Dave wrote:

The real answer is to stop planes taking off with terrorists on board not
shoot them when they try and hijack. To me sky marshals is a plan to fail.

But you've no security experience.

Let's look at some examples. Even in so basic a realm as home security,
nobody just puts alarms on windows and doors. They also do motion sensors,
panic buttons, and so on. Why would you think so? After all, the
perimeter security is supposed to stop (or more realistically: detect) an
intruder. So the internal security is a waste of time.

Except: nothing is perfect. Adding internal security to perimiter security
makes security system failure that much less likely, as two subsystems need
to fail before the entire system fails.

Computer security is the same: companies are finally awakening to the fact
that firewalls are necessary but insufficient. As with door and window
alarms, they provide but one layer of security; additional layers (ie. IDSs
on both machines and networks) significantly improve the likelyhood of
detecting/stopping an "incident".

Why should securing an aircraft be different? We don't want just one layer,
as we'd have basically handed a blank check to anyone that can get through
that single layer. Instead, we need multiple layers, up to and including
internal security.

Sky Marshals are not the only possible solution to Internal Security, but
they are one that's worked in the past (in El Al's experience).

Having return home from Florida today, I was appalled to see what the TSA
claims is heightened security.

The TSA at South West Florida Airport seems to be staffed with geriatrics
(seniors) who barely know what day it is let alone the job they are doing.
after a rather perfunctory pass through the security checkpoint that was
it - on to Atlanta and then onto London without another security check.
Pathetic!

Yes, well, you're not the only one with no security experience.

The US administration is treating its citizens like idiots, assuming that
we'd blindly believe that it's "doing what it can". It can "talk security"
all it likes; as long as it's cutting the budget for screeners and other
security personnel, there's no honesty behind those claims.

What really irks, though, is that plenty of people are buying into the
farce.

- Andrew