Couldn’t we just ban air travel and transport altogether? I mean sure it would add expense and inconvenience to our lives, but at least no planes will aspolded then.
So, if I fly from, say, West Palm Beach, FL to Tampa, FL, they I should be thoroughly searched at a TSA security checkpoint as it is a Matter of National Security After 9/11. But we can let a plane fly from Terroristville, Bumfuckistan with a connection in Amsterdam, with a final destination in New York or Washington and just trust on the goodness of Bumfuckistan airport security to do a good job?
When will they really admit that it’s just for show. I will vote for the first politician who admits that it is just for show. I don’t care what party. Just be honest with me.
Let’s just go with full public strip searches with every orifice speculum’d and inspected.
There you go. Problem fucking solved. Let’s quit with the half-measure bullshit. Shit or get off the pot.
-Joe
Bumfuckistan airport security probably isn’t any more incompetent than the TSA.
Seriously, though, what do you want them to do? Make all inbound flights stop in the Azores for screening?
No. I want them to admit that this whole thing is a charade. I am tired of having to take off my shoes to fly on a commercial airplane. I think it is ridiculous that I have to put my shampoo in a separate plastic bag to carry it on a plane.
White people gleefully strip naked for security in this country while we allow planes from third world terrorist shithole countries to fly into airports here without any oversight from the US or its allies.
It is for our own amusement. We feel that since WE have to have our carry-on luggage inspected for cigarette lighters that we are safe on an airplane. We are not. It’s time to grow up and realize the dangerous world we live in. And unfortunately that will, more times than not, be the foreign looking person next to you.
Sad that we have to take that step. We would like to think that we will live in a colorblind/racially-blind world, and we don’t. But is this security a silly game or about real safety? If it is about real safety, then we need to quit looking at old grandmothers in wheelchairs and look at the young Muslim men.
When old grandmothers start pulling bombs out of their wheelchair enabled colostomy bags, I will be the first proponent for screening them harsher. Until then, it’s young Muslim/Arabic men.
You mean like John Walker Lindh or Richard Ried, right?
Well, Lindh and Reid were Muslims. My problem with profiling is that I look like a might be a Muslim too, and I don’t like being harassed at airports.
However, to **jtgain **and anyone else who thinks the TSA doesn’t already practice profiling, I invite you to take a flight in my shoes.
Over and over news stations have tested procedures and managed to get fake bombs and real bombs on planes. It is not a new story. We can not make travel perfectly safe. But when something appears to go wrong we can sure bitch. Since 911 nobody has been killed. The incidents have been contained and no damage was done. That sounds like a success to me.
told norad to stand down…
Why? Are there bombs in 'em?
Bah. If we’re going that far, why can’t we shoot for being 120% safe? That failure to go for an easily achievable 10% gain is exactly why the Dems are preceived as soft on terrorism.
You, like many others, appear to believe that you can somehow reliably predict behavior on board an airline flight from some detail of dress or physical appearance. You also appear to be buying the absurd canard of the right-wing noise machine that 87-year-old grandmothers are somehow being targeted for secondary screening more often than your notional “young Muslim/Arabic men”. If so, then you are, IMO, a bit of a fool.
I point out to you that since the botched Christmas day incident, no doubt many thousands of “young Muslim/Arabic men” have traveled on flights, both domestic and international. Perhaps I missed a news report somewhere, but not a single plane blew up in flight during that period, and not a single person was stopped trying to carry bomb-making materials aboard a plane. So what good is your plan?
Apparently you feel it’s perfectly OK to harass and demean thousands of people a day for years on end, in pursuit of an end that at best may increase overall security by a fraction of fraction of a fraction of a percent. And, of course, I’m sure it’s OK in part because you are quite certain you wouldn’t be one of the persons so profiled.
Out of interest do we, as in people not from America, get to have OUR armed personnel on inbound flights from the US? You see, that would mean that we’d have to have our own armed personnel at every US airport that does international flights. You going to be OK with that?
Like there’s anything worth blowing up or attacking or stealing outside of America… what are they going to do, blow up a bunch of donkeys in Mexico, or striking workers in France? BFD…
:rolleyes:
All you people with no sense of humor, chill. That was a joke. Happy New Year!
Some really interesting observations, for those interested in adult debate, here
This is a conversation about those backscatter machines invading privacy of fliers. I happen to agree with almost everything in this article. For those that care, Saletan is pretty liberal, and lord knows Slate is too, so this is hardly some faux news push-poll type piece. I like this quote especially:
In my opinion, as we get more and more machines in place, we can probably throttle back the marshals (but never eliminate them; the threat has to credible to keep terrorists guessing).
It is a valid concern, so it is good to see you’re going to completely ignore it.
That fact is that armed personnel need to be armed as they board the aircraft (because leaving weapons unattended on the aircraft would be insane). This requires that the personnel need to be armed when in another country’s territory.
You are demanding that all non-American countries should bow to the almighty US and allow this. Thus it is only fair that vice versa should apply and all other countries get to have armed personnel at US airports.
I have been extremely amused at the idea of yours of the US pulling out of international treaties unless other countries bend over backwards for the US. All it would take is the other countries saying fuck this and suddenly people can fly out of the US but can’t actually fly back in.
One other thing that I didn’t see in this thread. The BBC were reporting that the privacy concern over the use of the full body scanners (which you in the US might not care about but over here in Europe it is a big issue and in most places where they exist they are used on a purely voluntary basis) has been solved by have a computer instead of a human operator deal with the images. Only if the image is assessed to be suspect will a human get involved and view the images.
Let me illuminate you. I would allow reciprocity with any country that allows our marshals on. Not that the gun-hating Eurotypes would necessarily take us up on it, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s their country, they get to choose what security is in place for inbound planes to their airports. Same as us
yup, that’s how it works. Happens a lot in the military you know; last I checked America had a hell of a lot of armed personnel across UK, Germany, other NATO locations, plus Korea, Japan, you get the picture. I’d guess but don’t know for sure that our FBI and other law enforcement, when going overseas for a prisoner transfer or something, are also armed, and the world doesn’t end.
see above
Once a treaty of any kind starts to threaten American interests more than protect them, then the treaty is obsolete and needs to be amended or discontinued. Happens from time to time. It’s a new, dangerous world out there, this is a new kind of war, etc etc, I’m sure you’ve heard. Some might ignore the threat, worry about offending the international community, or worse, choose to try to reason with or negotiate with the terrorists. That’s Spain’s trick. Not mine.
You didn’t read the whole article. Go back and re-read, please.
Another piece today in the WaPo, by a guy who knew how to run DHS a hell of a lot better than the politician in there now
we need those machines in every airport. Now.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=“New_Orleans_‘Dodged_the_Bullet’”
That’s a major failure in homeland security for Chertoff right there.
It’s right up there with Condoleezza’s “no one could have imagined jets flying into buildings” when many had imagined it years before.
A lot of countries think they are safer by not being big brothers or bullies. By sticking our noses into politics around the world we generate resentment. We are all over the mid-east blowing countries up and killing and jailing their citizens. Get used to be hated. We don’t use diplomacy or politics. We use force.
They’re going to walk into the room where the computer that monitors these full-body scans is located, and find it masturbating like a motherboard.