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Dan8267
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2014 Sep 11, 1:39am
Require airlines to offer both "TSA checked" and "No security check" flights in equal amounts.
Actually, the choice will be the "rape your daughter" line and the "real security" line. In the real security line, you go through metal detector and a explosive detector, perhaps using bees.
OK, maybe not bees. Some people are allergic to them. But there are electronic detectors that work on smell. The technology isn't great right now, but it is the nature of technology to become more reliable and cheaper if people invest in it. Ultimately, such detectors are the only reliable way to find explosives. Patdowns and rape-scanners simply don't work.
The Transportation Security Administration’s full-body scanners failed to detect a number of potential weapons, including knives, guns and explosives, according to a study released this week.
The controversial scanners, which captured explicit images of passenger’s bodies, provided “weak protection against adaptive adversaries,†researchers from the University of California, San Diego; the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University concluded.
“It is possible to conceal knives, guns, and explosives from detection by exploiting properties of the device’s backscatter X-ray technology,†the authors of the study wrote.
Hell, it would be trivial to modify a laptop with a plastic explosive and it would go through airport security, no problem. The TSA agents are idiots, power-hungry idiots, but idiots nonetheless.
Oh, and on my commercial flight, there is no air mail, so my family will be safe while yours is blown up by an mail bomb. So much for security theater.
Dan8267
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2014 Sep 11, 1:45am
He will choose Dan's flight. Say goodbye to Dan everyone.
By the way, on my flight, we have the best anti-terrorist security system. On each flight, there is a copy of the Quran and a piece of the Black Stone of Mecca, two things that the terrorists won't risk blowing up for fear of offending their gods. The planes are also painted with "Allah is great" in Arabic. I'm safe. You're not.
MisdemeanorRebel
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2014 Sep 11, 2:53am
The whole liquids thing is pure bullshit. It revolves around the highly unlikely scenario where somebody, and the flight would have to be at least 12 hours long non-stop, that somebody would occupy a restroom for the entire flight and try to grow explosive crystals. He would need tons of ice to produce his explosive crystals, and maybe end up with enough to break one of the windows.
Somebody is going to take bucket of ice after bucket of ice into a bathroom the entire flight and not raise suspicions?
curious2
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2014 Sep 11, 3:36am
The whole liquids thing...revolves around the highly unlikely scenario where somebody, and the flight would have to be at least 12 hours long non-stop, that somebody would occupy a restroom for the entire flight and try to grow explosive crystals. He would need tons of ice to produce his explosive crystals, and maybe end up with enough to break one of the windows.
Do you have a source for that? I read that there will be new contracts to purchase and operate new equipment to detect liquid explosives. Also as Dan's link noted, security auditors have got through with what they call liquid explosives. I imagine that anything flammable could probably start at least a smoke condition, e.g. using lighter fluid to accelerate burning the carpet or the trash bin, and that would require the plane to land. (OTOH, it seems even using a Knee Defender can require the plane to land.)
The real solution is to retire commercial air travel, at least domestic air travel for now. Privately owned maglifts can get you from place A to B cheaper and more conveniently than commercial air travel.
I like the Hyperloop idea, but nothing has yet been proven to substitute for air travel. Even if evacuated tube technology works, it would take years to set up each link between cities, and a tube might be as vulnerable as a plane - more so in the sense that damaging a tube would make the whole line unusable and might cause a pileup, like shutting down an entire flight lane for possibly months. Air travel works pretty well, although I've been avoiding it due to the security theater and the nuisance fees and the airline consolidation resulting in all sorts of unpleasantness. Ironically, the best time to fly was 2002-2005, when everyone else was afraid to fly: plenty of seats, low fares, crew happy that somebody found the courage to join them on the plane.
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Yesterday I found myself in a giant bureaucratic hassle at the San Francisco International Airport.
A couple of weeks ago Elena signed up for the CLEAR program and paid a $179.00 annual fee.Their logo promises:"Speed through airport security in less than 5 minutes any time that you fly." Elena was electronically finger printed and had a retina scan taken.
Most likely her fingerprints, names, and other details were checked against all the "no fly" lists, intelligence data bases, National Crime Information Center and Interpol (for criminal records and outstanding warrants), the IRS data base, child support enforcement, etc.
(By the way I served in the US Navy. I had a secret security clearance and was considered for a top-secret clearance when I was offered a job at the US Navy section in the White House in 1972. What Elena went through was just what anyone goes through to get a secret security clearance.)
Elena passed this rigorous background check and was given an impressive-looking CLEAR card. We assumed that she would go to the airport and fly through security rapidly without the necessity to take off her shoes, pull out her laptop and be subject to an x-ray body search with its radiation exposure.
Many of us have learned in life that what the book says is supposed to happen and what happens in real life are two different things. When Elena arrived at SFO to begin the journey to New Orleans, she went right to the front of the CLEAR line. She expected a quick walk through security.Instead an employee of CLEAR escorted her to the normal security line where she was forced to take off her shoes, pull out her laptop computer and go through the dreaded x-ray body search with its radiation. We both were mad as hell. We were sure that some large error had happened.
Likewise when we were getting ready to board the plane to return from New Orleans, Elena was subject to the same indignity. We were even madder.
Yesterday I went to the CLEAR booth in the international terminal at SFO. A very bright and charming young woman named Ann looked at Elena's card, the boarding passes,etc. She carefully explained to me that the CLEAR card gets one rapidly through the line. The Transportation Safety Administration determines who gets TSA pre-screened so that they do not have to go through indignities like taking off shoes, pulling out laptops, and being subject to invasive and radiation-filled body searches. Ann told me that I had to go to a special Transportation Safety Administration office that handled TSA Pre-screened.
I spent one hour walking around two levels of the SFO international terminal and talking to several people before I found a tiny office sandwiched in between Starbuck's and BART. A lady on duty told me that Elena would have to come to that office during normal working hours (9:00 AM-5:00 PM Monday through Friday to have her finger prints taken to get accepted into the TSA pre-screened program.
The people at CLEAR never told us this. It sounds to me like there is a big bureaucratic battle going on between the people at the CLEAR program and the TSA. The TSA people fear that the CLEAR program will put them out of business.
I explained all of this to Elena. She agreed to go to the TSA and be finger printed. She wondered why it was necessary to pay a fee to get the CLEAR card. I think that the CLEAR card started with the noble intention of speeding very trust-worthy travelers through the security process. The Transportation Safety Administration felt threatened and decided to put obstacles in the path of the CLEAR program.
#crime