So currently we know for a fact that bad guys have devised plots specifically aimed at circumventing metal detectors to smuggle bombs on planes. Right?
And your suggested action for TSA is to say, “Get used to it, people!”
Thank god you aren’t in charge of anything. That type of negligence borders on the criminal, in my opinion.
Inconsistent enforcement. Objects that are passed through one airport get confiscated at the next.
Incompetence searches. Numerous instances of travelers forgetting a weapon on their person or carry-on that’s missed by the TSA. Failed to find 30% of test bombs and weapons carried by undercover testers.
**Theft.**Our own Tripler (who is a bomb disposal tech in the military) lost some of his tools to the TSA.
Unprofessional conduct. Pretty much covers the gamut from rude remarks to power plays.
Those seem like management issues to me. Those problems don’t address whether or not airport security itself is necessary.
While I think a lot of the security procedures we have at our airports are silly, though thankfully we haven’t followed the Israeli lead, I can’t help but be reminded of the debates on gun control.
We have one group of people terrified of crime arguing for placing regulations that are seen as a major inconvenience while another seems to be veering between “those give up liberty for security gain neither” to “since these regulations don’t stop all gun murderers/terrorist incidents what’s the point of these disgusting violations of my constitutional rights” with some who seem to border on saying “what’s the point of having these regulations if the criminals still manage to get around them.”
Of course they’re a bunch of libertarians saying “you realize you referred to us twice, right.”
It’s all window dressing with a lot of $$$$$$ attached. There are an infinite number of ways to accomplish their goal of terrorism. All we’ve managed to do is spend money after the fact to correct the last successful breach of security.
The Israelis take a different approach and it has proven more effective.
They what?
:eek:
(BTW, I actually agree with your larger point, but I’m struggling to think what is usually carried on board planes which is, or could be made, a bomb)
They have one major international airport with relatively few destinations. If you’re complaining that thousands of TSA agents are incompetent, where are you going to find that many agents who can carry out the Israeli strategy effectively? It is pure pipe dream to suggest that the US can do what El Al does.
And the current TSA budget appears to be less than $8 billion, while press reports indicate Israeli style security would cost upwards of $40 billion. Talk about $$$$$!$$!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/25/AR2010112502167.html
When was it proven to be more effective?
I think the TSA theater is absurd. The terrorists have won. When I am at the airport looking at people with belts and shoes off, frog marching like subjects, I bow my head in shame. We have let those terrorist assholes win through our own fear.
Confiscating my shaving cream didn’t make anyone safer earlier this month.
Nothing they do to you will make us safer, since you aren’t planning on blowing up the plane. A person who considered smuggling a bomb inside a jumbo can of shaving cream may well have been deterred.
they’ve only had 1 successful hijacking](El Al - Wikipedia).
That’s not the most compelling evidence or proof that racial profiling and invasive questioning is the way to go over searching all passengers who get on the plane.
EL AL has had several cases of people managing to smuggle contraband onto planes.
Beyond that, start telling all airline passengers they should start coming to the airport four hour early and even earlier if they’re the wrong skin tone and I suspect Americans will be considerably less enthusiastic.
In the past 30 years, only five airliners have been hijacked after taking off from a US airport. One was a cargo plane.
Whose rate do you think is better? (In 2012, 13 million passengers flew through Ben Gurion airport. The TSA screens 1.8 million passengers each day.)
The one that doesn’t crawl up the passenger’s ass. And of those 30 years how many people have gotten on the plane with a bomb.
What do you think El Al’s policy is on frisking passengers?
Wherever did you get the idea that Israel doesn’t do that?
Zero, it looks like.
I don’t know, maybe you can show us some videos of them them going after grannies in wheel chairs.
Answer the question. If you’re upset about TSA frisking people, are you saying that El Al doesn’t?
Their security is based on training of who and what to look for versus random nonsense.
You’ve never flown El Al have you?
Not meant as an insult, but anyone who’s been through the interrogations they subject all their passengers to would find that comment a bit odd.
Oh, and if during the “interview” you come across as nervous, hostile or brown-skinned you’ll be subjected to treatment that will make you beg for the TSA.