Airport scanners a waste of money

[Smallc]

http://www.catsa-acsta.gc.ca/File/Library/9/English/Annual%20Report%202009.pdf

Page 62.

That's a 2009 article. This happened in 2010. It's the reason for the security fee increase. CATSA is now to be self sufficient. It was a way to eliminate the deficit.

[Smallc]

When Transport Canada's site is working again, this link will show that:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/mediaroom/releases-2010-h025e-5847.htm

[Handsome Rob]

That's a 2009 article. This happened in 2010. It's the reason for the security fee increase. CATSA is now to be self sufficient. It was a way to eliminate the deficit.

http://pr-canada.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=183528&Itemid=59

In addition, the Government of Canada announced new measures to bolster Canada's aviation system including the introduction of new full body scanners, strengthening explosive trace detection, announcing its intention to develop a passenger behaviour observation program, and new funding to enhance aviation security in Budget 2010.

You will find that capital funding was supposed to have been cut-off:

http://www.catsa-acsta.gc.ca/File/Library/16/English/amendment_2007-08_2011-12.pdf

At this point, there is no funding allocated to capital spending beyond 2008/2009 (in 2008/09 the capital forecast is comprised of only the $43.4 million re-profiled from 2007/08) CATSA will not proceed with any capital expansion projected until they are funded.

However the above PR and acquisition of full-body scanners completely through that out the window. I don't believe for one second that CATSA will ever be independent of government funding.

Edited April 25, 2010 by Handsome Rob

[Shady]

I'm sick of the same people who forbid any type of profiling, complaining about wasting money for scanners. You reap what you sow.

Profiling, as Israel has proved, is by far the most effective way of dealing with possible threats. We could save hundreds of millions of dollars and be much safer if we looked for bombers instead of bombs. I know several of you are busy defending Islam aka the hornets nest in other threads. But 99.9% of airport security threats come from a certain area of the world, a certain religion, and a certain type of person. But why let logic and reason enter the debate?

[Smallc]

EDIT: Right there on your own link:

My mistake.

[Smallc]

I'm sick of the same people who forbid any type of profiling, complaining about wasting money for scanners. You reap what you sow.

Profiling, as Israel has proved, is by far the most effective way of dealing with possible threats.

I've heard it said many times by security experts that our airports are too large and too numerous for that to work.

[Handsome Rob]

My mistake.

We're both wrong. You're right, they're trying to offset the cost, I'm right, they won't be able to. The capital funding will never end, nor will CATSA's as of now, 234.4 million. The operating contribution is peanuts for what they do though, the capital costs are not.

[Wilber]

Things like profiling & the further use of trained dogs will do far more to secure aviation than any technology, but our cultural & human rights barriers will never allow it.

I agree that technology with regard to physically checking passengers can only be part of the system but technology in general will always be an important part of any security system. Intelligence organizations use lots of technology, in fact it would be very difficult to do profiling without it.

I think dogs are a great idea but good drug and explosive dogs are in very limited supply and quite expensive. You just can't build them as you need them. A friend of ours is a dog handler for one of the municipal police departments. It put out fifteen grand for a young lab to finish training as an explosives dog. Dogs are used in airport customs halls all the time to look for drugs and restricted agricultural products. Occasionally they are also used to physically check spaces in the aircraft. If you preclear US customs at YVR there is a very good chance a little black lab will be checking you out before you even go through passenger screening.

[bush_cheney2004]

I think dogs are a great idea but good drug and explosive dogs are in very limited supply and quite expensive. You just can't build them as you need them.....

Agreed....I have seen well trained drug and explosives K-9s work a site or crowd efficiently with good handlers. I have also seen less expensive "decoy" dogs used to expose perp profile (e.g. avoidance) behaviours, mostly in the military.

As for checked baggage threat detection, I was impressed in late 2005 by the efficacy of procedures and scanners to find and inspect some custom electrical devices and batteries I had packed in my luggage. There was a polite note inside the baggage reporting the inspection.

[Handsome Rob]

As for checked baggage threat detection, I was impressed in late 2005 by the efficacy of procedures and scanners to find and inspect some custom electrical devices and batteries I had packed in my luggage. There was a polite note inside the baggage reporting the inspection.

They use tomography, a CT scanner. It 'slices' the bag into sections, the scan takes seconds. They've spent hundreds of billions on this, theoretically every single piece of luggage is supposed to go through screening, and they seem to operate close to perfect.

IMHO money well spent, the equipment has many uses from finding smuggled goods & drugs to things like large quantities of money. The usage needs to be broadened across law enforcement and customs bureaus though, it's too thin. Very efficient system though.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Let's be honest, airport security is is nothing more than a multi-million dollar attempt to not offend Muslims.

Here's a brain teaser: would it make a lot more sense to stop looking for bombs and start looking for bombers?

Last time I went to the US the security guy spent 30 excruciating seconds examining the miniscule detail of my passport. Didn't even look at me once.

Why pour over the possibility of fake documents when we're busy giving real ones to millions of undocumented every year anyway?

If we put a copy of the Koran at every security check point and showed it to people, asking them: "would you do anything to defend what's in this book?" we'd stop 99.9% of the problem. Maybe - but then again radical Islamics are cowardly fighters who won't put on a uniform so you never know. The point is, religion is a good starting point for screening.

Why pat down granny Smith when everyone on the planet knows who we should be looking at.

I always get a kick out of the whole charade at the airport, especially when I get to watch some guy in a turban naqmed Mohammed give the extra side bar shoe-removal routine to some elderly guy named John Smith.

It never ceases to amaze me the degree with which our society will contort, inconvenience and lie to itself in the name of multi-culti political correctness.

Edited April 25, 2010 by JerrySeinfeld

[Handsome Rob]

Let's be honest, airport security is is nothing more than a multi-million dollar attempt to not offend Muslims.

In that sense, Ann Coulter is right. If somebody tried forming an airline that banned muslims from traveling, they'd have to turn away money when they put out the IPO.

[Smallc]

Why pat down granny Smith when everyone on the planet knows who we should be looking at.

Because then, the terrorists will start finding ways to use granny Smith (Are we talking about an apple?). It's not a simple as profiling and being done with it.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Because then, the terrorists will start finding ways to use granny Smith (Are we talking about an apple?). It's not a simple as profiling and being done with it.

No it's not as simple as that, but in a world uncontaminated by political correctness, that would be the logical starting point.

We are the only society so self-hating that when a group of Muslims attacks us, the first thing we do is visit a mosque,apologize to Muslims and bend over backwards to make sure we never suspect Muslims of doing anyone any harm.

Can you imagine if, during the second world war, a boatload of germans showed up on the shores of Dover and were greeted by a 23- year old government employee with a metal detector handing out citizenship guides and never once asking if any of them are Nazis? That's pretty much whats happening today.

The war on terrorism will not be won solely on the battlefield of Afghanistan or Iraq. It is also a battle of wills. We need to throttle their ideology as much as we need to blow up their camps, and that's not possible if we're busy apologizing for insulting said ideology. If you were a Muslim, who would you rather side with, the strong, confident culture of the old country? Or the shrivelled weak apologetic wimpering apologetic vacuum state of the west's elite left wing thinkers? No wonder british subjects are blowing up the tube.

Edited April 25, 2010 by JerrySeinfeld

[Wilber]

Let's be honest, airport security is is nothing more than a multi-million dollar attempt to not offend Muslims.

Except that airport security came into being long before Muslim extremism was an issue.

[Handsome Rob]

Except that airport security came into being long before Muslim extremism was an issue.

Come on...that's a stretch. Today's level of security? Both the TSA & CATSA were directly formulated as a result of 9/11?

Not advocating for Islamophobia, in fact I have muslim friends, well, smiley muslims, but that correlation is plain as day. Now we're tip-toeing, for fear of overstepping.

[bush_cheney2004]

Come on...that's a stretch. Today's level of security? Both the TSA & CATSA were directly formulated as a result of 9/11?

Airport / airlineer security goes way back to at least the 1970's. Boeing 727's used to disembark passengers with an aft stairway...it was totally cool. Then DB Cooper ruined all the fun.

http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/features/2000/20000915/security.shtml

[Handsome Rob]

Airport / airlineer security goes way back to at least the 1970's. Boeing 727's used to disembark passengers with an aft stairway...it was totally cool. Then DB Cooper ruined all the fun.

http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/features/2000/20000915/security.shtml

Yeah...but then they built the cooper vane, they even named it after him. But I meant that in the sense of what it has morphed into in the last decade, we've gone far beyond the simple gateway metal detector and wanding.

That being said, one could make a pretty strong argument that original airport security was the result of things like entebee? Can't spell that right.

[bush_cheney2004]

...That being said, one could make a pretty strong argument that original airport security was the result of things like entebee? Can't spell that right.

Right.....for some crazy ass reason, airliners get all the attention, especially when they crash or blow up.

[Wilber]

It's true that the threats have changed over the years but why wouldn't they, everything else has.

Between 1948 and 1957, there were 15 hijackings all over the world, an average of a little more than one per annum. Between 1958 and 1967, this climbed to 48—an annual average of about five. There was an explosive increase to 38 in 1968 and 82 in 1969, the largest number in a single year in the history of civil aviation. During the third 10-year period between 1968 and 1977, there were 414 hijackings—an annual average of 41.

Wiki

Other terrorist groups such as the Red Army Faction and the IRA have also presented threats to airlines over the years. Individual acts for personal reasons or profit have also destroyed aircraft. In 1965 a Canadian Pacific Airlines DC6 was brought down by what is believed to be a bomb near 100 Mile House in BC.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Let's face it, with the lineups now at most airports for "security", some Al Qaida whackjob could do just as much damage standing in line for security as he cuold on the plane.

[Handsome Rob]

Let's face it, with the lineups now at most airports for "security", some Al Qaida whackjob could do just as much damage standing in line for security as he cuold on the plane.

I think Timothy McVeigh pretty much proved you don't need an airplane.

The problem is confidence. The media sensationalises, public gets scared, government has to 'appear' to be doing something. There need not be any threat at all, but if the public perceives one, confidence is lost and the airlines suffer with there usual effect on economics.

If everybody came to the realisation that you're far more likely to get eaten by a shark than fall victim to violence in the air, the security measures would be minuscule. But instead we get news reports like this:

Emirates flight suffers air pocket fall, plunges 15,000 feet....

But really only 200 feet if the body of the article is read. Thus we get public fear.

[Wilber]

Let's face it, with the lineups now at most airports for "security", some Al Qaida whackjob could do just as much damage standing in line for security as he cuold on the plane.

Terrorists already have, at Lod (now Ben Gurion) in 1972 as well as Rome and Vienna in 1985. Of course police carrying automatic weapons are now a regular sight in many European airports.