I think this best summarizes the situation. However much this clown deluded himself into thinking that he was some sort of hero, he comes across as just another hacker-type to me. Diversion of vital resources aside, what might have happened if some sort of loon had stumbled upon one of the boxcutters? There was needless risk imposed upon all of us by this kid’s actions. It’s time to pay the piper.
Una already said everything else I have to say.
What actual law or laws has the BCK (Box Cutter Kid) broken?
Is it illegal to carry a box cutter onto a plane? If you accidentally leave your nail clippers in your carry-on and the screeners don’t detect it, can you be prosecuted for this? It certainly can’t be illegal to carry clay onto an airplane.
I don’t agree with the BCK’s methods, but he sure did his absolute best to notify the authorities so that the security breach could be confirmed and corrected.
I’m not sure what his punishment should be (assuming he broke a law), but the guys who left his e-mails in cold storage should be hung out to dry.
“lawmakers recently killed a plan that would have required air cargo to be screened in much the same manner that passengers are.”
So sayeth the KC Star’s front page article today. So if we shipped Italian designer shoes, would they make us take each one out of the box beforehand? Would the male security officials only be allowed to pat down male blow-up dolls we ship?
Here’s the best part of the article:
"The items were found in plastic bags in the rest rooms of the two airlines and contained notes about when and where the items were carried aboard. They were signed 3891925 which is the reverse of Heatwole’s birthday: 5/29/1983.
“The e-mail provided provided precise details of where the plastic bags were hidden - down to the exact dates and flight numbers - and even provided Heatwole’s name and telephone number.”
And they didn’t contact Scotland Yard to crack this case? I’m actually surprised it took them 31 days to put the pieces together on this Agatha Christie novel.
According to what I hear, he’s facing a $10,000 fine. And he’s damn lucky a jail sentence doesn’t go along with that, IMHO. Talk about a dumb move - I guess the guy who derailed the Cubs chance at the World Series is quite thankful that someone else has earned “idiot of the week” stature.
The TSA has downloadable list of prohibited items which cannot be carried aboard aircraft.
Specific laws and regulations, you ask? Ask the TSA.
Let’s face, since 9/11/01 there has been some hysteria about airplanes and flying.
It’s like everyone suddenly realized there are flying things overhead and reacted like bunnies spotting a hovering hawk.
Let’s start with the basic principle you can never make anything 100% safe. Deal with it. We live in a hostile, dangerous universe.
But the government has adopted this attitude that by stripping the passengers (and crew) of any and every object that could, conceivably, be used as a weapon they will make aviation “safe” and ensure another 9/11 never, ever happens again. Of course, society does have a problem with strip-searches and body-cavity searches on the general populace - that’s reserved solely for convicted felons and minorities.
But really, the TSA has responded not with anything fundamentally new, but rather by throwing money at the problem. And the political animals in our current government administration have a deep and fundamental distrust of their fellow human beings. Really, they do. They’ll spend billions on computers, hardware, and systems - but God forbid they spring for a night at a Motel 6 for Federal Air Marshalls on layover between duty periods.
The problem with automated systems is that the hairless monkeys running around the planet in large numbers can figure out the system and learn to defeat it. Indeed, it is a delight of adolescent hairless monkeys to go around bollixing the automated systems of the world just for a lark. Some of the adults make a profession of it. Automated systems rely on their slice of the world being predictable, and humans are not predictable, particularly when they want to defeat such a system.
Learn the system, and you learn to get around it, or even use it against itself. There have been numerous threads since 9/11/01 discussing how the hijackers knew the aviation system in the US and used some of it against itself to buy time to do their dastardly deed.
But what did the TSA do? Invent systems. Train people to look for a list of items A, B, C, D - but apparently never encouraged them to use their imaginations and possibly locate E, F, and G. OK, now we look for A-G, but there will always be another item out there, an H, I, J… Millions spent on machinery to scan luggage - even though we know those machines will not catch all conceivable threats. They only identify what they’re programmed to identify, unlike a human who might be able to step outside their “programming” and realize there’s something funny about that passenger’s shoes in time to keep him from setting off the bomb in the soles.
Alright, I’m sure the Southwest jets were searched after each flight - but probably by checklist and only by checklist, and if that list didn’t include “lavatory cabinent” it wasn’t checked. I’m sure it’s included now - but what isn’t? Light fixtures? Inside seat cushions? (Sure - make a slit, stuff something inside – do it right it might go unnoticed quite awhile…) Can you pry up some of the paneling on the plane’s interior, insert something, maybe? What are you going to do, strip the entire airplane every time it lands? Do the words cost prohibitive mean anything?
It’s enough to make you think someone is trying to delibrately destroy all air commerce. I mean someone in our government, not just the Bad Guys. The Bad Guys, I’m sure, are loving this. We’re crippling a vital industry without them having to exert themselves.
What this kid did was no more and no less than expose the ugly truth that no, you can’t protect the air travel system the way we have been - in other words, the Emporer has no clothes. The only reason we have not had jets raining out of the sky is the simple fact that most people, even most of the ones who hate America, Americans, and the whole sordid “Western Civilization”, dissapprove of using civilian airliners as a poor man’s cruise missle.
The fact that he freakin’ e-mailed the TSA and nothing was done for months just exposes the whole fallacy of automated threat assessment. His e-mail didn’t quite fit the “profile”, so it sat on the shelf for months. I’m sure if he had signed his name “Mohammed” bells would have gone off, but he didn’t. (Which is part of the stupidity of screening passengers by name - a real terrorist will be traveling under a name that raises no alarm. So your net will tend to catch only innocent “Mohammeds” or really, really stupid Bad Guys, leaving the smart ones free to roam). This guy couldn’t get the TSA’s attention by either ordinary OR extraordinary channels.
And now we have government prosecutors muttering about how “dangerous” his stunt was. Dangerous to the current administration because it exposes their great lie - that their “systems” will keep us safe - and they stand naked before the public. If a 20 year old man-boy with (presumably) no special covert training can pull this off, what might a real covert expert be able to do? In reality, Mr. Boxcutter’s actions endangered the public no more than they are already endangered.
You know something? If someone tries to take over a plane full of people with a box cutter again the Federal Marshalls (if any) on board won’t have a chance to shoot him - the passengers will kill him first. That doesn’t mean the Bad Guys aren’t planning something else. I’m not a particularly clever person when it comes to wrong-doing - I try to live an honest life - but I can think of a half-dozen ways to attack an airliner that might bring it down, and not all involve actually being on the airplane in question. What more can folks who devote their lives to this stuff come up with?
Despite the conservative/right-wing emphasis on personal responsibility they don’t really believe it - they’d rather most of us be unarmed sheep protected by “experts”. Truth is, though, I’m not convinced the “experts” and the folks in the beltway give a damn about the average citizen. And if the systems that keep us “secure” also imprison us - do they care?
And, there’s the whole issue of the emphasis on passenger screening leaving whole areas unprotected due to lack of interest and funds - air cargo, shipping, railroads, semi-trucks hauling hazmat on the freeways…
Is this guy a hero or a goat? Good question. It takes guts to stand up, point, and say “The Emporer has no clothes!”. But the current administration would rather make an “example” of him than really solve the problem. Better to beat the one who dared to speak than to through a garment over naked flesh. He is a small hero who will be treated as a large scapegoat.
I’m with you, brother. I think this kid is a moron. It’s sucky enough trying to get through a security checkpoint. I think it may well suck more in the future as the TSA ‘tightens up’ security.
We won’t be any safer. Just more pissed off when we are finally allowed to get to the damn plane after the full cavity search.
I think the “increased” security measures were a knee-jerk response that has made flying a less pleasant experience. The knee-jerk response to this kid’s actions will maker it less pleasant still. But I don’t blame him, people should have come clean long ago – we can do some, but not everything.
The major security failing of 9/11 (aside from intelligence failures) was to let the hijackers take control of the airplanes, even this was a relatively blameless failing – this tactic had worked before, and was well-understood: give the hijackers what they want, get the plane on the ground, negotiate.
9/11 was a one-off thing, that could not be repeated with all the box-cutters in the world.
<applauds Broomstick>
The OP asks whether the kid is a hero or a goat.
Let’s look at it from the perspective of putting a bandage on the symptoms versus curing the disease.
IMO, the kid would have been a hero if he came up with a scheme to show the American public what is wrong with the US Foreign Policy that causes so much anti-Americanism to cause 9/11 or similar hijackings, leading to requirement for grandiose airline security measures. This kid is a goat because he’s been busy re-arranging the chairs on the deck while the Titanic is sinking.
As his father, if my son had addressed himself to the root causes of the problems leading to terrorism against us, I would have been proud of him.
As his father, with the relatively petty issue my son addressed himself, I think he merely diverted the public’s attention to a soap opera, and for that, he should go to jail.
. . . Or, since the US is such an evil entity, the kid would have been much more of a hero if he actually had hijacked a plane and killed as many infidels as possible . . .
I feel the current airport security measures are “a bad idea” simply because they are so unnecessary, ineffective, and expensive. Face it, 9/11 wouldn’t have been nearly as big a deal if the planes had simply crashed without being commandeered into buildings. Which can be prevented by simply securing cockpit doors.
However, by installing cumbersome, expensive, obvious procedures, it appears as tho the government is doing something to protect air travelers. Good basic PR.
No reason to think airport security will be anymore successful than the vaunted War on Drugs. But it MUST be doing something. We’ve been spending so much money and manpower on it for so long, and putting so many people in jail… What do you say? There are some underlying societal issues that may be responsible for drug use patterns? Poppycock.
Too much of American governing is aimed at presenting certain appearances, rather than the dirty, less glamorous, and less predictable work of influencing root causes.
As far as protecting yourself, I am reminded about the guy who asked how likely it was that there would be a bomb on his airplane. He was told 1 in a million. When he asked what the chance was of there being 2 bombs on his plane, he was told those odds were so low as to approach impossibility. So he decided the best way to protect himself was to bring his own bomb whenever he traveled, because the odds would be prohibitive against someone else bringing a second bomb…
People, people, people…
Definitely a goat, as his efforts are totally misdirected. Remember- boxcutters on planes aren’t dangerous. Potential WMDs in Iraq - now that’s the dangerous stuff!:dubious:
So you’d prefer to remain blissfully ignorant, believing that the TSA’s current security levels are adequate protection when one kid has proven otherwise?
The kid’s only crime is showing that the emperor has no clothes. Hero all the way.
I have to say, I worked at the airport in Phoenix for a little over a year after 9/11, and anyone who thinks that even most metal objects get picked up is somewhat naive. Working there we learned exactly how much change and keys and all sorts of stuff you can walk through without the metal detectors going off (Since we had to go through them every day on the way to work, usually running late). A pocketknife can be useful on the ramp, and there were several guys who carried one to work everyday without being caught.
Take out all of your change and keys and belt and everything else, and you can walk through with a radio and mike attachment without setting off the metal detector. If you wanted to take a toothpaste tube full of gas onto a plane, there are not even security measures in place to look for that.
This kid did little more than prove the obvious for me, but hopefully more people will see how wasteful firing all of the airport screeners and then hiring them all back the next day for a 5 dollar pay raise is. TSA is a joke, just like whatever agency was before them was a joke. Like someone said before, the machines and even the screeners more or less only look for whatever you tell them to look for. It reminds me of that part in Jurassic Park (the book) where once they stop limiting the computer to only look for a certain number of dinos, and instead count all of them, they realized how wrong they were.