Letters to the Editor
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Is Cargo/Freight Screened?
I was under the impression that only some checked baggage was screened for bombs etc. and that cargo and freight carried on commercial airliners was virtually NEVER checked.
Why are the terrorists focusing on smuggling dangerous materials into the cabin?
I would have thought it would be relatively easy to down any commercial flight by exploiting the huge gaps in security described above.
I can't believe they haven't thought about it otherwise I wouldn't have posted this letter!
Ha Ha!
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Knives vs. liquid explosives.
Knives, corkscrews, box cutters, and the like are only effective as weapons on planes against people who are unwilling to defend themselves. Pre-9/11, it made sense to comply with the demands of the terrorist weilding a knife, because the total harm was thought to be extra gas consumption and lost time. Terrorists weren't trying to blow up anything. They were trying to get somewhere that the plane wasn't scheduled to go. Post-9/11, no one is going to divert a plane under threat of box cutter. Thus, it is silly to focus any kind of effort on preventing small sharp objects from making it on to planes.
Explosives, on the other hand, prevent a different hazard. At least potentially. While I agree that airport security is generally so pourous as to render the stepped-up efforts with regard to footwear and shampoo bottles absurd, I disagree that the effort is comparable to taking away knitting needles and nail scissors. If it were practical to screen out explosive substances--including otherwise benign liquids that can be combined to form explosives--on planes, I would find it worthwhile to do so. It is only because airport security personnel cannot, as a practical matter, find the explosives that I would condemn the stepped-up screening as unnecessary.
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Poor Airlines.
You have to feel for the airlines who're just getting traffic levels back to pre-9-11 levels. As long as I can't carry on my laptop I won't be flying. I'd much prefer the rather rare danger of getting blown up to the indignity of airport security.
Q
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This is Ridiculous
Damn, and I had almost saved up for that trip to London. As long as I am not "allowed" to carry any of the devices and items I need during my flight in order to not go crazy from fear, I won't be going there or anywhere in the skies. TSA can take their plastic transparent purses and stick them you-know-where. I don't need an airport and plane full of people knowing that I am having my period or am on certain medications.
Personally, I believe racial profiling is the answer. The terrorist is not the 60 year old woman with her anti-aging face creams. If my rights and privacy can be invaded to the extent that they have been all in the name of national security, surely theirs can be too. Take one for the team like all the rest of us. I recognize what an ugly sentiment this is, but there are not many more places for this to go.
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Great article
Thank you, Mr. Smith, for a fantastically sane and well-reasoned article. Why is it that we are obsessed with locking the barn doors after the horses have escaped? Every "increase in security" at airports has focused on preventing the crime that has just been committed: boxcutters, shoes, now liquid explosives. And yet, those pesky terrorists insist on not trying the same trick over and over again in rapid succession. The nerve!
As a nation, we continue to act as though a state of perfect and permanent safety is attainable if we just find just the right combination of airport security screening and abolishment of civil liberties. I find this notion absurd -- the world is not safe, and it never will be, no matter what we do. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something or trying to win an election.
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Thank
Well said. I'm glad you took the time to make this so very clear. Unfortunately, I think the current administration *wants* widespread mindless panic and has no interest in a healthy transportation economy.
Yours,
Di
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They might as well treat passengers as baggage
Why not give every passenger a nice dose of Demerol at the gate? Those traveling between the U.S. and U.K. aren't allowed to carry on anything but their ID, cash, and a few Kleenex. That means no books, no iPod, not even a wristwatch. If you can't read or otherwise distract yourself on a 6 hour flight - if you're not even allowed to know what time it is - why not just be blissfully unconscious?
I can think of any number of advantages for airlines and passengers alike. Any terrorists on the flight would be knocked out, sleeping passengers don't need meal service, and you could probably fit quite a few more of them on a plane with the right configuration of bunk beds!
Of course, de-planing would be a lot slower, and the arrivals lounge would look like a hospital recovery room. OK, not a perfect solution...
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Afraid of Terroists? Be more afraid of mechnical failure dur to poor maintance
While the government and public obsesses over the tiny chance that any given flight is a terroists target, the very real threat of improperly maintained airplines is completely overlooked. To date most planes have crashed not due to terroists, but rather due to human error and improper maintance. The FAA has allowed domastic carriers to have their planes serviced in foreign venues, far away from their watchful eye all in the name of saving a few bucks. Currently the overstretched FAA, suffering under large budget cuts is poised to turnover much of their inspection work to third party companies on the payroll of the airlines themselves. On top of that the FAA plans to allow airlines to self-moniter not only maintance but also approve their own designs. Their have already been numerous instances of the airlines refusing to ground and replair planes that were known to be in serious violation of safty rules, going so far as even to continue to fly a large commercial jet with a failing runner for dozens of flights, until the rudder actually failed!
You would think that the airlines would have a huge financial incentive to play it safe and error on the side of caution rather then playing Russian Roulette with their livelyhood, but saddly the evidence suggests otherwise. With the finacially strapped carriers, flying a fleet of aging planes - many already past their expected service life, soon to be completely in charge of their over saftey and maintance standards it is only a matter of time before planes begin to crash at a much higher rate due to poor maintance. The current issure of "Mother Jones" has an excellent article on this looming problem.