The nefarious activity of thinking she prefers to live in a free country rather than a police state.
No, we want to retain the right to fly without giving up other rights but you can go live in Cuba or China or North Korea if you like to live in a police state.
Seeing how the screening is done and how the government cannot even do right what it is already supposed to be doing I say the safety is not real but only an illusion.
The INS has been unable to stop illegal immigration but they have been very effective at harrassing and delaying people who should have been admitted without problem. They claim they do not have the means to do their job right. The federal airport security implemented just a few months ago has been a disaster and some airports are already planning on returning to private security screeners. We do not need to give the government more power so that it can make a new mess of it. We have enough government harassment as it is. I have not heard “homicidal manics” have been a problem in the past and the measures being implemented would not prevent any future ones from flying anyway. They are feel-good measures for those easily fooled and feel-bad for the rest of us.
Last month, my employer did a lot of travelling to get to meetings scheduled by one of our customers. Because of some last minute changes in schedule, I wound up booking some last minute, one-way flights. He also looks slightly Middle Eastern. I don’ t know his past travel patterns all that well, but it strikes me that the way this system’s described, he runs a risk of being flagged, although I admit he wasn’t.
Then there’s me. I fly once every few years because I can’t afford to more often. Let’s say I come into a bit of money and decide, on impulse, to go down and visit Polycarp. While I’m at it, suppose I make a few discrete enquiries and decide to surprise him with a new wardrobe (for the record, Polycarp’s male; I’m female). It sounds like I could get flagged for abruptly changing my buying habits and travelling to a part of the country I have only ridden through an that when I was a child.
As for driving, Sun Tzu2U, I have relatives in England. Driving’s not the most practical method of going to see them, nor is it for visiting my former church in Hawaii. We also have this thing called “snow” up north which can be inhibiting. For business travel, that employer of mine had to attend meetings in two cities on the east coast followed by one in the midwest on three consecutive days. These meetings should result in the company continuing to make money, hire more people, and generally benefit the economy. Even if it were possible to drive between the three, given the length of the drive, the length of the meetings, and how tiring the combination would have been, it would have been unsafe.
I’m not conventional; at times, I’m downright wierd. I also value my privacy highly. If I choose to blow a windfall on a trip to visit a friend I never met rather than buying the latest fall fashions for women, I don’t see how it’s any of the government’s business. What I buy, where I buy it, and when I choose to buy it shouldn’t affect my ability to be let on a plane.
That´s exactly the problem! All those people, who want to commit acts of terrorism make sure to have a clean slate. The sleepers are the ones, who make sure that all the taxes are paid, their car is parked properly and that everything is seemingly just fine.
So, these security measures will just criminalize and bother regular people and the ones, who want to steer a plane into a building, will still get on board.
I recently attended a talk by a speaker from the ACLU about the Patriot Act. He provided an analogy that, IMO, makes some sense.
He suggested that the difficulty of identifying the hijackers before 9/11 was like finding a needle in a haystack. In retrospect, we had a good deal of info on these individuals, but no method to effectively screen it out.
Many of our “security” measures since seem aimed at increasing the size of the haystack, rather than improving means of locating the needle. Acquiring more and more information, with the assumption that the aquisition of information will somehow result in the relevant facts becoming apparent.
I get “coded” every time I fly. Our company, because of the nature of our “emergency” response type projects, frequently buys our tickets on the day of travel and many times it is one way, because we’ve either taken a response vehicle to the project site and one person will be driving it back and staying a shorter time than the project manager (me), or because we weren’t sure how long we were staying at the job site in the first place.
At any rate, their policy is to pull everyone that buys tickets the day of or the day before travel, and especially those who’ve purchased one way tickets, aside and do the full search routine on them.
It’s very annoying. Every time I fly I have to go through the whole "getting patted down by some strange woman, having my carryons searched, getting “wanded” spiel.
Terrorists are all such poor planners that they decide to do it at the last moment? Maybe they just don’t want to lose the cost of the ticket should they chicken out or change their minds. The same reason they only buy one way tickets. You don’t want to waste the return part when you are planning on killing yourself.
The whole thing is a farce. The INS sending visa approvals to one of the suicide hijackers. They are so buried in data they did not even recognize the name which was all over the news.
The government feels the public demands something be done and, by golly, they are doing something. Whether it is effective or not is another matter. In the meanwhile the terrorists are laughing and planning their next hit . . . which will probably have nothing to do with the past ones and so these measures will be totally ineffective.
Human intelligence, infiltrating groups, that’s what works: focusing on those likely suspects. As Dinsdale says, just treating everybody as suspects is a waste of time because you are buried in information which you cannot process. They are going to find themselves puzzling over all the errors contained in all those databases. heck, I waste a lot of time trying to get errors corrected. Just a few days ago I corrected my address at eBay because it still showed my old address in spite that I had changed it. Imagine the government puzzling over these things. False Address? Must be a code red! Meanwhile the terrorists sail by, Or they bypass the entire process by just renting an apartment near an airport and bringing a plane down with a shoulder-fired missile. What is the government going to do then?
Or drive down the 405 and take down a big, fat jumbo from the moonroof of a convenient SUV. Real piece of cake. What will the government do, cordon off LAX?
Out of curiosity, can you specify which gender searches you?
I don’t work for an airline but I am at arms length to it. Given what I’ve heard from crew members since 9/11, I am not bothered in the least by the searches. Just the opposite, if it were up to me, everyone would be wanded and back ground checked to whatever level is most reliable and efficient.
Nobody wants to be snooped on and nobody wants to be on the receiving end of terrorism. I would be interested in hearing anything new and original that hasn’t been tried yet.
Unless you have unlimited resources, more is not better. You need to concentrate your resources where they are most effective and treating everybody the same is not the best way. It just gives people a false sense of security and the knowledge that the government is doing “something”. two thousand years ago they would sacrifice a few virgins to the gods and get the same sense of security and it was about as effective but less inconvenient for the public (although not for the virgins).
The INS has done the same thing: Suddenly they are required to screen everybody like they are potential terrorists. The problem is they do not have the resources so they just made a huge mess of the whole thing, Before they could concentrate on likely suspects but now they have to look at everybody as a likely suspect so grandma takes more time which is less time dedicated to Abdul Al Terror.
Student visas are chaotic. The requirement for machine-readable visas for visa waiver countries has been postponed. It is a nightmare for foreigners so many potential tourists go elsewhere with their cash, many potential students go elsewhere with their cash, many businesspeople postpone or cancel business travel but that does not stop any terrorists who are not discouraged by things which discourage honest people.
There was an ariticle talking about how after 9/11 visas for foreign brides had pretty much been suspended because there was no time to process them. Does anyone think these women are likely terrorists?
Politicians are idiots. They give government agencies impossible tasks and create more problems than they solve.
I think this is even worse than the Patriot Act. Before, they would say that the government is checking your criminal record. Those who are wary of an overly controlling government would speculate on whether your personal records were also investigated. Now, they are explicitly stating that they will be checking you personal records.
Further: what difference does it make if someone has an assault record? What if you’re on a Greyhound and sitting next to a just-released serial killer? If the killer wanted to, he/she could kill on the bus just as easily. But that’s beside the point. See, after someone serves their term in prison or complete whatever period of restriction is imposed on him as punishment for his crime, he’s free. That’s the idea behind American justice: after you serve your sentence, that’s it. No more restrictions, no more spying. Once you’re out, you’re equal to every other citizen. Otherwise, shoplifting could get you a life sentence–you’d be out prison in a few months, but the government will be watching you forever. And that (at least to me) is much, much scarier than any terrorist bombing could ever hope to be.
P.S.: What about people with mental problems that deemed fit to live independently and are not dangerous to anyone? A few months ago, I was sitting next to someone who was acting strangely. (I myself am not problem-free, but I can tell when someone isn’t “normal.”) Not suspiciously, mind you. I think that this person had ADD. So should the guards have stopped him from boarding just because he can’t sit still? How do you know someone with major depression won’t try to kill himself by taking the plane down? Maybe everyone with any mental disorder should be forbidden from flying, even if that’s the only way they can travel? Or how about the poor? You wouldn’t want someone stealing your wallet while you’re in the bathroom.
And remember this: you will never, ever be completely safe. What if someone just decides to get training as pilot and 4 years into his career he decides to crash the plane for whatever reason?
I assume by “do it” you mean screen for and share data. Yes, I get junk mail, but I don’t think ClosetMaid exactly has the authority or power to keep me from getting a job. D&L Landscape Service has a vested interest in keeping me alive, therefore I generally tolerate them and begrudgingly accept their terrifying address list that included my name.
That being said, on to the problem. But first, an aside: what harm could I, a scanned and/or frisked human male, 6’5", 200 pounds, do at the gate? “Watch out everybody, that guy is raiding all the newsstands in Bradley Terminal. He may be armed with gummi bears and Maxims.”
So what were we talking about? A solution? Hmmmm. Well, we could always
Hire intelligent, managed professionals to hold the checkpoints. I’d hire former Vegas Pit Bosses to watch over my flock of screeners. Make my screeners former military personnel who might like to continue his/her pay rate and benefits. Vets happy, travelers happy. Administration Good.
Use all that neato tech geekery to come up with better bomb/handgun/propellant/plastique/nuke/ad nauseam detectors. Current scanning methods are pretty good, but the federal dollars for tech have already been allocated to build the database…
Make boarding “choke points” to ensure use of secondary metal detectors at gates. Use trained personnel to perform manual frisks and wanding.
Reinforce cockpit doors to make them impenetrable from the cabin.
Use current (and developing) technology to properly scan the luggage on the plane.
Prohibit airlines from carrying unscreened cargo.
And please don’t talk about nylon knives. A strong Air Marshal program for the first few years will deter attacks and firmly plant the futility of hijack. If they can’t get to the cockpit, what can they do?
What do you mean “do nothing is not a choice”? Of course it’s a choice, and a better one than doing things which are harassing, expensive and completely useless.
Air travel is much safer than many other things. Why aren’t we concentrating on those things. Thousands of people are killed every year by common criminals, many more than are killed by terrorists, and this has been going on for decades. Why isn’t this used as an excuse to infringe on people’s privacy and liberties? If you want to save lives that would be a more effective target. Why are we doing “nothing”?
How about road accidents? Why are we doing “nothing”?
How about cancer? It kills more people every year than all the terrorists. Why are we doing nothing?
How about tobacco? Why is it legal?
Airline security is more than reasonably safe as it is so “doing nothing” is not only an option but probably the best option. Let’s not become so paranoid. If you want to use money effectively in saving lives there are much better things to do with it. Money is not unlimited, even if the government seems to think so.
One thing that hopefully would be improved under this system is that people would no longer be stopped just because they “look slightly Middle Eastern”.
The 1993 WTC bombing. Eight years to regroup and try again in 2001. A success. Eight years to study the problem, effect a better plan and implement it.
We now have the color-chart decision tree for the government, splashed across the media. Anyone can find out their credit score and parking ticket record will have a direct bearing on whether one makes it aboard a commercial jet.
What is a would-be terrorist to do??? Hmmm.
Become a sleeper in America. Get a job. Buy a house. Get a JC Penney charge card, a Visa, too. Take American English lessons. Watch decadent American TV. Blend in with a normal life.
Years later a letter and/or email arrives with instructions. Purchase a round-trip ticket at least 21 days in advance. The credit rating and security check pass muster. So does the Americanized look and attitude passing through security. No worries. After all, there’s been no attempted hijacking of anything in America in years.
The terrorist takes down the aircraft, thanks to weapons, maybe a bomb, smuggled aboard by a ground crew, someone else who’s been here for years doing the same thing. Only they worked for the airline.
If I were really a neo-paranoid, I’d say the extra searches were because of 1) my history of living/traveling in the East Bloc when it was still the East Bloc (which the U.S. government certainly knows about; they even gave me several thousand dollars to do it, plus I had to list it on my security clearance forms for my Justice Dept. job) and/or 2) my political activity. (I did a lot of antiwar demonstrating.)
Would either of those prospects bother you? Do foreign language students and peace activists make you nervous on airplanes? Or do you think someone who had devoted much of her studies and career to improving international relations and world peace is going to blow up a plane?
My mom doesn’t look ethnic at all (I take after Dad in that respect), and yet she is also stopped and searched whenever she boards a plane. It’s beyond all logical probability. Is it because of her political activity? Hmmmm…
Will you all start getting nervous when we need government permission to live or work in major cities, and when we need to register with the police every time we spend 72 hours in a city where we’re not registerd, as in the USSR? And as is still the case in Russia? I mean really, residence history could be a matter of national security, too. I’ve lived in a police state, and I don’t care to repeat the experience, thanks.
Make my screeners former military personnel who might like to continue his/her pay rate and benefits. Vets happy, travelers happy. Administration Good.