eenerms – patted down the cat-- now that’s hysterical!!
1010011010, I’m still having trouble following the logic. At first you confirm that unknowing carriers are a likely means of transporting and placing a bomb.
[QUOTE=1010011010]
Ah, you knew the answer all along. For future reference, many of the “bomb in the undercarriage” scenarios involve non-complicit carriers. A vehicle that routinely takes a bunch of non-threatening grannies bird watching is actually a pretty good choice.
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And later you amplify and reiterate this position.
[QUOTE=1010011010]
Yep, because nobody is better at convincing security they’re a non-threatening innocent than a non-threatening innocent that doesn’t know there’s a bomb strapped to the car.
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You’ve pretty well convinced me that our vehicle should be given a thorough search. A van full of dupes could indeed be transporting a bomb, unawares. And I said as much from the beginning. You don’t (yet) mention the cooler specifically, but I would assume that inspection thereof would be part of a thorough search. Us dupes might not notice a bomb if it was encased in ice or inside an (anonymous) personal lunch box. So inspecting the cooler seems to be a requirement of a thorough search. It seems at least as likely a hiding place as the undercarriage. (Or, courtesy of eenerms, the living body of a cat or the inert walls of a cat carrier.)
But in the very same post you go on to say:
[QUOTE=1010011010]
So, your theory is that a terrorist hit squad chartered a tour and secretly swapped out the sandwiches with stinger missiles… and everyone totally kept their cool during the undercarriage inspection and stayed in their role as geriatric bird watchers? Of course that’s silly. There’s no good reason to look in the cooler. It’s a waste of time…
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You’ve created a new scenario, with dupes replaced by terrorists and the cooler now holding Stingers instead of a bomb. Apparently, since we all kept our composure during inspection, we cannot be terrorists. And if we can’t be terrorists, the cooler can’t contain Stingers. So inspecting it is a waste of time.
What if we aren’t all terrorists, but mostly dupes with one terrorist who is a good liar? Or what if we are (return to scenario the first) all dupes after all? And the cooler (instead of the undercarriage) contains a remotely detonated bomb? Since the only “evidence” you have to differentiate between these scenarios is the role playing ability of the players in the van, I submit that you have insufficient evidence to make a determination between the scenarios. And therefore you have a duty to look in the cooler.
I repeat that there is as much reason – and as little reason – to look in the cooler as anywhere else.
To which you reply
[QUOTE=1010011010]
The underlying scenario is that the passengers do not know they’re delivering a car bomb. You can’t ask them. You have to search. You can, however, ask them what’s in the cooler.
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So the passengers are assumed to be irrelevant regarding a search of the vehicle itself (“You have to search.”), but our reply to a question about the contents of the cooler (“Lunch!”) will be accepted at face value?
Sorry, I just don’t buy it. But you later justify this and explain:
[QUOTE=1010011010]
You didn’t have a bomb in the cooler or in the van. The inspector was able to figure this out by means other than search and chose not to waste your and his time by conducting an unnecessary search of personal effects.
Is it possible an elite squad of granny commandos could social engineer their way through such a checkpoint with several cubic feet of plastic explosives tucked in amongst the pimento cheese sandwiches and grape soda? Sure.
Is it probable? No.
Individuals aren’t very good at hiding the fact that they have a secret. Most people don’t pay enough attention to how they (or others) act normally to recognize how they’re acting abnormally when trying to hide something. It becomes pretty obvious when you’ve spent most of your working hours looking for anything abnormal in a continuous stream of normal actions and reactions.
Throw in random/periodic search requirements and you have personnel doing a single isolated section of a search because the requirement has come up. They find nothing. No flags are raised. The individual passes through with no further inspection beyond the required action.
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And the proof of this technique is that we have had no bombings at the Cape. Just as the proof of airport inspections is the lack of terrorist attacks on airplanes. Sorry, I don’t buy that either.
I accept your thesis that a highly trained and highly motivated individual can frequently (though not 100% accurately) identify high risk behaviors through observation and limited interaction, using the keen insight and deduction of, say, a Sherlock Holmes. I believe this summarizes your Paragraphs 3 and 4 above. You seem to have relevant experience in this field, and you yourself may indeed be such a person. If so, my compliments and thank you for your service. But I submit that you are the exception rather than the rule.
The “inspectors” at the Cape are neither highly trained nor highly motivated. They are Park Rangers who have had a seminar on “Homeland Security” and subsequently assigned to additional duties. Their keen Holmes-ian insight and deductive abilities are dulled by youth, inexperience, boredom, and heat stroke. And their motivation is tempered by the same mental calculations we have all made. “Of all the possible targets in the world, what are the chances of it being this one? Slim. And of all the possible instants in time, what are the odds of it being exactly now? Even slimmer. Slim times slimmer equals infinitesimal.” So they do a dull, boring job in a half hearted manner. The “inspection” is perfunctory at best, and could easily be overcome by determined terrorists using any of several obvious techniques.
As the OP said originally:
“Sir, on behalf of the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security I would like to thank you for participating in our little play-acting session today. I realize that not a damn thing we did today would prevent any terrorist with an IQ higher than 75 from brining your plane down [or bombing the Cape] on this fine afternoon, but we like to put up a good show.”
I simply say again, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right. If we’re not going to do it right, then drop the play acting and leave me alone.
x0HOLLiSTER0x