Flight restrictions in UK and elsewhere

[Chairboy]

Originally posted by lukster
It's certainly nothing new. Lincoln may have been the worst violator of our constitution. I don't like it much either. Maybe it's time to get the government out of the business of protecting our transportation.

It is with a sour taste in my mouth and a churning, ulcer-like feeling in my stomach that I find myself agreeing with lukster.

[lukster]

Originally posted by Chairboy
It is with a sour taste in my mouth and a churning, ulcer-like feeling in my stomach that I find myself agreeing with lukster.

It'll get easier.

[CAV]

Let the security folks use their best judgement    That's RIGHT, I'm advocating doing LESS.

You would not like that. I know at my airport the first thing me and my follow TSA screeners would do is .... Ban carry-on bags. They are the reason you have long lines at the checkpoint. And you would not beleave the things we see in the carry-on bags.

CAVALRY

[Maverick]

Cav,

You don't understand. The screeners are to use their best judgement as long as it agrees with and doesn't inconvenience  Chairboy as well as a few others.

[Chairboy]

Maverick, with respect, I think it's possible that I have a higher regard for the folks who do the tough job of balancing security and convenience than you do.  When I travel, I make a point of thanking the TSA folks for their hard work after I've completed the checkpoint because it's an otherwise thankless task that puts them in the firing line from annoyed travelers every day.

You're free to assume that I'm one of the rude folks that bitches incessantly about how "I'm going to miss my flight" and so on, but that's just not accurate.  I travel with a book and plan accordingly.  Change what you can, accept what you can't, and you'll live a lot longer.

[Maverick]

Chaiboy,

Kudos to you for planning ahead for the security situation. I also got there well ahead of time but my flying days are about over since I take my house with me wherever I go. Unless I go overseas again I doubt I'll fly commercial at all.

I have been arguing as I have simply because I have been in the position of working security at an installation and had to do the searches. Hell you can't go into the Police Station anymore without being searched. Having had a desk officer shot by a person just walking in made that change. A grenade thrown at the front of the station ended up changing the architecture of the building as well. A lot of glass went away and what is left is the resistant type.

What I have found is that the public can tollerate a consistent policy of security but if you have changes in it every place you go or every time you go to the same place it really cranks up the irritability factor.

I really dislike the need for the security we have but I don't blame the govt., TSA, or even the airport. I blame the folks who decided that aircraft and passengers are just another tool to use to make their political (or religious) statements.

[lazs2]

so suave... you see no potential for abuse in warrantless searches of homes?

Also... what would need to happen to trigger such a move by the government that you would approve of?

Would missles have to have been fired or....  would it be good enough for you if the government told you that they had uncovered a plot to launch em... or... maybe just the possibility?

The possibility exists now.   Do you believe that your government is shirking its duty by not doing warrentless house to house searches at this very moment?

To me.. a warrant would entail reasonable cause and.... would be specific as to what was being serched for....  At least in my country... for instance... if they were searching for a rocket launcher and found an unregestered firearm or bag of pot in a small box.. they would have to ignore it.

I have no idea how it works in your country but we have an amendment that covers such things.

lazs

[RedTop]

Do some of you that I read here , consider this security stuff a violation of your constitutinal rights?

If the airline just did it on thier own instead of government mandating it , would you still think it?

Seems from what I am reading here , and correct me please (i know you will) but....

If I own a company and provide a service , and have certain rules you must follow to use that service , then I am within my right as owner of that company to make you or simply not let you use that service.

Is this right?

If so , then why is this all such a big deal? You feel violated or something? SO what if you can't bring water on the plane. They're gonna give ya some when ya take off.

Just seems like a bunch of whinning over "I can't have my way and it's all about me and screw the rest"

Maybe I'm just to easy.

[Maverick]

Laz,

Items of they type you mentioned (not the firearm, unless it was the area a convicted felon occupied) that are discovered in the process of serving a valid search warrant are not ignored. They were discovered ancillary to the original warrant search and are still illegal items. The warrant may then be expanded by contacting the judge and explaining the circumstances and having an ammendment issued to the original warrant based on new or additional reasonable suspician of further illegal activities based on the found items.

[Chairboy]

Bruce Schneier wrote an other insightful piece on the current situation that is much more eloquent than me:

Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.

But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.

[Chairboy]

In earlier posts here, I've advocated getting away from specific lists (like "don't allow liquids") because I said that it creates a false sense of security and focuses attention on a very small area and takes attention away from evaluating the larger situation.

Some folks here have argued with me that the "list of forbidden items" is great, and that I'm some sort of pinko commie for suggesting that we train security personel to use critical thinking.  Well, that's a slight paraphrase, but essentially the case.

Here's a recent news story that demonstrates the danger of the focused, tunnel vision approach that the current "list of forbidden items" creates:

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=18380

This gentleman was able to transport and assemble C4 bombs despite the upgraded security following the liquid bomb threat.

His recommendations are not "expand the list of forbidden items", it's almost word for word what I've been saying.

[lazs2]

mnav... that simply makes it worse... under the guise of looking for missle launchers the government could just about search any house they wanted to and cause as much grief and damage as they liked.

This is not the kind of America I want to live in.

lazs