They used to ask those standard questions about “did you pack your luggage yourself?”, “did anyone give you anything to carry on the plane?”
Is it because 9/11 made these questions moot or ridiculous?
I asked a gate agent that very question about a month ago, and she said they weren’t very useful anyway…only an idiot would answer in a way that would arouse suspiscion.
Well…duh! Not you Violet - but the questions. There’s something fishy here; do they airlines really want us to believe that they used to think the questions would ferret out potential terrorists, and only with hindsight do they realist that a terrorist would probably (gasp) lie about such things?
Just a hunch: I think the questioning was the cheapo method of documenting some procedures for safety. I wonder if Atta, et al, were asked those questions.
It’s Saturday, so you’ll have to look up your own damn sites, but:
The questions originated when an Israeli security officer asked a young woman similar questions and she confessed that she was in fact carrying some nasty things on board for her terrorist boyfriend. That success made the US think that asking those questions was an effective way to spot “mules” and the like, but as you know, it was not very effective when done by bored ticketing agents and soon became more of a joke than anything else. When the TSA was created after 9/11 one of the first things it’s chief (Loy) did was eliminate the questions, which he never felt accomplished much anyway. The End.
Right, there was a bombing on a plane where the terrorist sent the bomb in the suitcase of his (pregnant?) girlfriend, who didn’t know what was in the package. She died with everyone else. Consequently, they made the argument that asking that question might help find any inadvertent carriers.
They also felt that they could judge nervousness if people lied (remember, these wouldn’t be the terrorists themselves but unwitting carriers, who weren’t trained in lying or evasion.) Hah. As msgotrocks says, maybe a trained security officer but not a bored ticket agent.
I think also a point could be made for the questions being effective at catching threats from genuinely innocent inviduals who might have let someone else pack their luggage, or agreed to carry a package unaware of its content. I don’t think any threat was ever discovered this way, but it could have been.
Whenever I enter the US I have to sign a card saying I am not a terrorist or Nazi! Often wanted to answer yes, but hate cavity searches
scm1001 they ask you expicitly on your customs card if you are a Nazi? Although when I am filling them out to go into the United States, I am headed home, but I don’t remember such questions. That seems pretty useless too.
If you are not a citizen, you have a whole host of questions to answer that don’t appear on the citizen’s form.
Is this the form, or are there more?
The forms you get at the airport would be from Immigration and either be an I-94 or I-95.
They are not available online at the Immigration website.
On the uselessness of the questions: one time I was checking in and accidentally answered the second question incorrectly. The guy checking me in just asked me again more slowly. I got it correct the second time answering. Nothing else happened.
Were you ever actually asked these questions? A terrorist could answer them truthfully and not give himself away:
Did you pack your own bags?
Did anyone ask you to carry anything onboard?
Like others have said, it was clearly for the people who might not realize that these things are such a hazard.
Yes, but who can forget the most amazing question of all - “has anyone placed anything in your bags without your knowledge?” You can’t answer no, because if they did you wouldn’t know about it, and you can’t answer yes, because if you know about it the answer is no.