On the other hand, the airlines themselves can simply do an end run around that by adopting security regulations as their own policies, as strong as or stronger than any proposed or enacted by the FAA. The airlines have every right to say, “In exchange for a ticket to board and travel on our aircraft, you agree to security procedures X, Y and Z” which could include searching all your bags, searching your person, etc. As private property owners, they have the right to make that decision with respect to their property, and you have the right to agree to it or not.
I don’t know what to say to someone who thinks this…maybe you would be happier living somewhere where you have no rights?
I really think that’s the fear talking. Please think about what you are saying. None of that will actually make you more safe. Feeling safe is fine, but it is ultimately an illusion, as we all know now.
Not at all, I love this country. I love my rights. I also love being alive. I’m twenty eight years old and I have to be afraid that every time I get on a plane I’m going to be driven into a building or the ground? That I’m going to have my throat slit? John Corrado said it best “It Ain’t Over”. Cabbage tells me that he hears a report of a planned suicide mission into a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. I will do ANYTHING to stop that from happening. If it means that for the next year and a half I have to be xrayed on my way into work…do it.
I KNOW it’s the fear talking. Nobody else but me is afraid? I can’t believe it.
jarbaby
I can’t express in words how disappointed I am to see someone say this. Rest assured that you do not speak for me.
Freedom is not something that should be brokered away. For any reason.
And I specifically adressed them, a response which you ignored.
You made a claim that people who couldn’t distinguish between what was what didn’t deserve either. I asked you a question regarding this, and you threw out some meaningless statements. To which I responded, requesting clarification. Now you point me again to points to which I’ve already responded.
You’re making me dizzy.
Well, you ask what rights. People, naturally enough, say “none”. Then there’s the question of what conveniences you’d be willing to give up. When you mull this over, naturally one does some cost-benefit analysis. If you come up with no benefit for great cost, why do it?
Let me ask your question and apply it to Tuesday: What conveniences, if given up, would have prevented the attack?
I know. But that’s where the line between “convenience” and “right” is drawn.
jarbaby, this response is, well…repulsive. I never thought I’d say that to you.
Surely this isn’t the first time in your life you’ve been exposed to the possibility of death? You’ve known about concentration camps, atomic bombs, West Nile virus, etc. Bad things can and do happen. How can you spend you’re entire life living in fear of them? That’s not living at all.
Let’s face it…you’re going to die. We all are. It happens. If we spend our time worrying about what form that death will take, and the date on which it may happen, then we’ve wasted our lives.
Other than that, I really don’t know how to respond to your position…
jarbaby,
I understand what you are saying and I am as terrified as you are. I am not at all surprised or disappointed by the sentiments you express. However, there is nothing to be gained through the surrender of rights or privileges. Those determined enough to hijack airplanes using box cutters will be determined enough to do it with empty hands. Those determined enough to do it with empty hands will be determined enough to commit such atrocities if there are no airplanes. They will find a way to make us suffer more even if none of us ever leave our homes and allow no one into our country.
Security will be achieved not though us changing our way of life but through our work to change the hearts and minds of those who would attack us.
I am very afraid jarbabyj. I know many other people who are afraid too.
Even in my fear I am planning on flying next week if it is possible. Even in my fear I am going to cling to and insist on my rights as an American. Even in my fear I am going to sing and run and work and play.
I can’t let fear rule me. If I did I would never get out of bed.
I choose to be brave and face the world and my fears. I am going to live my life for all it is worth because I know how easy it is to lose.
As a note to some others in this thread, I think this is the time to help each other in finding strength rather than criticizing each other’s fully justified fears.
Do you feel any changes that might limit your “privileges” would necessarily be ineffectual, conveying only the “appearance” of security? Or is it at least possible that some changes might actually reduce, while not entirely eliminating, risk
Some folks have suggested posting guards on planes. That will cost $, reflected in either higher ticket prices or higer taxes. I would suggest both of those could be considered “inconveniences.”
More thorough searches of passengers and carryons, if no elimination of the latter, would greatly restrict the ability of people bringing weapons onto flights. But it would make traveling more unpleasant, as well as taking longer.
And of course, none of these would be foolproof. There is the always the possibility that creative criminals will devise ways around any new safeguards.
But it seems to me that the hardline responses deny the appropriateness of any such cost/benefit and risk reduction analyses.
Beelzebubba, (great name, BTW) you ask me,
Well, how bout the ones I suggest above? In my mind, additional security measures that increase the cost of air travel or make it more cumbersome = giving up conviences. Folks may say, “I can get a razor blade or its equivalent past any metal detector.” But here we had between 15-20 people ALL successful in sneaking contraband on board a total of 4 flights! (Or one person on each flight snuck on enough for each team.)
Or your suggestion of increasing cockpit security. Why do pilots need access to the cabin? Give them a portapotty. I acknowledge that this will have few costs other than some initial refitting. What reasons did people give against this?
Of course, I am not a security expert. I would be interested to hear such an individual’s views on the subject.
I acknowledge that the weapons used may not accurately be called “contraband.”
Sure, we can never make it impossible to hijack a plane. But I believe it we should pursuehe goal of making it more difficult, while not imposing excessive burdens upon the population.
Quite simply, I’ll give up neither any rights nor any privileges stemming from them, as others have said (though I’m quite willing to accept extra responsibilities, provided they’re reasonable). I’m not sure that I’d be willing to give up much even in the way of conveniences, for one simple reason: those conveniences are a large part of our free and open society, and letting terrorists cause any dramatic change to that is letting them win. I’ll be damned if I let them do that.
Is it possible that when flying from Florida back to Washington my plane might get hijacked? Yes, but I don’t know that we can do much to stop that without instituting large changes to the way we do things. And I don’t want to give them that victory. The kind of society where we don’t have to worry about terrorism is the kind of society that I want no part of.
I thought I’d addressed them already? Some of them being national ID’s and no carry-ons…I thought I’d got them all. I haven’t been following all the developments in the identities and movements of the hijackers, but from what I’ve seen so far, none of the measures you’ve suggested would really have had an impact, save one.
It seems the only one would have been the “knives” rule. However, I can come up with a few plausible scenarios that involve the use of non-metal weapons, so I don’t think that one is terribly though-provoking.
Well, again, I think the real problem there is complacency. That is the biggest enemy for anyone tasked with security. Again, short of strip-searching, it’s not possible to ensure no weapons get aboard.
So far the only reason I’ve seen (and I don’t remember what thread it was, it may be here) was along the lines that it’s morally right to allow access to the cockpit if the lives of passengers or crew are in danger. In other words, you must do so if the hijacker says “Open up or I’ll start killing passengers.” A good reason, certainly…but ultimately I don’t think that’s a good enough reason for the pilot to give up control of the aircraft.
And Tymp, jarbaby, I didn’t mean to come off as critical. Sorry if I did, just sharing my thoughts.
I happened to recall a relevant article in this morning’s Trib. You can find it here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0109140337sep14.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
I fully acknowledge that my views do not appear to reflect the mainstream on this. You also may note in IMHO, that I advocate increased subsidies to rail service. Further, as far as my personal perspective is concerned, I do not take a personal computer with me on travel, business or personal, so I personally don’t care if someone else is inconvenienced by being unable to carry his on. Maybe this will spark an industry to create laptop travel cases or tougher computers!
You previously suggested a cost/benefit analysis. It does not strike me as facially ridiculous to suggest that if people were unable to take anything larger than a wallet/billfold on board, with the exception of a soft bound book/magazine, and people and their belongings were subject to thorough search including x-ray, it would be considerably more difficult for prospective terrorists to hijack a plane and fly it into a building.
I’ve enjoyed exchanging views with you on this. Don’t think I’ll have much more to add. Enjoy your weekend.
I didn’t ignore your response, I just didn’t think I had to re-adress every point you made.
I mistakenly thought your questions were rhetorical. Let me try and address them.
I hold the rights that I am afforded in this country dear because I realize that not everything is a right, that some things are not guaranteed to me. I think of things like being able to travel freely across this country to be a right. I consider being able to take a carry-on onto a plane a convenience. What is the danger in confusing the two? It makes us think that we are entitled to everything, that we can do anything we want to. This attitude can get people, and nations, in trouble.
The reason I pointed you to things that I already said is because I felt I already addressed these questions.
What does that mean? It means you will not be able to take carry-ons onto planes, airport scanners will take more time scanning your bags, and it will take longer to get the pilots into the cockpit through an inaccessable entrance.
What did I give up? The three things I mentioned above.
What did I agree to? You agreed to put up with the three things mentioned in order to fly on a commercial airliner.
I wasn’t trying to place a blanket statement saying that any measure should be taken to produced heightened security. I mentioned just three things in particular.
I understand your point that some of the things I mentioned will not be able to totally prevent weapons getting aboard planes. I never claimed that they would. I do think that the things that I mentioned would make it harder to do so. Wearing a seatbelt won’t prevent me from dying in a car accident, but I still wear one. Same thing with airport security.
If anything I said is still meaningless, tell me, and I’ll try and explain some more.
Well, I think I’ve mentioned it at least twice in this thread: plainclothes Sky Marshalls under federal employ. They could be equipped with tasers, mace, conventional weaponry, etc.
If they find a terrorist attempting to take control of a plane they should have the ability to use any and all means necessary to subdue the hijackers, including the elimination of any hostages being used as a bargaining tool. (ever see Speed? Shoot the hostage!) Given a terrorist’s capability with a bomb or using the plane as a weapon, killing one innocent civilian quickly to get to the hijackers is far more acceptable than pussy-footing around and getting the whole plane killed.
Can this elimintate all hijackings? NO. It is impossible to eliminate all hijackings. No measure can be complete short of banning people from entering the airplane which is obviously a bit of an excessive (and counter-productive) method.
Can it eliminate most hijackings? NO. The Sky Marshall cannot act until a hijack attempt is made. No security measure can respond to a hijack until an attempt is made.
Can it prevent hijackings from achieving their ends? YES.
Can it do this without a change in the way we fly? YES.
Hell, I can prevent burglaries to your house by sealing it in concrete with the exception of one entrance which only has retinal scanners for entry through a bank-vault door. All you lose is the “convenience” of windows and free access around your yard… but that’s just a luxury anyway, right? So pull it.
So, instead, you’re gonna prevent burglaries by having a gun in your house? Seemed like a good idea until your kid accidentally dies playing with it.
Now nobody has to smuggle weapons onto planes, because they know that weapons are already on the plane. All they have to do is find the guy who has them, which is not entirely impossible to do. Or, they could manage to infiltrate the system and become a Sky Marshall themselves.
I think that the three things I suggested would do less to change the way we fly then putting armed guards on planes would. Just because you can’t see it, and it doesn’t affect your pre-boarding time doesn’t mean that the way we fly hasn’t been affected.
No, man, you prevent many burglaries by having a police force. What I propose is to put a “police force” on the plane where one currently doesn’t exist.
Of course the Sky Marshalls can be infiltrated… Hell, the food service on planes can be inflitrated, along with the flight crew and the pilot. Our White House can be infiltrated… should we get rid of secret service agent’s weapons too?
Hijackings cannot be permanently or completely prevented so long as there are planes that fly passengers. So why try so hard to change the way we fly when it isn’t absolutely necessary? I fly all the time. I’d be very happy if we had federal agents on planes for protection. I wouldn’t even mind if the pilot had a gun too: my life is already in his hands once we get in the air.