Flight restrictions in UK and elsewhere

[Chairboy]

Originally posted by Maverick
Ok here now we have something to discuss.

You want to allow liquids nail cutters etc. on the plane. Can you explain how that is going to help security here?

First, read my post immediately above this.  Second, I'm under as much obligation to explain why it would help security as you are to explain why you deserve first amendment rights.  There are some things in life that don't need an excuse.

[Maverick]

I read your post that you pointed out however it wasn't germain to the discussion I was trying to have with you. It didn't explain what you thought was adequate security.

Ok, so you aren't willing or able to have a discussion about your position. You should have just said that to begin with.

[bj229r]

So you're assuming a TSA employee can indentify a peroxide-based bomb in a bottle of baby milk? Machines can't even do that yet-- There are THOUSANDS of TSA employees...they need guidelines to go by, or there will be thousands of standards. (alas, NONE of which will be  "Muslims..YOUR line is over THERE.")

[Sandman]

From what I've read, acetone peroxide has a distinctive smell.

[Chairboy]

The real problem is that adult decision making has been replaced by rules and regulations.

[Maverick]

Making decisions, adult or otherwise, without consistency accross the board does not give the traveling public a stable, predictable situation. If you provide a chaotic range of choices all based on individual "adult decisions" you will have even more problems with the traveling public having objections to what is in reality a chaotic situation. It has to be equal all accross the board or you open up the entire system to complaints of favoritism, racial predjudice and so on. Some of those complaints will result in legal action with numerous suits. It has to be consistent accross the country and as equal for all as you can make it.

Rules and regulations that are the same make for less stress for those involved on both sides of the system. Kind of like traffic laws and regulations instead of relying on the operator to make an "adult decision" about which side of the road they will drive on and at what speed they decide.

[lazs2]

The only way to have a stable secure situation is to have a room where people disrobe and get cavity searched and then are issued jumpsuits and paper slippers before they get on the plane.   They could probly get the same company that makes prison jumpsuits to make em.

Anything less is an illusion of security so far as passengers are concerned.

When it comes to rockets fired at planes..... I suppose that we will have to have unwarrranted searches of homes within 50 miles of airports as a precaution.

lazs

[Chairboy]

Bruce Schneier said it well in his op-ed:

Hours-long waits in the security line. Ridiculous prohibitions on what you can carry onboard. Last week's foiling of a major terrorist plot and the subsequent airport security graphically illustrates the difference between effective security and security theater.

None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 -- no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews -- had anything to do with last week's arrests. And they wouldn't have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn't have made a difference, either.

Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot.

The new airplane security measures focus on that plot, because authorities believe they have not captured everyone involved. It's reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details -- much of the "explosive liquid" story doesn't hang together -- but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

But only temporarily. Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won't make us safer, either. It's not just that there are ways around the rules, it's that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It's easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it's shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we've wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we've wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets -- stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security -- and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don't work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It's not security, it's security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it'll catch the sloppy and the stupid -- and that's a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely -- but it won't catch a well-planned plot. We can't keep weapons out of prisons; we can't possibly keep them off airplanes.

The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror. Last week's arrests demonstrate how real security doesn't focus on possible terrorist tactics, but on the terrorists themselves. It's a victory for intelligence and investigation, and a dramatic demonstration of how investments in these areas pay off.

And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don't be terrorized. They terrorize more of us if they kill some of us, but the dead are beside the point. If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose -- even if their attacks succeed.

[Suave]

Originally posted by lazs2

When it comes to rockets fired at planes..... I suppose that we will have to have unwarrranted searches of homes within 50 miles of airports as a precaution.

lazs

It could easily come to that if the terrorists start shooting AA missiles at planes taking off from airports like they did in the 80's. There are missles with sonic triggers that are designed to terrorize airfields. So that they can be in unmanned and disguised positions. And terrorists have used them before. They've also used more primitive rpg's. I think both the instances I'm thinking of occured in Paris.

In that scenario it would be perfectly reasonable for the law enforcers to search the entire neighborhood. As long as it's reactive, and not a standard preventative proceedure.

[lazs2]

so you agree that warantless searches of entire neighborhoods would be a "perfectly reasonable" thing to do?

What about that inconvienient document called the constitution and the bill of rights?

lazs

[Suave]

Well laz they would be searching for people who are at war with my country, shooting missiles out of my neighborhood. This is warfare in the very literal sense, not the polical buzzward BS. Not only would I condone it, I'd probably try to weasel in on some of the action.

[Suave]

Besides I would consider anti aircraft artillery being fired from my vicinity probable cause, lol.

[Chairboy]

So all that's needed to bypass the constitution is to say that someone is at war with your country?  I'm not certain I agree with that.

[lukster]

Originally posted by Chairboy
So all that's needed to bypass the constitution is to say that someone is at war with your country?  I'm not certain I agree with that.

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.

[indy007]

Originally posted by bj229r
So you're assuming a TSA employee can indentify a peroxide-based bomb in a bottle of baby milk? Machines can't even do that yet-- There are THOUSANDS of TSA employees...they need guidelines to go by, or there will be thousands of standards. (alas, NONE of which will be  "Muslims..YOUR line is over THERE.")

Even if you put in a Muslim line... what happens if they simply don't claim to be a Muslim? A lie to an infidel is not a lie.