state powers,
(b) an ardent militarist, to the point of making poor and ineffective foreign policy decisions,
(c) a man who surrounds himselves with men like the *extremely* militant and probably corrupt Cheney, the militant Rumsfeld, and the religious and uber-pro-expanded-police-powers and reduction-of-civil-rights Ashcroft,
(d) stupid (I mean, come on, even when Bush ran the first time, the image he projected was someone that would have a comptent cabinet to listen to)
(e) anti-research,
(f) anti-condom (the largest weapon in the fight against AIDS in Africa, and the cheapest and most practical way to keep birth rates under control),
(g) anti-gay,
(h) anti-environment,
(i) pro-large-corporation, anti-consumer (as in the HMO lawsuit restrictions),
(j) pro-PATRIOT-Act,
(k) pro-Iraq-invasion (there still has bee no apology to Iraq for invading them based on what was, in the most positive light, incorrect intelligence information)
I and many like me are going to be extremely unhappy with the way he's going. Some of these points are unavoidable; I doubt I'm going to see a President that perfectly agrees with me on every issue. However, nobody wants to have a President of the United States that goes against them on just about every point out there.
May we never see th
Oh, and that whole "9/11 was brilliant" thing? Disgusting. You should know better than to express admiration for mass murderers. That kind of thing just isn't okay.
Why shouldn't we be allowed to admit that the september eleventh attacks took a lot of hard work, skill, and cunning coordination to accomplish. Do you think that you could mastermind a more effective terrorist attack?
Although I probably wont be anonymous anyway. When the congress and Bush introduced homeland security I had a bad feeling. Having grown up near east Germany (Austria) and knowing my history, I always knew that having one ultra authority is bad, those institutions tend to become bureaucratic and opressive in the long term, to defend the bureaucracy. Classical examples for these are.
Austria under Metternich, the probably most classical example of a society drawn into oppression by extreme paranoia and to much power in the hands of a few.
Another one the german Gestapo or the east german STASI, with the STASI being probably the more classical one
The problem with all those examples was that there was this one superauthority which basically built up its own bureacracy, installed by politions with a tad too much paranoia or simply the willing to do evil (in case of the Gestapo).
The basic split between secret service and police and military always was a good thing, once you bypass that you might end up in trouble. It is not like that in the US, but you really have to watch out.
That's not true. Well, at least for the airline I used to work for. Passengers wishing to bring oxygen could if they provided a medical certificate, and obtain a special travel pack from a particular supplier.
Commmon sense would tell you to screen all people with arabic ethnicity.
love is just extroverted narcissism
You probably shouldn't waste your time arguing with Twirp when he wanders off on in to this paranoid haze. He lays awake nights playing out scenario after scenario where a terrorist might attack him. If you were to take his advice on how to make himself "safe" the entire world would grind to a halt under suffocating security and it still wouldn't stop a determined attacker willing to sacrifice himself for the cause.
"Oh, and that whole "9/11 was brilliant" thing? Disgusting."
At much as it chaps your ass, Twirp, it obviously was brilliant, and that says nothing about the motivations or morals of the people that did it. They spent maybe a half million dollars, and did hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in economic damage to their target and have completely tied the world up in knots in part thanks to the over of the U.S. government. By contrast the U.S. spends trillions on defense and was powerless to stop it. If they manage a few more of them they could well succeed in destroying the U.S. as we know it, not directly due to the attacks but because U.S. government's inevitable overreaction to the next attacks will probably result in a crippled economy, a police state and an America people who are miserable. While the U.S. spends these vast amounts of time, money, civil liberties and freedom trying to prevent the last attack, Al Qaeda no doubt working on a new attack strategy that will catch the U.S. as much by surprise as 9/11 did. Unless you stop them at the well spring you simply aren't going to be able to completely safeguard a nation as large as the U.S. without destroying it in the process. Israel hasn't been able to do it after more than 50 years trying and it is a tiny nation where nearly everyone is packing a machine gun.
Tommy Franks, he must be a hero of yours as much as you cherish the invasion of Iraq, in the new book he is plugging is pretty adamant it is thoroughly wrong headed to call the 9/11 attackers "cowards" or to otherwise try to denigrate them:
"I think we're, we're at peril if we underestimate our, our enemy. Going back into the '90s, Osama bin Laden indicated that he had great capacity, that, that he was ideologically supported by a lot of people. And he may or may not be a personal coward, but I do know that he is a worthy adversary, and it is in our best interest to, to treat him as such. And that, that actually is what I meant in the book."
@de_machina
The real problem with airport security is that too many politicans (hounded by Islamic pressure groups) think that nationality profiling is "racist". There is nothing racist about (1) checking the bags and bodies of all non-American citizens from the USA and (2) performing a less intensive check of American citizens. The threat is from the Middle Easterner, not the average American.
It's not a matter of it being racist, it's a matter of it being stupid.
Profiling is the terrorist's friend, because it is predictable, and because it diverts effort from security measures that really are effective. It is easy to determine what is in the profile, simply by
observing which people are subjected to extra screening and which are not. Then, it is trivial to make sure that your operational team doesn't fit the profile. Do you really think that a serious terrorist group can't assemble a couple of dozen people who don't fit any imaginable terrorist profile?
The terrorist's nightmare is random screening, because how can you avoid a random factor? When even elderly caucasians are being pulled out of the line, there is an additional, unavoidable element uncertainty introduced into any terrorist operation. In addition, it adds "noise" that obscures any real profile based screening. Was Fred Mohammed Smith pulled out of line because of his mustache, his middle name, or random chance?
And if any profile based screening is going on, it needs to be as covert as possible. If a bunch of Islamic-looking guys get onto a plane together (like the recent case of a traveling Middle-Eastern music troupe that panicked a journalist) you certainly don't want to pull an unusually high fraction of them out for extra screening. Pull out just one or two, and let them wonder if it was random or purposeful. If something looks suspect, place a few extra marshals on the flight, or run some background checks behind the scenes, but don't make it obvious to the passengers. Better to give the appearance of being oblivious, so that the real terrorists might fall into the trap.
And common sense would tell terrorists to find a non-arab-ethnicity volunteer. Remember that guy who got onboard with the shoe-bomb?
"You are a fucking idiot. I really wish you, like all the other spout-offs here, would just shut the hell up about a subject about which you know nothing at all."
Your the lead spout off here, Twirp, and you really don't seem to know what your talking about half the time, refuse to admit it or to change.
Glad to see you are back to your good old, "If you don't agree with me your an idiot and shut the hell up rhetoric".
This is a free country Twirp, everyone is free to express an opinion as much as you obviously hate the concept. Why don't you for just once in your life engage in civilized debate and refrain from the viscous personal attacks. They just make you look like a sick old man who can't cope with himself or anyone else.
@de_machina