The Stupidity of Airport Security

[uncommon]

Particularly as it applies to pilots - why the fuck are these people flying the planes if we can't trust them not to purposely kill us?

I have to say I am slightly on the right when it comes to airport security - implement some damn FBI style profiling and stop feeling up Grandma already.

[sally cat]

1. The Israeli methods keep being mentioned. How do they differ from security theater?

[kctim]

3. They profile.

[leveymg]

10. So do we. TSA just calls it Behavior Detection.

They even have a specialty for Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs).

[kctim]

13. No comparison

What we do is a limited joke. No where near as effective.

[leveymg]

14. What, exactly, do the the Israelis do differently? And, how are they more effective?

Has there been a commercial air hijacking during the nine years in either country?

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. The Israelis interview each person

They check papers, they do a quick profile, they check where you've travelled. And on and on and on...

They also use k-9 teams, check all luggage by hand...have multiple layeers, most transparent to the user...and they said no to the machines and extensive putdowns as they deemed them useless.

Their methods are incredibly personnel intensive in ways that would astound Americans.

[leveymg]

23. Their methods are also incredibly intrusive. They make CBP seem like hostesses, by comparison

No thank you. I'll take the technological approach. Apparently, they both work.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Actually there is a reason why several countries

Have said NO to the technology.

In fact, it doesn't work.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. Their competent

While the TSA is a ragtag army of authoritarian losers and the otherwise unemployable,

[hedgehog]

17. That's a pretty broad brush you're using there.

Got any data to back that up?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

18. 80,000+ miles flown this year

I have encountered airport security in just about every country with a functioning government, America alone delegates this role to abusive mouth breathers recruited from the trailer park or ghetto.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Not quite, but go on

[arbusto_baboso]

2. American airport security is worthless.

It is entirely "reactive", and responds perfectly to the *last* threat to our safety, but possesses absolutely no imagination, or any ability to proactively pursue current and future threats.

That's the scary bit: any potential terrorists/hijackers are far more intelligent and imaginative than the security personnel who are supposed to stop them.

[liberal N proud]

4. BINGO!

These are the ones in control, they don't need weapons, they drive one if they wanted to use it that way.

Pilots should automatically pass right on by the screening.

The profiling is the best way to go about the entire security vs walking through stripping off your shoes, belts, jackets and pulling out your PC for a walk through or pat down. Simply have some trained people walking through the checkpoint line asking simple questions, small talk to determine the intentions of the traveler.

On a recent international trip, I was subjected to no less than 12 security checks the last one was in Chicago where the TSA agent was simply walking and talking to everyone. He asked questions about where you were headed and how your day was and made small talk about travel and your destination. All made so much more sense than the next step of taking everything out including your 3 oz of shit in a qt baggie so they can see what brand of deodorant you are using.

Light-bulb flashed in my head, why not just do that and subject those who appear suspicious or nervous when the agent talks to them to additional security.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. can you say, "4th Amendment?"

the whole meme and framing is ridiculous. Our nation lost a lot more than 3000 lives on 9/11. We lost our soul. And our freedoms.

[Angry Dragon]

12. The terrorists won

Now all we have to do is determine if the terrorists
are outside or if they are really the people that we elect
and the ones that serve them

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. no question.

and they did it on the cheap. some airline tix, box cutters, and voila, they changed our nation.

And still we spend a brazillion (gazilion?) dollars on cold war-based arms, jets, self guided missile shells. . . . which does nothing to enhance our security. unless the bottom line of our military industrial complex is our national security.

[uncommon]

19. Oh I agree with you. I think our increased security measures only

make the terrorists happy. Hell, the "Underwear Bomber" made it through security.

I think giving up some freedom for a false sense of security is the beginning of the end of ALL freedom.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

20. can't say we were not warned. we were.

even those four founding fodders of ours had something to say about it. not to mention, my personal hero, Ben Franklin.

Hell, even some contemporary congresscritters raised a flag, only to be hushed and attacked by both D & R leaders.

[grasswire]

6. another question

what is to stop someone from using a private plane as a weapon? Are pilots and passengers in private planes screened?

[sharp_stick]

9. Nope, I once was lucky enough to

fly on the corporate jet that we used to have. This was in 2006, drove right up to the hanger and walked onto the plane.

[sharp_stick]

8. And in the meantime

the guy that's mopping the floors in the john has entered through the back door after undergoing no security screen and a cursory, if any at all, background check.

Want to circumvent "US security" at airports. Get a menial job behind security as a contractor janitor, have someone that will be flying go through the circus that is TSA security cleanly and then have him pick up a "package" that you dropped in the trash in the bathroom you just cleaned.

[KansDem]

11. "..why the fuck are these people flying the planes if we can't trust them not to purposely kill us?"

Ahhhh...ummmmm...well...lessee....errrrrr.........

[immoderate]

15. !

--imm