It is a source of continual astonishment to me that pilots — many of whom, it should be pointed out, are military veterans who possess security clearances — are not allowed to carry onboard their airplanes pocket knives and bottles of shampoo, but then they’re allowed to fly enormous, fuel-laden, missile-like objects over American cities.
The TSA is one more bit of idiocy on which George Bush was such a huge disappointment. This is another of those policies that the new crop of Republicans should renounce, and fix.
I believe I can remember James Carville arguing that pilots shouldn’t be allowed to carry side arms on flights, because they might go berserk and shoot up the plane.
Long ago I recommended all passengers be issued machetes for the duration of the flight. You really don’t want guns or explosives on a plane.
I personally would sleep like a baby knowing that all the passenger and crew were well armed.
Israel I hear doesn’t screen all passengers. They just figure out which ones are the terrorists before they ever get near a plane. Which means they don’t have to pat down any pilots either.
People that think rules and laws keep us safe are not to be trusted with our safety.
If Carville had been talking about male flight attendants with the initials SS, he might have been right.
I thought that the GOP had already forced the TSA to allow pilots to fly armed, why would they allow a pilot to carry a gun and not a pocketknife? Did Obama reverse the gun carrying rule?
That’s a timeless nugget of wisdom right there. Seriously. It sounds like a quote from Ben Franklin.
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The TSA should just be abolished. It started off on the completely wrong basis, and every “lesson learned” it has accumulated over the last decade has been wrong.
There are only a few things that can keep an airplane safe-
1. Armed pilots
2. Bulet-proof cockpit doors.
3. Ground control over-ride.
4. A vigilant flying public.
5. Israeli-like pre-flight screening.
There is no limit to the means by which terrorists will try to blow up a plane, so the only practical solution it to screen for terrorists themselves. Get that system working and letting a normal, mentally healthy American citizen on board with his weapon loaded is a non-issue.
Also note that of the five listed items, only one of them is realistically a government function (#5, obviously). The airlines are just as disinterested in losing a plane, a crew, and a plane full of passengers as the rest of the American public is. Now that they’re aware of the danger (and the ticket-buying public is as well), they’ll not ignore the issue.
The biggest problem with the TSA however is how it distracts us. It’s a huge waste of government resources and public attention, while a screening program would be just as effective as guarding our hydroelectric dams, water treatment facilities, and the like as our airports. On a bang-for-buck analysis the NSA/FBI is just a better investment.
The whole airport security thing is devolving from security theater to farce. The hubbub over pilots carrying pocket knives is only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, if passengers entered secure areas don’t want to subject themselves to the very revealing full body scanners, they’ll get a very extensive full body search instead. All a potential terrorist has to do is come up with a new way to insert a weapon or IED and then the TSA apparatus will come up with ways to inconvenience airplane passengers. It’s not winning the war on terrorism.
Further, the Israelis aren’t doing this nonsense. Why aren’t we aping what works?
I’ve often wondered why terrorists don’t set off their bombs while in the security line itself? Timed appropriately it would harm nearly as many people and it would have the same disruptive effect on air travel worldwide.
I suppose you could move the security lines outdoors, but you won’t be able to avoid queueing up people somewhere.
To play Devil’s Advocate on imitating the Israelis – Israel has one international airport. The screenings require a high degree of intelligence, vigilance, and attention to detail. They are largely handled by active-duty soldiers. You also need multi-lingual screeners. (I’m not sure how this is handled for incoming flights. I’m going by my memory of going through Ben-Gurion on my way home.)
Add to that the fact that given the nature of the discrimination involved, you’d have instant lawsuits from everyone from CAIR and the ACLU to Aspergers’ Rights groups.
The thing is, the whole concept went out the window between plane #3 and plane #4.
Preventing a suicidal passenger from bringing down a plane is exceedingly difficult. Particularly if Our Enemies could beg, borrow or steal a clue or two from a competent engineer. We’ll still be hearing about plausible attempts to bring down a plane when we get the point of dosing everyone with sedatives and locking them into strait jackets.
But preventing the use of a widebody plane as a weapon against a ground target is (knock on wood) much easier. Assuming you can vett the cockpit crew and secure the actual software of the plane, you need only one other piece: Stop telling the passengers to act like freaking sheep in a hijacking. That was the standard for the seventies, eighties and nineties – and we’re past that. Heroes.
To play Devil’s Advocate on imitating the Israelis – Israel has one international airport.
Wikipedia says they have two international airports and about ten domestic airports. Even if the number of airports is lower than that in the US, they have proven security tactics.
The screenings require a high degree of intelligence, vigilance, and attention to detail.
And US security screening doesn’t? I get what you’re trying to do here, but my view remains the same. The TSA is way out of control when it comes to airport security and doing a bunch of stuff that merely inconveniences tens of millions of people without credibly improving airport security.
If we can indeed get past passengers and crew from acting like sheep in a hijacking attempt, it seems that a weapons cache under lock and key and under control of the crew at multiple places on the plane would be sufficient. One or two plain clothes flight marshals under employment of the airlines on each flight would seal the deal. No security measures will be perfect, but tipping the scale in favor of the passengers in a hi-jacking should take of most of it.
The TSA is way out of control when it comes to airport security and doing a bunch of stuff that merely inconveniences tens of millions of people without credibly improving airport security.
Gee, a government program out of control. Who would have thought?
The new whole-body X-ray screening only makes the process even more of a pain in the a__ than already, as I found out going home through the Las Cruces airport recently. It wasn’t enough to do the usual routine with liquids, metals, separating the computer, taking off shoes, et al.
Now you have to take _every scrap of material out of all your pockets_, including trivia like Kleenex. (If I hadn’t been sick already, I would’ve felt sorry for the next person, that all this goes into the same basket used by everyone.)
About the one good thing out of all this: I got so furious when I was called about my flight to DFW being cancelled by AA, that I refused to accept their ‘offer’ for a flight the next day. The thought of trying to go outside the security area, find a place to stay, come back at 7am when I could barely stand up already, then go thru the whole process again was just too much.
Net result: I got lucky, the weather passed thru DFW fast, and actually got on a connection without that crap that took me back to Boston 1/2 hr earlier than originally planned.
But if not for that luck, I might now be a ferocious advocate of hyper high speed trains. Flying has become worse than horrible.
If these “terrorists” actually existed they could trivially take down any plane they like, or kill as many people in the airport as they like. But it is *obvious* that they don’t actually exist.
If these “terrorists” actually existed they could trivially take down any plane they like, or kill as many people in the airport as they like. But it is *obvious* that they don’t actually exist.
I agree, Trent. Our only two choices are “terrorists don’t exist” and “terrorists are supermen”. Clearly, we should prefer “terrorists don’t exist” because that’s more convenient for us.
I’ve been through 6 airport screenings in the last 10 days.
I saw stuff like a 16oz hand lotion go trough without so much as a 2nd glance and 70 yr old grandmas getting patted down, its disgusting.
The very existence of society depends on the fact that the skilled and capable find it more valuable to build than to destroy. No amount of government can change that fact.
You still find drugs in prison, QED.
A single dedicated person with some engineering skill could do damage to society on a level never seen.
Just look at the damage and fear the uni-bomber or the DC snipers caused. In neither case were they more than marginally skilled.
We are now in a position where our employment base is so degraded that people with skill and talent are becoming unemployed, how long till of these people snaps and go over the edge and pulls another oklahoma city bombing or woorse…
As a side note the fact that the Islamic Jihadists did not duplicate the terror caused by the DC snipers with a team or two of skilled snipers says that either the organization does not still exist or they are incompetent in the extreme.
At one time there was a limit–planes with fewer then X passengers didn’t need to go through the full-scale security theatre, planes with more than X needed the ouja-directed strip cavity search. I figured that market forces would move the airlines, at least for relatively short (1000 miles or less) flights to move to smaller jets flying from smaller airports–they could avoid the hefty fees of the large airports and the passengers could avoid the wait and indignities of the security lines. Oh well. One more thing I was wrong about–big surprise.
Karl, wtf? Just yelling “bomb” on a plane would cause “terror” and yet no-one does that.. Taking off your belt and strangling the airline staff would cause terror.. no-one does it. Putting some radio jamming circuitry into your mobile phone would cause terror. Setting fire to the bathroom on the plane would cause terror.. hell, setting fire to the cabin with the 100% proof vodka that they’ll happily serve you for $5 would do it. The list is *endless*.. and yet, here we are, every day, flying planes and none of these things happen.
If there’s people with that stated goal of causing terror (let’s call them terrorists) then shouldn’t at least some of that be happening daily? Wouldn’t there be *nothing* the TSA could do about it? Why yes.. and yet it doesn’t happen.
People that think rules and laws keep us safe are not to be trusted with our safety.
Ditto what Brock said. Kudos Ken.
And Paul Breed is correct in his assessment, they don’t exist so can we go back to wearing our shoes through the metal detectors already?
Trent may have found a clue. We call them terrorists, they call themselves martyrs for the cause. The goal isn’t strictly terror and panic. Or we’d have people shooting the insulators out of transmission lines and the transformers at substations. Daily.
Al, oh please do educate me.. tell me the particulars of the TSA’s boogeyman as you see them. Correlate them with reality for us.
I don’t know about you, but every time I go through airport security, and tolerate the nonsense of the “arbitrary checkpoint”, I’m under the impression that their stated goal is to find the “bad guys” who are apparently tasked with scaring the easily scared Americans. Anyone can be one.. even old ladies.. so everyone must be searched and they’re so ingenious that we have to search everything with penetrating radars (and other gadgets), and limit our carry on of liquids as it might actually be explosives (even water!)
And yet, such smart adversaries have failed to enact any significant act of terror in 9 years! Oh what fabulous protection we must be receiving!
I didn’t make any claims about the TSA being competent. I was congratulating you for recognizing that our enemies don’t seem to be quite so focused on terrorizing us so much as killing infidels. If the goal was either strictly terror or sabotage their competence is quite low. In fact, astonishingly low. To the point that I do think that madrassa teaching actually affects the ability to think “outside the box.” There are some easy variations of one of the “non-significant acts of terror” events of the last 9 years that would have America going completely ape in very short order, for instance. But they’ve managed both killing infidels and dying for the cause closer to home.
And yet, such smart adversaries have failed to enact any significant act of terror in 9 years! Oh what fabulous protection we must be receiving!
You are – but not from the TSA. There has been a major attack foiled pretty much monthly ever since 9/11. The latest one was two cargo planes carrying bombs originating out of Yemen about a week ago. The TSA is a red herring. The real work is being done by the FBI and NSA.
Ed, oh please. As Paul has said, it takes no effort at all to send a couple of guys with rifles down to the mall and start shooting people. The evil terrorists could be doing this every Friday.. BUT THEY DON’T.
Unless you are willing to posit that the FBI and NSA are essentially God-like, the only sensible conclusion is that terrorists don’t exist.
Unless you are willing to posit that the FBI and NSA are essentially God-like, the only sensible conclusion is that terrorists don’t exist.
I am not willing to accept omniscience or omnipotence from any human organization. Indeed, occasionally attacks do occur. Fort Hood was only a year ago – sure, it wasn’t anything on the scale of 9/11, but it was on the same scale as Virginia Tech or Columbine. London had train bombings three years ago – the tactics have changed.
And I am definitely not defending the TSA in any of this – I view the whole thing as little better than Kabuki. On further reflection, I am giving the FBI and NSA too much credit as well. That war in Iraq did act as a magnet for nutbars in the early stages, and quite frankly it is the nutbar segment of the population that seeks martyrdom.
Claiming that the reason there are few successful attacks is that there are no terrorists is most likely incorrect. The more likely explanation is that the attacks are uncoordinated, and that the tactics are changing.
Airplane hijackings were a viable tactic for thirty years, but after 9/11 they cannot work for another couple of decades. The purpose has been served however, as the free democratic countries have expended tons of money on faux solutions like the TSA, and will continue to do so for some time. The thing actually preventing hijackings for the next decade or so is the passengers themselves. So the tactics must change: right now it’s probably the Stuxnet worm or something like it.
Will that mean that the TSA is going to change or get any better? Probably not. Will they get scaled back? Only if the Tea Party folks in Congress can succeed in reducing all government spending. Here’s hoping.
As a side note the fact that the Islamic Jihadists did not duplicate the terror caused by the DC snipers with a team or two of skilled snipers says that either the organization does not still exist or they are incompetent in the extreme.
Or it merely says that you, Paul do not understand their motives. Maybe I don’t either, but I consider the leadership of Al Qaeda something akin to rockstars. They can spend most of their time doing whatever it is that they’re doing (in the case of the typical rockstar, that might consist of a ton of parties and drugs, nothing to do with their career). But if they want to remain popular and keep the martyrs and money coming, they have to release the terrorist equivalent of a big hit every so often.
The same sort of reasoning goes for most of the people in the organization. While a lot of it has been sensationalized, it still remains that the rank and file, when it gets the opportunity to plot terrorist attacks, comes up with extraordinarily ambitious and complex plans, things like detonating radiological bombs or downing 20 airlines. (an analogy here is sci fi fans, who are keen on warp drive, teleportation, the Singularity, etc, but aren’t interested in plodding real world activities such as current space flight or materials engineering).
Everyone from the top down is interested in the big win, pulling off the long shot. That’s because that’s where the status is (or more accurately, status/effort ratio is high). I don’t see these terrorist groups as being about causing effective harm to the US or other perceived enemies. But instead they’re about the lifestyle. IMHO, that explains the low frequency of credible terrorist attacks.
In that light, I don’t see the false dilemma that Trent presents. We’re not speaking of terrorist groups that are tirelessly working to end the US. We’re speaking of terrorist groups that conduct the occasional high profile attack to maintain their street cred. They have a different behavior than what Trent expects.
My impression is that islamic terrorist groups attract nuts and losers, and discourage creative thinkers and thought. That along with a rock star big strike cred mentality could account for most terrorist behavior. If they attracted creative thinkers and had an engineers focus on doing us systematic harm we’d be is serious trouble.
Karl, riiiight. And they only choose to do this activity in the US? In other countries they’re happy to have their crews running around with guns killing the infidels but in the wild wild west they feel the need to pull Bond villian-esq attacks, and they’re just not that good at it?
In any case, if we’re all in agreement that there isn’t any assholes trying to blow up planes can we get rid of the TSA, *please*.
Karl, riiiight. And they only choose to do this activity in the US? In other countries they’re happy to have their crews running around with guns killing the infidels but in the wild wild west they feel the need to pull Bond villian-esq attacks, and they’re just not that good at it?
They do the same thing in the EU.