OK, what the hell has happened to the Brits?

Morgans wrote:
"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

Please explain how having an armed marshal aboard is a "weak
point". How do the terrorists get the weapon away from the marshal?

Picture two terrorists, one walking to the restroom and one walking
back from. They meet where the marshal is seated. One grabs the
guy around the throat while the other goes for the weapon.

How did the terrorists identify who the air marshal was?

Trivial:
A third terrorist just attacks the cockpit door or assaults a cabin crew
member and pretends to strangulate him with shoe laces or a belt. The one
person who jumps up, draws a gun, and arrests the assailant is the air
marshal.

jue

On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:02:21 GMT, "Jürgen Exner"
wrote:

A third terrorist just attacks the cockpit door or assaults a cabin crew
member and pretends to strangulate him with shoe laces or a belt. The one
person who jumps up, draws a gun, and arrests the assailant is the air
marshal.

Of course. Now, where are the rest of them (the FAMs, I mean)?

-J

Jack Davis
B-737


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Of course, for this to matter we have to assume that it is impossible (or at
least very difficult) to smuggle a weapon on board. I find myself
unwilling to make that assumption. If some kid could do it - and multiple
times at that - then why not a collection of savvy terrorists?


There are weapons, and then there are weapons. A half dozen guys with large
knives or small clubs is pretty formidable against a group of unarmed
passengers hampered by the width of the aisle on an airliner, but add one guard
(or passenger with a permit) and a handgun, and they are dead meat.

Don

--
Wm. Donald (Don) Tabor Jr., DDS
PP-ASEL
Chesapeake, VA - CPK, PVG

Andrew Gideon wrote:

Yes. They'd also need to identify the marshal amongst the passengers, as
you noted. However, relying upon these "secrets" is relying upon something
called "security through obscurity". It doesn't work in the long term.

It doesn't have to work in the long term. It has to work for the duration of
that flight.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

G.R. Patterson III wrote:



Andrew Gideon wrote:

Yes. They'd also need to identify the marshal amongst the passengers, as
you noted. However, relying upon these "secrets" is relying upon
something
called "security through obscurity". It doesn't work in the long term.

It doesn't have to work in the long term. It has to work for the duration
of that flight.

If there were no pattern to the marshals used, you'd be right. For example,
if we randomly selected a couple of police officers for each flight, the
chances of this information being abused would be relatively small.

If, however, there's a relatively small population of marshals, then even
the release of one identity can cause a problem.

But don't ignore the possibility that an entire class, or even the entire
population, will become known to some terrorist group. How many people
will have access to this information? How well vetted are they?

You'd think, for example, that we'd be sure about the people permitted to
speak to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Wups.

Does nobody remember Robert Hanssen?

Further to keep in mind is that we're not speaking only of TSA staffers.
We've "marshals" from other nations handling security as well. More, some
of these nations aren't taking this program terribly seriously.

How well secured are the identities of those "marshals"?

- Andrew