Airport Security is failing

[GostHacked]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/19/eveningnews/main6500349.shtml

Not one charge for terrorism. But there have been charges for drugs and other stuff.

Money well wasted.

[bush_cheney2004]

No one has been charged for shooting the American president either....money wasted on Secret Service?

[GostHacked]

No one has been charged for shooting the American president either....money wasted on Secret Service?

Who was charged with JFKs shooting?

And the guy who shot Reagen got off on the plea of insanity. So yeah waste of money.

IN the end Apples, oranges. Good try though. One is meant to keep the average citizen safe through invasive searches. The other is meant to protect the president from the average citizen.

[msj]

Who was charged with JFKs shooting?

And the guy who shot Reagen got off on the plea of insanity. So yeah waste of money.

IN the end Apples, oranges. Good try though. One is meant to keep the average citizen safe through invasive searches. The other is meant to protect the president from the average citizen.

Not apples to oranges at all: in both cases money is spent and it is hard to tell how efficiently and effectively it was spent.

Having airliners drop out of the sky, or not, may or may not be good evidence of the e/e of spending just like having presidents get shot, or not, may or may not be good evidence of the e/e of spending.

I think BC appreciates this difficulty whereas it appears that you have given it very little thought.

[guyser]

No one has been charged for shooting the American president either....money wasted on Secret Service?

Only between the years 2001 and 2009.

[msj]

Only between the years 2001 and 2009.

If ever there was a case for the effectiveness of the secret service, well, there it is.

Now, where is that sad emoticon?

Kidding, kidding (I think).

[GostHacked]

Not apples to oranges at all: in both cases money is spent and it is hard to tell how efficiently and effectively it was spent.

Having airliners drop out of the sky, or not, may or may not be good evidence of the e/e of spending just like having presidents get shot, or not, may or may not be good evidence of the e/e of spending.

I think BC appreciates this difficulty whereas it appears that you have given it very little thought.

Well ask yourself if you feel safer. Do all these pat downs and body scanners protect you from terrorism?

Here is a scenario, and this was in Canada, flight from Toronto to Ottawa.

This week a couple of my colleagues came to my distro center for a visit. One guy told me that the security person confiscated a screwdriver bit that was laying in his bag. It's been in there for about a year he suspects. From what I am told the security person went on a little power trip. We do travel with tools being PC techs. They only had carry on. No baggage to check.

[bush_cheney2004]

Well ask yourself if you feel safer. Do all these pat downs and body scanners protect you from terrorism?

There is no such thing as safer...just probability and statistics.

Here is a scenario, and this was in Canada, flight from Toronto to Ottawa.

Aren't Canadians allowed to drive cars?

[GostHacked]

There is no such thing as safer...just probability and statistics.

So the guy in the CBS video is right. It's all theater.

Aren't Canadians allowed to drive cars?

This is relevant how?

[bush_cheney2004]

So the guy in the CBS video is right. It's all theater.

Political "theater" is very popular with the voting public. For instance, Canada still has a Gun Registry, right?

This is relevant how?

Choice.

[GostHacked]

Political "theater" is very popular with the voting public. For instance, Canada still has a Gun Registry, right?

Then the voting public needs to understand that all this theater does not make them safer. It's just a play on people's emotions to get people into a certain line of thinking.

Choice.

Was not my choice to make. My colleagues flew here. I avoid flying if I can. When I go to Toronto, I drive down. I can't control what others do.

[guyser]

There is no such thing as safer...just probability and statistics.

And when the probability of airline collapse becomes reality then and only then will airlines demand something be done.

Pretty much everyone knows the idiots hired to do this important job are the last ones that should be.

[bush_cheney2004]

Then the voting public needs to understand that all this theater does not make them safer. It's just a play on people's emotions to get people into a certain line of thinking.

Yea...don't bring contraband or weapons on an airliner. It's gotten so bad my company bans handguns on the premises and my kid can't take his hunting knife to school. Damn!

Was not my choice to make. My colleagues flew here. I avoid flying if I can. When I go to Toronto, I drive down. I can't control what others do.

You missed the point entirely....it wasn't your choice...it was theirs.

[wyly]

Well ask yourself if you feel safer. Do all these pat downs and body scanners protect you from terrorism?

Here is a scenario, and this was in Canada, flight from Toronto to Ottawa.

This week a couple of my colleagues came to my distro center for a visit. One guy told me that the security person confiscated a screwdriver bit that was laying in his bag. It's been in there for about a year he suspects. From what I am told the security person went on a little power trip. We do travel with tools being PC techs. They only had carry on. No baggage to check.

I get some insight from a family member who is involved in airport security...you may think(I did as well) that security is on a power trip but they are extremely regulated and observed, any deviation from a strict protocol and they are reprimanded, a few reprimands and they're sent for retraining and if it happens too often, fired.

next time you're standing in line at security observe who is watching who (plus cameras) if you see someone standing around often beside/behind an agent you know they're being observed and the pressure is on, failing to do a pat down or a wand search in the proper strict format brings a reprimand, even chewing gum is an infringement that will bring a reprimand...as well they are deliberately set up with situations to test them...these agents have little leeway to use their own judgment...

[msj]

Pretty much everyone knows the idiots hired to do this important job are the last ones that should be.

Are we still talking about airport security or are we talking about Presidents?

[Shady]

It's time to profile.

[msj]

It's time to profile.

Oh, you're talking Presidents.

[guyser]

Are we still talking about airport security or are we talking about Presidents?

I guess we could be talking both, but include PM's and we are good to go.

[Handsome Rob]

Yea...don't bring contraband or weapons on an airliner. It's gotten so bad my company bans handguns on the premises and my kid can't take his hunting knife to school. Damn!

As somebody that goes through screening every working day (Non-passenger), I can tell you that they make incompetent look like a life-long dream. Stuff gets through what they do screen all the time, we play games with them. Start with one inanimate object, then two, then three, when we finally get caught it resets back to zero.

Couple years back, a pistol magazine full of bullets was found in the washroom right behind Transborder security, what a nightmare that is, all passengers come back, all luggage comes back, all aircraft bridges pulled, re-screening everybody in the sterile terminal.

Beyond that, their are hundreds of ways to defeat it:

-Catch a regional from a rural airport without security and connect, your baggage ramp transfers and isn't screened.

-Send it cargo, still isn't close to even marginal screening.

-Binary explosives, their is no defense against these besides EDT, which is far too time consuming to deploy beyond random checks.

-Get a job as a baggage handler, and get full access with your little card same day, even if you're a Somallian refugee whom they eventually decide, isn't supposed to have clearance.

-Body cavities, no reasonable defense against this.

-People have experimented with implantation, like the British "Breast Bombs."

List goes on and on...

Moral of the story, if somebody wants to do something bad on an airplane, and they do grade 10 level homework, they will and their is nothing we can do about it.

By far the biggest factor in post 9/11 security is the locking of the flight deck door.

And I still don't understand, if I'm going to area C, I can bring my coffee through door A but not door B, even though they both go to the same place. Whoever is sitting around dreaming this stuff up has an incompetence rate far and above the civil service bureaucracy.

Odds of death from:

Aerial Terrorism: 10,408,947 to 1

Fireworks Discharge: 615,488 to 1

Dog Attack: 147,717 to 1

Plane Crash: 135,000 to 1

Lightening: 83,930 to 1

Legal Execution: 58,618 to 1

Assault by Gun: 325 to 1

Motor Vehicle Crash: 100 to 1

Stroke: 23 to 1

Cancer: 7 to 1

Heart Disease 5 to 1

[Bonam]

Aerial Terrorism: 10,408,947 to 1

Fireworks Discharge: 615,488 to 1

Dog Attack: 147,717 to 1

Plane Crash: 135,000 to 1

Lightening: 83,930 to 1

Legal Execution: 58,618 to 1

Assault by Gun: 325 to 1

Motor Vehicle Crash: 100 to 1

Stroke: 23 to 1

Cancer: 7 to 1

Heart Disease 5 to 1

I dunno where you got these stats, but they are obviously wrong. 9/11 by itself, not including any other incidents of "aerial terrorism", led to the deaths of ~3000 people. That's 1 in 100,000 Americans. Even if you divide it by the world population, that's one in ~2,000,000 people. So your 10,408,947 number is completely bogus.

Going by the American number (100,000:1), that puts the chance of death due to aerial terrorism higher than what your list claims for death due to a plane crash. Considering how much money and effort is spent on airplane design, engineering, safety, inspection, and maintenance to reduce the possibility of plane crashes, it seems perfectly reasonable that a large effort would also be put into security to try to reduce the risks of terrorism, even if some of the methods employed are not necessarily too effective.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Bonam

[GostHacked]

Handsome Rob .. are you the brother of Ugly Bob (South Park) ??

But you put some good points out. Determined people will get through no matter what. To the most of us, blowing up the plane we are on is really counter productive.

A hell of a lot of security for something that is so far off the radar in terms of probability of being a victim of this type of terror attack.

It does seem to be a waste of time, money and manpower.

[GostHacked]

It's time to profile.

That is not going to work. Because the 9/11 hicjakers like Mohamed Atta were wearing dress pants and a collar button up shirt.

You'd be profiling EVERYONE who went through the airport.

[Bonam]

That is not going to work. Because the 9/11 hicjakers like Mohamed Atta were wearing dress pants and a collar button up shirt.

You'd be profiling EVERYONE who went through the airport.

I don't think he meant profiling them by their clothes.

[Handsome Rob]

I dunno where you got these stats, but they are obviously wrong. 9/11 by itself, not including any other incidents of "aerial terrorism", led to the deaths of ~3000 people. That's 1 in 100,000 Americans. Even if you divide it by the world population, that's one in ~2,000,000 people. So your 10,408,947 number is completely bogus.

Going by the American number (100,000:1), that puts the chance of death due to aerial terrorism higher than what your list claims for death due to a plane crash. Considering how much money and effort is spent on airplane design, engineering, safety, inspection, and maintenance to reduce the possibility of plane crashes, it seems perfectly reasonable that a large effort would also be put into security to try to reduce the risks of terrorism, even if some of the methods employed are not necessarily too effective.

Sorry, it's totally anecdotal. The odds came from googling, "Odds of death from;"

Exception being the air terror, which came from This. They're not accounting for people dying in falling buildings obviously, just the ones in the aluminum pipe in the sky.

[Bonam]

Sorry, it's totally anecdotal. The odds came from googling, "Odds of death from;"

Exception being the air terror, which came from This. They're not accounting for people dying in falling buildings obviously, just the ones in the aluminum pipe in the sky.

Casualties on the ground due are still part of the deaths caused by aerial terrorism and should not be neglected when estimating the risks posed by these types of terrorist acts or the potential value of mitigating these risks.