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British Airways Chief Slams US Security Requests
Ponca City writes "Reflecting a growing frustration among airport and airline owners with the steady build-up of rules covering everything from footwear to liquids, Martin Broughton, chairman of British Airways, has launched a scathing attack on the 'completely redundant' airport checks requested by the TSA and urged the UK to stop 'kowtowing' to American demands for ever more security. Speaking at the annual conference of the UK Airport Operators Association, Broughton lambasted the TSA for demanding that foreign airports increase checks on US-bound planes, while not applying those regulations to their own domestic services. 'America does not do internally a lot of the things they demand that we do,' says Broughton. 'We shouldn't stand for that. We should say, "We'll only do things which we consider to be essential and that you Americans also consider essential.''' For example, Broughton noted that cutting-edge technology recently installed at airports can scan laptops inside hand luggage for explosives but despite this breakthrough the British government still demands computers be examined separately. 'It's just completely ridiculous,' says Broughton."
Looks like Mr B has just bought himself a lifetime ticket to that line...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1123034-tantric-tsa-art-foreplay.html
Finally, a voice with power pointing out the obvious.
Will anyone get on the bandwagon, will it go any further?
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Brave thing to say from where he's sitting. This is going to cost him money, friends and influence. I mean, just saying that all that US Security isn't necessary. Imagine what someone will be saying next.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Countries like the UK and Israel have experience with terrorism, and they've developed reasonably sane ways of handling it. Just to be clear, I'm not praising the fact that they stole land from the Irish and the Palestinians -- but at least they don't act like total idiots when someone sets off a bomb. The US, on the other hand, responded to 9/11 by running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We shot ourselves in the foot in ways that were far worse than any of the damage done by the 9/11 hijackers, including two wars and an all-out assault on our own civil liberties. Compared to that kind of national self-mutilation, I can't really take it too seriously when I'm not allowed to bring a full-size shampoo bottle on an airplane -- but it certainly is an example of the same idiocy, just on a smaller scale.
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When I was in Tokyo/Narita, they had these nifty little tubes with a microwave emitter and antenna in them. Send a pulse of 2.4GHz microwaves into a drink bottle, same stuff as your microwave oven uses, and check if it resonates strongly. I bet the things cost under a hundred bucks to make.
All the "liquid explosives" people are worried about are not mostly water. All of the crap people take on planes to drink is mostly water. Yet the TSA won't let me take a bit of juice or water through security? What a crock.
I asked a TSA guy about this, and he said that "we're developing new x-ray scanning technology that can check drinks, but it won't be ready until 2012, and it is very expensive."
Huh? The Japanese have solved this problem with a fucking microwave oven, and we're wanking about with this ridiculous security theater?
... under the previous administration, the TSA actually asked multiple high-volume airports to set aside certain gates for US-bound flights, reclassify those areas as sovereign US-soil (!!!), and allow the US to post armed US TSA officers there (!!!!!). That was rebuffed, ranging from the Germans refusing outright, Canadians politely offering an additional Mountie, to the Japanese asking for more time to 'study' the issue. The arrogance of the US authorities to make the request in the first place is only eclipsed by the current treatment of foreigners coming to the US (online $$$ VISA, photographs and fingerprints on arrival, etc.) - to what end? Thanks to this lovely attitude, multiple nations have started to retaliate against US citizens by charging them reciprocal rates and also treating foreigners like criminals. Well, great, it's the little people as usual getting the short end of the stick when the elephants start dancing.
I wish more folk in the transportation business - consumers as well as providers would start speaking up more about the very costs of security theater versus the benefits. AFAIK, the TSA has yet to nab a single potential terrorist prior to them doing something naughty on the plane. Similarly, FAA red teams continue to enjoy great success penetrating US airports at will while over 300 TSA employees have been fired for being caught stealing passenger items (makes you wonder how many weren't caught, but I digress). The TSA continues to throw technological solutions at a very complex problem in a completely reactionary manner instead of being honest and admitting that stopping all crime in the air is inherently impossible.
Bruce Schneier has written at length about this, noting that the best way to ensure that only the folk who are supposed to be on the plane is to check them for security, ID, and ticket validity at the gate, just before they get on the plane. Having big choke points at the entry to airports only ensures one thing: a big fat target for terrorists. Worse, the current push for backscatter and microwave machines significantly reduces throughput since the TSA has not allocated any additional floor space or parallel paths into the airport to accommodate the 5x slower scan rate of a backscatter machine vs. a magnetometer. And, should you be silly enough to opt out of a machine scan and ask for a manual pat-down, you can expect the TSA staff to retaliate. In my case, my carry-on luggage was subjected to a comprehensive search even though the pat-down did not uncover anything suspicious (TSA headquarters later stated that this should not have been done)
Bottom line is, some common-sense approaches like upgrading cockpit doors were good ideas. But until Congress and the president grow a backbone and stop the madness, the TSA will continue to grow and whatever privacy and convenience passengers used to enjoy simply will continue to evaporate. It's a pity considering how much fun travel can be. But who am I kidding? There is simply too much money in the business of providing 'security' these days, too many fiscal interests that would be hurt.
This was discusssed on the Guardian comments the other day, and this solution was put forward which, if implemented, would sweep it all away at a stroke. I don't claim this came from me, but I can't find the attribution.
Solution: Invent a device that causes any concealed explosive to detonate instantly, and have this within a sealed containment room. Ordinary passengers pass right through, but real security risks are immediately removed from the situation. Extra bonus: muffled bangs would be shortly followed by an announcement that a seat upgrade is now available...
how about blaming the fucking terrorist who have made it necessary to do this
The point, which you have spectacularly missed, is that The Terrorists(tm) haven't made it necessary to do this; other countries, such as the UK and Israel, which have been dealing with rather determined and persistent terrorists far longer than the US has, have managed to come up with security measures that are both effective and unobtrusive. The IRA has never, AFAIK, hijacked an airliner, and it's been decades since the PLO managed to do so -- and both of these organizations in their heyday were every bit as fanatical and a hell of a lot more organized than al-Qaeda ever dreamed of being. Do you really think they wouldn't have pulled the equivalent of 9/11 on London or Tel Aviv if they could have? And yet flying through British and Israeli airports is much easier and more pleasant than flying through American airports.
Blaming terrorism for stupid airport security is like blaming crime for police brutality. The people screwing up in this case aren't the people we're supposedly being protected from, but the people supposedly doing the protecting. And inevitably, it makes the actual job of preventing horrifying acts of violence -- like the deaths of "all the 1000,s of people who have been murdered flying into skyscrapers and other things" -- a hell of a lot harder, and greatly increases the chances of such events in the future.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You Americans are so cute with your fear of terrorists. You're quite happy for thousands of people to die on the roads, but one itty bitty terrorist attack and you go cower indoors.
Home of the brave my ass - you should try living somewhere with a real history of terrorism and you'd see we pretty much just get on with our lives. Some idiots blow up the tubes yesterday? Ah well, as long as mine is still running, I'll use it today with no changes to security. The IRA blow up another pub? Well, this one is still standing, so I'll have a pint. ETA blowing up shit all over the place? Can't let the fuckers win, so we'll get on with our lives.
But no. America has ONE attack on their own soil and they go mental.