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TSA Wants You To Keep Your Seat, and Your Hands In Sight
An anonymous reader excerpts from an AP story as carried by Yahoo News about changes stemming from yesterday's foiled bombing attempt of a Northwest Airlines flight: "Some airlines were telling passengers on Saturday that new government security regulations prohibit them from leaving their seats beginning an hour before landing. The regulations are a response to a suspected terrorism incident on Christmas Day. Air Canada said in a statement that new rules imposed by the Transportation Security Administration limit on-board activities by passengers and crew in US airspace. ... Flight attendants on some domestic flights are informing passengers of similar rules. Passengers on a flight from New York to Tampa Saturday morning were also told they must remain in their seats and couldn't have items in their laps, including laptops and pillows." The TSA's list of prohibited items doesn't seem to have changed in the last day, though.
How ridiculous can flying become? Just say "F**K YOU" to terrorists, and fly as if nothing had happened. Otherwise they've won.
With all due respect on the aisle thing, if I'm on a long-ish flight, fall asleep after eating whatever, and I have to pee badly enough, stand aside and let me use the lav, or I'll just piss in my paints in the aisle and let the cleaning crew on the ground deal with it... not my fault you guys tied to keep me from using the bathroom despite pointing out how badly I needed it a dozen++ times. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The TSA has gone beyond asinine now.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Indeed. It's the streisand effect of terrorism... 9/11 could have been at most a minor annoyance but instead it became the rallying cry for numerous restrictions on freedom with questionable results at best.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Impacting our day to day to lives = terrorism has succeeded.
Its psychological warfare. The mind is infinitely more powerful than any bomb.
Because apparently the only possible time to detonate something and bring down an airplane is in the last hour before landing. So THAT is why the shoe bomber failed....he did it too early!
How about we have a reasoned response to this instead of just blindly making shit up based on the last attack?
The last one sounded like some guy successfully set off a charge that was barely large enough to set his pants on fire, then some guy jumped him afterwards. How, exactly, is that foiled?
Just like the shoe bomber fracas a couple of years ago, is that to thwart a perp attacking an aircraft, what you need are passengers who are ready to go berserk on his ass. No TSA or air marshalls needed.
The spurt of rule-making that follows an incident like this is nothing but a demand for more docility from the public. The TSA is useless.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I've canceled my vacation. Not because I'm afraid of terrorists-- I'm not, at all. We're talking at about 1 death per 4 million passengers.
No, it's that in response to this sliver of a threat, you're guaranteeing that I'll spend twice the time in line, and the flight will be as miserable as you can make it. This will cost literally billions of dollars (at 300 million hours, about 450 lifetimes) of productive passenger time per year. And all because some twat might set his crotch on fire-- good thing you don't allow us to have water anymore.
Alright. Fine. Let the airlines go out of business; this nation of cowards deserves it. I suppose we'll need another bailout, to pay the airlines to leave their aircraft on the tarmac.
Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for imaginary security are assholes.
Fireworks in specific are banned too! And he was in his seat.
Basically there should be no rules because of this, because everything he did was already sufficiently covered.
Any policy changes because of this are 100% "Looking like your doing something" and/or fear.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I'm all for security but now this all nonsensical. Instead of actually making actual changes they just impose extremely annoying rules that have no actual security improvement. What does it matter whether or not it is the last hour...can't the terrorist just set off a bomb...I dunno before the last hour. I don't understand what the actual point of this rule is.
So if I want to pee, read a book, put something away, or so much as even flinch I'm gonna be threatened with an arrest. Simply inconveniencing people isn't gonna make security any better...
You beat terrorists by raising a middle finger in their direction, mocking them mercilessly and accepting casualties once in a while. You kiss terrorist arse when you pull this kind of crap. What's next, handcuff passengers to their seats and have police strutting up and down the aisles during flights? Give me an effin' break!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Well duh. If you're already hopelessly worthless at enforcing the rules you've always had, well just make more rules!
As much as I agree that the response to terrorism is often irrational, try to maintain some perspective. Thousands of people dying cannot reasonably be described as a "minor annoyance."
So, during this time when you aren't allowed to get out of your seat, aren't allowed to use the bathroom (explicitly mentioned in an article I read):
What happens if you have to crap? Like really have to? I have a feeling if someone started yelling about how they were gonna shit their pants, a flight attendant would let them to the bathroom, although I think if you're at the point where passengers are having to yell about needing to take a crap (in front of dozens of passengers), you are opening yourself up to a lawsuit.
Most people regard the annual road toll as a "minor annoyance".
I have trouble keeping my son in his high chair with his hands in plain site in a high chair. Good luck getting infants to sit still.
I don't know who's stupider: The idiots at the TSA who come up with the rules, the politicians that give them this power, or the dickheads that allow the politicians to be elected.
I'll stay well out of your country. I only wish your fucked up rules didn't get copied by our own government and idiotic organisations. We just had some ridiculous security restrictions lifted in Australia. What's the bet that all gets reversed thanks to you crazy as fuck yanks?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It's stupid not because it's exaggerated, but because it's ineffective. It's BS. I went to a conference in the US at the end of November, and was reminded just how bad it is to fly to and from the US. I have also flown to and from Israel, a country very much in the crosshairs of terrorists, and the security procedure was MUCH more humane, both on the flights and at boarding. (in fact, I didn't even need a visa for Israel, while I need to go through an incredibly complicated and expensive procedure to get a US visa... but this is a different story (or is it?)) The Israelis do have some security processes in place, but they are mostly stealth and unobtrusive. Well, in any case, they must be doing something right, because there has not been a hijacked or otherwise terror-affected flight to or from Israel in decades now.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
2 people die per second... 144000 per day.
4 babies born per second... 5760 per day.
I don't understand this math.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Every life is important. Just because it's not possible to prevent deaths everywhere , doesn't mean you should be ok with unnecessary slaughter of innocent people.
Their loved ones still lost them and that still causes them pain , not matter whether they got 'replaced' or not .
By your logic , you would be ok with having your entire family killed , as they will be replaced inside an hour ?
People are more than statistics.
Slipping shoelaces ?
If he had spent that long just trying to set it up, why didn't he also try to set it off while still in the toilet?
Also, what kind of brainwashing and delusions of thinking is going on that causes these people to think that blowing up a plane and themselves is the answer to anything? That is the real issue. What is it that's causing some people to go against every programmed instinct of human nature to try to do such things? And is there any way to intervene in that process, before it even gets to be a threat?
Every life is important. Just because it's not possible to prevent deaths everywhere , doesn't mean you should be ok with unnecessary slaughter of innocent people.
In the real world, resources are limited. If spending 50 billion dollars on anti-terrorism saves 4000 lives, and spending 50 billion dollars on food aid saves 1 million lives, then the latter is clearly a better decision, notwithstanding the fact that every life is important.
Of course, in the real world, what we actually ended up doing is spending 1 trillion dollars fighting two deadly wars with heavy civilian casualties.
Thousands of thousands of people die each day outside the US in wars that appear to be a 'minor' annoyance to the US. 4000 people died under the terror campaign by the IRA in Ireland - supported by most in the US.
Every year 15 million children die of hunger alone.
Perspective - it's a great thing. I also don't believe most democratic elections are won via terrorist attacks at home or abroad. And we still have not really made up our mind whether the US/UK invasion of Iraq was legal.
The 9/11 attacks were a tragedy. However by turning such a tragedy into an excuse to attack and govern another nation or not even disclose the full details on the attacks of that day then the event was not a 'minor annoyance' to the US at all - it was a convenient opportunity!
The death of one man is a tragedy — the death of a million is a statistic.
Go "BOO" enough times and the US will spend itself into financial ruin. Wait -- that's happening NOW!
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Scroll down -- there's a clearly-labeled section detailing which kinds of explosive are allowed and which aren't.
But see, this is one truly moronic result of security theater -- first, the explicit list of specific stuff you can't bring is also an implicit list of stuff you can. If I were an aspiring terrorist, I'd be reading through that thinking, "Hmm, a golf club would be really useful, but they're banned... I'll just bring a stick of rebar instead." That's the problem with security theater in general -- you're preparing for specific attacks, and by publicly preparing for those, you guarantee that the terrorists won't use that attack -- they'll use something else.
The second problem is that the list in itself is a list of ideas if you can manage to sneak that stuff past security. "Hmm, a spillable battery -- that's a good idea. I just have to put it in a wheelchair and pretend to be disabled..."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Right, and as there's obviously no way this guy could have spent 20 minutes in the bathroom 61 minutes before landing, this new policy by the TSA is surly just another feather in the cap of the worlds most effective security organization.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It should be. I know it's tragic but it shouldn't have been turned into the media extravaganza it was. Hell, there even was an official song. The proper response to terrorism is to non-hastily look into measures that allow that particular attack to be prevented in the future (such as, in this case, making the cockpit inaccessible from the passenger room during the flight) and nothing else.
The exact point of terrorism is to disrupt the target country. Now look at the situation - not only have the USA ruined their image over two wars, they (and everyone else) spend lots of money on harrassing innocent travellers in a way that doesn't even do anything, breeding contempt all the while. A few thousand deaths in an act that is extremely unlikely to ever be successfully repeated again should not be enough to let the most well-armed country in the world tumble head-first into raging paranoia against anyone and everyone, including its own citizens.
Regardless of the "if we don't X the terrorists have already won" rhethoric, the government of the States has done exactly what the terrorists wanted and it's still continuing to do so. The terrorists have already won and they keep wining because at the moment they and the government are working in the same direction: Away form the citizens towards ever greater surveillance and power concentration at the top. They're essentially using each other as PR agencies.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
After this rule more people will die from blood clots.
Sane airlines actually encourage people to get up from their seats at regular intervals.
E.g. Edelweiss Air used to show a video explaining the issue (I haven't flown with them in a while so I don't know about the current situation), Emirates has some pictures on how to keep circulation intact etc.
The TSA losers failed to prevent him from getting on the plane with a firecracker.
Now they are saying "well we need to treat you all like prisoners now."
You know what, the terrorists just won, with a @#$%ing firecracker.
Respectfully, you are the one that needs some perspective. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people die EVERY DAY. A few thousand in one place at one time is a tragedy. However its hardly a big deal on the scale of the entire planet. We make it out as a big deal because for the most part, people in western "civilized" cultures are largely unaware of the reality around them. Especially outside their own country.
What kind of brainwashing and delusions made him think he could take down an airliner with a bag of stuff he regurgitated and cooked up in a plane toilet? This guy was a clown.
His own father had warned the US authorities about his extremism already, but they had basically opened a file then ignored him. Perhaps they made a realistic assessment that this guy was only a threat to his own trousers?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
More people have died from deciding to take a car more often (instead of an airplane) than there died in 9/11. And most of those deaths weren't even on the planes, but in the buildings. (Never even mind the economic damage caused by the car crashes, insurance payouts, and travel time lost that could've been spent on business matters directly; and, more indirectly, the 3-trillion dollar Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the iraqi lives lost due to Blackwater having fun, etc.)
Terrorist attacks in Europe or Israel have taken far many more lives than they have in the US.. The planes flying into buildings happened, sure.. but "9/11" was created in the mind of the world by the US response to it.
I can understand your thoughts, and I myself remember where I was on that day. I remember the discussions I had on that day.
BUT... What about all of those people that died in Spain? Or how about the ones in London? Have the Europeans decided to lock down all of their train stations and require body cavity searches?
Those people lost lives as much as anybody else, yet all we remember is 9/11. All we talk about is 9/11. All we have to endure are the endless lines of security searches, of taking off our shoes, belts, and what have you. Of me personally being searched for 45 minutes because Jolt decided it would be cute to introduce a brand new novel can of pop.
http://imstartintofeelit.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/jolt-blue-raspberry.jpg
Yes it was my mistake for taking fluids in my backpack. But was it my mistake that the TSA thought it was a brand new device? I am not blaming the TSA because they are doing their jobs. I am blaming the paranoia going through the American society...
Want to know what gets me even more, where are the twin towers V2? Want to know how inept parts of American society has become, just look at what has been built after the 9/11 attacks, NOTHING, NADA, ZIP! That is the tragedy. Think of it as follows, your enemy blows up your bridge, and yet nearly a decade later you still can't rebuild it. Who is weak I ask!!! (If it were up to me I would be forcing a mandate through to build a new set of towers to show them one is not weak...)
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
And the lives of cancer victims, who are losing out on funding that instead goes to the war on terror, are just as important. Giving them medical treatment happens to save vastly more lives per dollar than antiterrorism.
If he had set it off in the toilet, then the restrictions introduced would probably be worse. They would probably have banned the use of the toilet on planes.
Either way, "the terrorists win."
Terrorists are just spoiled children. They throw very big and dangerous tantrums for attention. Their acts and our responses are all attention.
Terrorists, like spoiled children, are best discouraged by ignoring them. Will there always be spoiled children? Yes. It's a fact of life. Can't stop life.
So he will do this much earlier. Or is there some physics that makes an explosion 30 minutes before landing more dangerous then 1 hour and 30 minutes?
People smuggle drugs on planes all the time. (They put in in places where some people keep their watch.) One stick and two matches should be enough. And I am sure that they will be able to put the match on the stick. It is not that they need a fuse. That is only there for safety.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
9/11 had such a profound impact on the U.S. because it was spectacular, it was unprecedented, and it happened here. And, thanks to the 24/7 cable news cycle, we watched it unfolding, live, from our living rooms.
Anytime you have a large number of fatalities occurring from a single spectacular event, it will have a stronger emotional impact than a much higher cumulative tally of deaths over time. That's why airliner crashes, for example, are newsworthy and annual statistics are not -- those 100, 200, 300 deaths may be statistically a drop in the bucket compared to the annual deaths from car crashes, cancer, or whatever, but they occurred in a single, dramatic event.
The notion of using airplanes, and civilian airliners at that, as flying bombs was also not a possibility that was in the popular consciousness, not even as a plot element in an action movie. (How many people commented, on 9/11 and in the days following, that it all seemed unreal, like watching a movie and not reality?) And crash those planes into three of the most well-known, high-profile buildings in the world (the two WTC towers and the Pentagon), with a fourth crash into the White House or the Capitol (depending on who you believe) prematurely thwarted, and you have the ingredients for a real-life spectacular that will have a profound impact, regardless of how the numbers stack up statistically.
And it happened on U.S. soil. Prior to 9/11, with the possible exception of the OKC bombing, large scale terrorist attacks were something that happened in those "other" countries around the world. And with the perpetrators being "foreigners" (as opposed to a domestic malcontent like McVeigh and whatever conspirators he may or may not have had, depending on what you believe), and it's not hard to fathom the almost immediate adoption of the "America is under attack" and "we are at war" memes that were so adroitly exploited by the government.
Finally, the smug xenophobia and self-centeredness of Americans played a role. Why do you think a domestic plane crash, even a smaller commuter plane with fewer than 100 souls on board, gets hours of constant, live coverage on CNN while a jumbo jet with hundreds aboard crashing halfway around the world merits but a sentence or two at the hourly update? Think of the impact Hurricane Katrina had while killing fewer than 2000, compared to the Asian tsunami that killed 250,000 five years ago. Now consider how much attention, concern, and TV time were devoted to both. Sure, the Pacific tsunami did get some screen time, especially now that the ubiquitous presence of video cameras in average people's hands gave us some shaky, dramatic, horrifying footage to see. (Though I strongly suspect that if there had been no video at all, the event would have been even more marginalized on U.S. media.) But with the exception of a handful of Western tourists caught up in the disaster, those quarter million souls are "other" people..."fer'iners"...you know, them people that dress weird and talk funny and don't look like us. On the scale of emotional involvement, a couple thousand American lives merits an "OMG, this is horrible, something must be done" while 250,000 Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Thais, et. al. elicits an almost Seinfeldesque "Ah, that's a shame....wonder what's on HBO right now..."
So, it's not sheer numbers that determine what impact death has on a culture; it's all about context. Who got killed, where, how and why.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Exactly - how on earth did the TSA come up with such seemingly braindead directive?
Sounds like they put the problem to a committee (I won't use the traditional metaphor becase it is a baseless slander against the noble camel).
Stopping people from going to the toilet or having stuff on their lap for the whole flight might actually help with the problem, but would be unworkable for other reasons (anybody want to invent a pants-mouted bomb detonated by urine?) So they reach for the political compromise: a time limit. Completey defeats the object, but hey, they're seen to be doing something - whereas pointing out that what we really have here is more evidence of the inefficacy of amateur binary explosives would be totally unacceptable.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Yeah, he knew Japan would be attacked. He didn't expect the US to attack its own citizens.
So why is the Government attacking its own citizens?
We all make grandiose statements about "security theater," how worthless new rules are going to be, vowing never to fly again, etc. etc etc...but how many of us take our comments beyond a Slashdot post? How many comments about knee-jerk reactions are knee-jerk posts? I'll admit to the same, having sworn off flying if at all possible and driving to my desired destinations.
I'm not saying "quit whining." Far from it--what is being said needs to be said, but it needs to be said in the proper forum. Contact the TSA, the airlines, and your Congressional representation. Tell them the same things (with a dash of proper grammar and spelling and a certain amount of decor, of course) that, as the flying (or former flying) public, you object to tax dollars being wasted on what is perceived to be ineffective security measures. Make it a voting issue when the next election comes rolling around. Let those who make the rules know that they are having an effect--a negative effect. Tell the airline about that road trip you took and how much more enjoyable it was without having to submit to a bunch of BS screening.
I'll grant you that the most you can hope for, as an individual, is some sort of form-letter response from your Congressional representation. The airlines won't care because, frankly, if you don't buy the ticket, somebody else will. The TSA won't care because, well, they don't have to care. (Yes, I'm a little cynical.) En masse, however, somebody, somewhere, might start to pay attention.
I'll take my own advice right now, and after reading up on the actual event and the ensuing rules changes, make it clear to my representation my position, and what I expect to be done about it. I ask direct questions, in hopes of getting something other than a form-letter response. That way if I get a canned response that doesn't address the question, I have a reason to ask it again.
My deep thought for the day.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Somehow I thought it was all bad Bush policies and things were going to be paradise now.
I guess that it is just the nature of big government to want power for those in charge at the expense of liberty and doesn't truly depend on who it actually it is.
by the time it was 9/12, every person who died there, was replaced.
no matter how much you tell yourself that 'thousands' of dead is important, it simply isn't.
The 2500 who died at the WTC weren't infants or elders. They were firemen.
They were men and women in their most productive years. In the rarefied business of investment banking and world trade.
Death is universal. But Death is also particular.
Hit hard enough, your city, your world, can be wounded beyond all hope of recovery.
You're right - dismantling your own democracy as a response to terrorists is definitely not the right response. Particularly when the countermeasures are so stupid. Worth noting that there *is* an effective way of combating terrorists however. Remove their community support. They don't come from nowhere and they don't arrange all these plans and have these beliefs without some friends and neighbours wondering. But a people that see occupations of their countries or US support for regimes like the Saudis are a people that are angry enough that they become less willing to stop such individuals themselves. And these communities are the best defense against terrorists.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
American funded Irish republican terrorists murdered two innocent children on that day.
If we'd done our foreign policy then the way we and the US do now, we'd have responded by sending the troops into Mexico to force regime change...
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
That's true in the short term, but as long as you do the feeding in a responsible, adult, non-attention-seeking, non-empire-building, humanitarian way, then the long term results will differ considerably.
The reasons America is targeted by the terrorists is solely because of some, less than ideal policies regarding regime change. No-one cares what the Canadians (for example) do, they're not targeted for destruction by Al Quaeda, but then they never went charging in places shouting loudly that the locals had to change their political ways, and buy more coca cola.
If you fed the world's poor, there would be far fewer young men so ready to accept the brainwashing propaganda from the terrorist leaders (you know, the ones who don't do the suicide bombings themselves). If America could free itself from the self-made shackles of oil consumption and global corporate profiteering, the world would be a far better place.
David and Mr. "almost 2 people die every second" both miss THE key point illustrated by the response to the attacks on 9/11. The people at the top of those buildings were some of the wealthiest people on the planet. If they were dirt-farmers in Sudan or Ethiopia, we'd be all maintaining our calm perspectives. But when they're multi-millionaires in NYC, then we need to do something drastic. The idea that all people are of equal worth and value is a nice idea, but it is not put into widespread practice. The way our world allocates resources, 1 NYC bond trader or better yet, a Goldman Sach's senior partner could easily equal 1,000 Oklahomans or 5,000 Okinawans or 50,000 Columbians or 1,000,000 Sudanese or 2,000,000 Congolese. Perhaps there's a need for a human worth calculator web-site... So, if we have to crap ourselves in coach class on airplanes 100 times a day around the USA so that a single Goldman Sachs partner has a 0.000000000373% lower chance of being a victim of a plane falling out of the sky and landing on his yacht (he would not be caught on a commercial flight), then so be it. It's a fair trade.
That depends on your perspective - more Americans died in car crashes in September 2001 than died in the attacks. What about them?
Where's the fiery indignation for those deaths?
No one is claiming that individual lives are insignificant, but the response to 9/11 has just been silly.
So you lost some buildings and some citizens in a terrorist attack. The buildings are nothing - rebuild them, as we've been doing in Europe for decades in the face of terrorism on multiple fronts. The people clearly cannot be replaced and it is tragic, but the response to 9/11 really isn't the way you want to remember/avenge/retaliate in their memory.
When Yamamoto struck at Pearl Harbor, he knew exactly what the response would be.
When Yamamoto struck Pearl Harbor, he was flying a Japanese flag on a Japanese warship made in Japan. It's pretty easy to find the bud and nip it.
When the hijackers attacked, most of them were from Saudi Arabia, all from the middle east, all had proper Visas, all had been in the country for at least weeks if not months or years. They did not fly any flag and did not represent any country. They used box cutters and airplanes as weapons.
Both groups knew the effect of their attacks. I can promise you that bin Laden got exactly what he wanted. A cosmic war of Good and Evil, with Bush even saying as much on television, between Islam and the West. He got us to give up the liberty we fought and won over hundreds of years in less than two hours, with the loss of a lot property and 3,000 lives.
Imagine if instead of torturing people and invading two countries and starting two wars we had produced evidence, fought hard to extradite bin Laden from Afghanistan, tried him at the world court, and locked him up for the rest of his life. We would have said that the West is not barbaric, fundamentalist religious fanatics are. We are constitutionalists - we believe in the rule of law, equally applied to everyone. We may not achieve perfection, but we're the closest thing the world has got. We are genuinely here to make the world a better place, and we have learned from the mistakes of former world super powers.
Everyone says if you want to change the world, start with yourself. How about reminding everyone that freedom isn't free, not because you have to invade and sacrifice the lives of soldiers, but because sometimes you have to obey laws that your enemy does not. Sometimes you have to recognize that liberty and security are mutually exclusive.
If you let emotion and hate dictate your actions, not only do the terrorists get a recruiting tool to attract more followers, they remove the moral high ground where you once stood. Then it's just two barbarians at each other's throat, one with satellite guided weapons and tanks, and the other with suicide bombers and IEDs.