Letters to the Editor
-
Problem is lack of informed consent
As anyone who does research on human beings knows, you have to get informed consent if you are subjecting someone to a risk. And when I say "risk", I mean things like having your feelings hurt. In this case, JetBlue was clearly subjecting their passengers to a risk, however small. They were unwitting participants in a study that could result in their deaths.
There is no way that JetBlue and the FAA could argue that there wasn't a risk. If they were 100% certain that the pilots would perform just as well as they do under ordinary conditions, there would be no point in conducting a study on the topic.
Apparently the FAA has different regulatory standards the the National Institutes of Health. (Do they have ANY standards for research at all?) The NIH would never have approved this study in a million years. They would have demanded that the airline get consent from every single passenger on the plane, and put the non-consenting passengers on a different flight.
I hope that JetBlue is severely punished for this lack of good faith in the market. The FAA should reconsider how it does research.
-
nothing will change....
...nothing will change until and unless there is a change in the government. This is not about reasonable safety and precautions. It is of a piece with the color-code danger scheme, and the anthrax panic. It goes along with the messages on the highway message board to report suspicious activity. It is about instilling fear. All of this was foreseeable. The famously paranoid novelist Philip K. Dick had it down to a T forty years ago. Then, it was science fiction. Now, it is daily life.
-
It's not about security
We think the TSA is supposed to be about security. After all, it's in the name. They were established after four planes were hijacked and used as massive suicide bombs. It would be nice to avoid that in the future.
But here's the deal... who works for the TSA? Work-a-day joes who spend the whole day on their feet hassling strangers for a living. They're given a set of rules. Rules that may or may not match the information available on the TSA or airline websites. They have a high investment in ticking off the items on their rule list.
The problem is, every hijacking is a plot. Act normal. Do something surprising. So, in order to be more secure, we have to be clever, and that's an entirely different thing from checking off a list of rules.
There are three established methods:
- Scare the pilots into doing something you want by threatening to hurt crew or passengers.
- Physically take over the plane by harming crew and/or passengers and fly the plane yourself.
- Blow up the plane.
Do the TSA rules prevent any of these? No. Do they deter any of them? No. What they do is shame and isolate individuals. They contribute to the bankruptcy of US airlines by making the flying experience so bad that people will only fly if it's cheap.
Hmm... shaming and isolating individuals, claiming you're doing something that's good for the individual while your actions accomplish something else, acting on a set of rules that only you know and which change from day to day and hour to hour... if this was a person, we'd be dealing with an alcoholic. As it is, we're dealing with a power-drunk, bullying, government division.
How did we get here?
-
Patrick, you are a treasure!
I used to have a horrid fear of flying yet I've flown more than most passengers, way before and after 9/11. I try to take late Sat PM flights when the TSA is less on guard. I also was both a psychologist and lived in the mideast, so it astounds me when the checkers never look at faces. I've caught a Hamas cell, in the air, one on the ground. I watch everyone, sometimes directly other times: cursorily. 99% of the people are totally readable and no trouble. I think we all need to be watching our fellow passengers, like the time at LGA I found a lone man, cold eyes stared at me before going back to reading "How to Build a Bomb"--post 9/11. Probably he was just a rebel. But I reported him.
Next: a question. We all know that we can put anything into our sent bags, which are not checked for anything is my guess. So why don't we all put our zipper bags into the large bag that is flying under us, not with us. Sure, for a ten hour flight that isn't possible but for a three-five hour flight I can leave scissors, tweasers, shampoos etc in the big bag I don't carry on, and surprised others on relatively short flights don't.
Now a comment on JetBlue which I used to hate. Sure, what they did was minor, if not right. But, my new admiration for them is the amount of FEMALE pilots, young ones too, who are pilots. Last week, I flew from NYC to FLL and both gals at the wheels, (I always talk to the pilots) were (adorable) women in their early thirties. I knew from experience that women fly more carefully or so it seems. With two women pilots we had zero turbulence, I mean not even a minor bump or anything rattling while ascending or descending. I hugged both after and whispered: "We are better at THIS TOO" to smiles all around. However, the pilots did not identify themselves and when I told my friend this fact the people around me got panicky, "two young women?" So they were not being forthright, nor did they need to be, but ironic that men, big and burly around me were scared of two young women pilots.
I ramble but my essential point is the query: what sense does security make if there are only ramdom, if that, checks on the bags underneath us passengers.
Thanks Patrick. I loved yr book and yr column. Since I don't read it all the time, no doubt I've missed the answer to above, and maybe the next poster can respond. Thanks for all your stories and your savvy.