Screwdrivered Security (a little long)

On 2004-02-08, Jeffrey Voight wrote:
There are those that would tell you that the solution to terrorism isn't
to treat the symptoms (shoebombers and boxcutters) but to treat the
disease itself. Rather than harden the cabin and examine every bag,
they would tell you, we should change our foreign policy in order to
stop being such a target.

Easy! Convert to Islam and put our army under Osama the would be Caliph!

Gee, why didn't I think of that?

"Morgans" wrote in message ...
"Big John" wrote
Have stewardesses run through a routine on terrorists in cabin prior
to each takeoff like they do with the rest of the emergency
procedures.

Hmmmm.

I flew a couple weeks ago, and Continental has no such announced terrorist
routine.

Yes, that was 'BJ's' point

Or was that hypothetical?

Yes, hypothetical, but IMO BJ is absolutely right. The only
flaw in the 'terrorist-proof cockpit door' suggestion is the
Egyptair scenario: how do you defense against a pilot who
goes berserk, if there are two? "Have three" solves the problem
but at an added expense for personnel the airlines would never
go for.

Cheers,
Sydney

On 8 Feb 2004 14:41:05 GMT, Doug Carter wrote:
There are those that would tell you that the solution to terrorism isn't
to treat the symptoms (shoebombers and boxcutters) but to treat the
disease itself. Rather than harden the cabin and examine every bag,
they would tell you, we should change our foreign policy in order to
stop being such a target.

Easy! Convert to Islam and put our army under Osama the would be Caliph!

Gee, why didn't I think of that?

Because you can only paint black and white.

#m

--
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990509

On 2004-02-08, Martin Hotze wrote:
... we should change our foreign policy in order to
stop being such a target.

Easy! Convert to Islam and put our army under Osama the would be Caliph!
Gee, why didn't I think of that?

Because you can only paint black and white.

For an exercise in thinking in shades of gray try "Jihad Against Jews
and Crusaders" World Islamic Front Statement, 23 February 1998.

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 14:53:27 -0500, Tom Fleischman
wrote:

In article , Nathan Young
wrote:


It is irritating that there isn't an option to mail your stuff back
home at the airport. It is so easy to be in a rush on the way to the
airport and to forget to take something out of your pockets or laptop
bag. At ORD, they are collecting 100s if not 1000s of items a day
from passengers. Wonder what happens to them? Maybe the TSA workers
get a nice pocketknife collection.

Along with my nice digital camera which was stolen out of my checked
luggage on a flight from LAX to EWR last year. I didn't even mind
losing the camera that much, but losing the priceless photos it
contained really burned me. It had to taken by either the TSA or by
the airline baggage handlers. I suspect the TSA because it had to have
shown up on the xray. They won't let you lock your luggage, and there
is no way to prove that anything has been stolen. That's the last time
I put anything of value in a checked bag. From now on I will FedEx
anything of value ahead before I leave.

Man - that really sucks. Sorry to hear it.

-Nathan

There's a problem with your theory.

As a nation of power, we will always have enemies. We had enemies before
9/11. Not all of our enemies care about our alliance with Israel, or any
other foriegn policy. Some of the enemies were born in this country. As
soon as we express a policy position, whether it is generally popular or
not, it is likely that someone will have an opposing position. And if they
are passionate enough, they will fight to the death to protect their
position.

Frankly, I think that the most practical alternative is to accept the fact
that some innocent people will be killed by terrorists every year, just as
some innocent people are killed by car accidents, and random gang
shootings, and cancer, and a thousand other things. It's an unfortunate,
harsh reality.

That's not to say that we eliminate all security. But the reality is that
by making a spectacle of all of the terrorism, by eliminating freedoms of
our people to create the facade of security, we only serve to fuel their
fire, and show them that they do have power and control - that their terror
attacks work.

Quite frankly, I think a better response by the US would have been an
increase in support for Israel as a result of the terrorist attacks, and a
demand that our allies take a stand as well - either with us or against us.
I don't say this because I am an Israel supporter myself (which I am). I
say this because of the reality of the situation - the "Islamic" Terrorist
Organizations currently hide in the forest of the Arab Nations and use
thier size and mobility to evade us. We cannot fight them effectively
because they are amorphous - they do not have their own national identity,
but the nations that support them and allow them to live and organize and
train and plan in their lands put on a front of being our allies. For
example, it is well known that the Islamic Jihad, responsible for many
terrorist activities in many lands, is based in Egypt - supposedly an ally
of both the US and Israel.

If the Arab Nations were pressured to take a stand, they would either
support the US or support the Terrorist Groups. It might lead to a war,
maybe even a World War, but it would be a war that was fought by nations
using war type tactics. Instead, we are left digging in caves for
terrorists that aren't even there. While I'm not very much of a Bush fan
overall, I think Bush was close to the mark when he demanded that the other
nations cut terrorist funding, and demanded Saudi Arabia turn over its
terrorists and intelligence.

Then he went off on his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein and
destroyed all his credibility, both within and without. He would have been
better off attacking Saudi Arabia (not that he should have).

Anyway, the bottom line is this: If we change our foreign policy because
someone attacks us for it, what do you think will happen the next time? Any
time we have a foreign policy that someone doesn't agree with (and there's
always someone), they would just terrorize us until we changed it. When we
react to a terrorist group, it serves to show them (and others) that
terrorism works. You cannot negotiate with terrorists... Period.


Jeffrey Voight wrote in
:

There are those that would tell you that the solution to terrorism
isn't to treat the symptoms (shoebombers and boxcutters) but to treat
the disease itself. Rather than harden the cabin and examine every
bag, they would tell you, we should change our foreign policy in order
to stop being such a target.

They would tell you that the solutions you have proposed cost the
airline industry (unless you're expecting the tax-payer to foot the
bill) and don't prevent foreign carriers from experiencing terrorism in
our airspace.

These aren't necessarily my own opinion. Just putting them out there.

Jeff...


Big John wrote:
Sydney

It's stupid what we all have to go through with to fly.

1. Make the cockpit invulnerable.

2.. Prevent any explosive from getting into the cabin or baggage.

Anything else the passengers can take care of.

Have stewardesses run through a routine on terrorists in cabin prior
to each takeoff like they do with the rest of the emergency
procedures.

Also teach the Pilots to zoom and dive the aircraft to prevent
terrorists from being able to do any coordinated things in cabin.

Put three pilots in all cockpits so any two could overpower any
individual Pilot who went nuts.

Just wish I was in charge of air travel. Sure would be easier and
safer.

Big John


On 6 Feb 2004 22:04:35 -0800, (Snowbird)
wrote:


Big John wrote in message
m...

Next time if I get caught I'm just going to break the blades off the
knife and take home. No freebee for the checkers (.

I tell ya Big John if I forget to clean out my purse before
I fly commercial I'll be joining Michael on the list of
suspicious characters. Two knives, leatherman tool, two
inhalers, meds removed from their original container....
and that's not even considering my laptop bag.


They let me take my ball point pens of course which I have
demostrated to Ridge and company that they are dangerous instrumenets
and will kill someone.

One of my coworkers is a 'nam vet he points out his shoelaces
are deadly weapons which he was trained to use by the US gov'mt


In one word (pardon me ladies) CRAP.

Le mot juste

Sydney

Judah

Have to agree with most of what you say so put me in the plus column.

Big John


On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 05:55:02 GMT, Judah wrote:

There's a problem with your theory.

As a nation of power, we will always have enemies. We had enemies before
9/11. Not all of our enemies care about our alliance with Israel, or any
other foriegn policy. Some of the enemies were born in this country. As
soon as we express a policy position, whether it is generally popular or
not, it is likely that someone will have an opposing position. And if they
are passionate enough, they will fight to the death to protect their
position.

Frankly, I think that the most practical alternative is to accept the fact
that some innocent people will be killed by terrorists every year, just as
some innocent people are killed by car accidents, and random gang
shootings, and cancer, and a thousand other things. It's an unfortunate,
harsh reality.

That's not to say that we eliminate all security. But the reality is that
by making a spectacle of all of the terrorism, by eliminating freedoms of
our people to create the facade of security, we only serve to fuel their
fire, and show them that they do have power and control - that their terror
attacks work.

Quite frankly, I think a better response by the US would have been an
increase in support for Israel as a result of the terrorist attacks, and a
demand that our allies take a stand as well - either with us or against us.
I don't say this because I am an Israel supporter myself (which I am). I
say this because of the reality of the situation - the "Islamic" Terrorist
Organizations currently hide in the forest of the Arab Nations and use
thier size and mobility to evade us. We cannot fight them effectively
because they are amorphous - they do not have their own national identity,
but the nations that support them and allow them to live and organize and
train and plan in their lands put on a front of being our allies. For
example, it is well known that the Islamic Jihad, responsible for many
terrorist activities in many lands, is based in Egypt - supposedly an ally
of both the US and Israel.

If the Arab Nations were pressured to take a stand, they would either
support the US or support the Terrorist Groups. It might lead to a war,
maybe even a World War, but it would be a war that was fought by nations
using war type tactics. Instead, we are left digging in caves for
terrorists that aren't even there. While I'm not very much of a Bush fan
overall, I think Bush was close to the mark when he demanded that the other
nations cut terrorist funding, and demanded Saudi Arabia turn over its
terrorists and intelligence.

Then he went off on his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein and
destroyed all his credibility, both within and without. He would have been
better off attacking Saudi Arabia (not that he should have).

Anyway, the bottom line is this: If we change our foreign policy because
someone attacks us for it, what do you think will happen the next time? Any
time we have a foreign policy that someone doesn't agree with (and there's
always someone), they would just terrorize us until we changed it. When we
react to a terrorist group, it serves to show them (and others) that
terrorism works. You cannot negotiate with terrorists... Period.


Jeffrey Voight wrote in
:

There are those that would tell you that the solution to terrorism
isn't to treat the symptoms (shoebombers and boxcutters) but to treat
the disease itself. Rather than harden the cabin and examine every
bag, they would tell you, we should change our foreign policy in order
to stop being such a target.

They would tell you that the solutions you have proposed cost the
airline industry (unless you're expecting the tax-payer to foot the
bill) and don't prevent foreign carriers from experiencing terrorism in
our airspace.

These aren't necessarily my own opinion. Just putting them out there.

Jeff...


Big John wrote:
Sydney

It's stupid what we all have to go through with to fly.

1. Make the cockpit invulnerable.

2.. Prevent any explosive from getting into the cabin or baggage.

Anything else the passengers can take care of.

Have stewardesses run through a routine on terrorists in cabin prior
to each takeoff like they do with the rest of the emergency
procedures.

Also teach the Pilots to zoom and dive the aircraft to prevent
terrorists from being able to do any coordinated things in cabin.

Put three pilots in all cockpits so any two could overpower any
individual Pilot who went nuts.

Just wish I was in charge of air travel. Sure would be easier and
safer.

Big John


On 6 Feb 2004 22:04:35 -0800, (Snowbird)
wrote:


Big John wrote in message
om...

Next time if I get caught I'm just going to break the blades off the
knife and take home. No freebee for the checkers (.

I tell ya Big John if I forget to clean out my purse before
I fly commercial I'll be joining Michael on the list of
suspicious characters. Two knives, leatherman tool, two
inhalers, meds removed from their original container....
and that's not even considering my laptop bag.


They let me take my ball point pens of course which I have
demostrated to Ridge and company that they are dangerous instrumenets
and will kill someone.

One of my coworkers is a 'nam vet he points out his shoelaces
are deadly weapons which he was trained to use by the US gov'mt


In one word (pardon me ladies) CRAP.

Le mot juste

Sydney

Jeffrey Voight wrote
There are those that would tell you that the solution to terrorism isn't
to treat the symptoms (shoebombers and boxcutters) but to treat the
disease itself. Rather than harden the cabin and examine every bag,
they would tell you, we should change our foreign policy in order to
stop being such a target.

Which is exactly the goal of the terrorists, and only starts to sound
like a sensible idea once you buy into the whole 'war on terror'
nonsense.

What makes the whole concept of a warr on terror stupid is this -
terror is only another means to wage war, used by those who lack more
effective means. If these people had tanks and planes and missiles
and armies, they would be using those to attack. They don't, so they
do what they can. A war on terror is a war on war is like fighting
for peace - which is about as sensible as ****ing for virginity. We
do not fight for peace - we fight for freedom, and that includes the
freedom to choose our friends, our allies, and our enemies.

To the extent that we alter our foreign policy in a manner that favors
the terrorist organizations, we allow them to dictate our foreign
policy, and limit our freedom to choose our friends, our allies, and
our enemies. In other words, we show them that terror works as a
weapon. Is that REALLY the message you want to send?

It's important to put all this in perspective and remember that all
acts of terror put together in the last ten years have killed fewer
americans than highway crashes in the last month. In other words, in
an objective sense terror DOESN'T work as a weapon unless we allow it
to. Are you seriously suggesting that we should alter our own foreign
policy to prevent a few thousand deaths in a decade when we won't
change the speed limit from 65 to 35 to prevent as many deaths in a
month?

A far more reasonable response to the situation would be to do
something really, really nasty (from the point of view of the terror
organizations) every time they succeed in killing a few of us. For
example, rather than spending tons of money on the largely ineffective
war on terror, we could pledge a sum of money, for every american life
lost in a terrorist incident, to be given as additional military aid
to Israel. It's cheaper than what we're doing, and it will force the
terrorists to realize that any time they succeed in hurting us, they
strengthen their worst enemy.

We can be even nastier by stating that anything Israel chooses to do
in the region for, say, three months following a successful terrorist
attack against Americans, no matter how egregious or brutal, will not
be sanctioned by the US - and that the US will veto any UN sanctions
as well. Let every terrorist know that even if he gets a few of us,
it will only mean open season on his own people and a free had for his
worst enemies.

They would tell you that the solutions you have proposed cost the
airline industry (unless you're expecting the tax-payer to foot the
bill) and don't prevent foreign carriers from experiencing terrorism in
our airspace.

The airlines are operating dangerous machinery that can be and has
been used to kill thousands of people on the ground who never
consented to the risk. It is their responsibility to secure that
machinery from unauthorized persons, thus security is a normal cost of
doing business. If this makes them non-competitive on certain routes
with other forms of transportation such as cars, trains, or light
airplanes, that's just too bad. Maybe we really don't need airline
flights from Houston to Austin. If foreign carrirers won't implement
security procedures, we are under no obligation to permit them to
operate in our airspace.

Michael

I was with you until the very end of your post here...

Thousands of people are hit by drunk drivers or other accidental injuries
and deaths caused by motor vehicles. Quite a number more than those that
are killed in airplane incidents.

A Ryder Truck was used to kill thousands of people in Oklahoma City. And
yet it didn't take very long for Ryder Trucks to go back to normal renting
operations.

Thousands of people have died in Amtrak accidents either because they were
in a train that derailed, or because they were hit by a train as they
walked or drove across the tracks.

Heck - people in New York City died recently in a Staten Island Ferry
accident, and yet no security measures were taken there...

Little or nothing has been done to modify the security of these modes of
transportation, yet the REALITY is that these machines are equally as
dangerous as airplanes.

To take it a step further, thousands of innocent people have been killed by
knives, guns, and electric shocks. People get killed when their ovens and
microwaves explode. Some people even get killed simply by falling down the
stairs in their own homes, or drowning in their own bathtubs, or lighting
their homes on fire with a cigarette.

And yet little has been done to protect people from their own "dangerous
machines".

The reason the airline industry gets hit harder with all this security
bulls&*^ is because there are far more people who are insecure about flying
to begin with. Most people don't have an irrational fear of riding in a
train. Many people take trains every day. Or if they drive somewhere, they
cross a railroad track or see a train riding alongside the highway. It's a
normal, every day occurrance.

Many people, on the other hand, have never flown in a plane, or fly very
infrequently. They don't regularly look up, or if they do, the planes are
too high and obscure for them to see. They don't realize how many planes
and passengers fly safely every day. They only hear about the accidents. If
they see a train wreck on TV, they know that there are millions of trains
that rode that day. So it's an unfortunate incident that is dismissed
pretty readily. If they hear about a plane incident, they somehow believe
that it is the only plane that took off that day, and it could have been
them.

That and they probably have an irrational fear of heights anyway...

Anyway, fear is a funny thing. It makes people believe that if they show
their driver's license to a guy in a white uniform, they are somehow safer
because bad guys would never do such a thing...


(Michael) wrote in
om:

snip
The airlines are operating dangerous machinery that can be and has
been used to kill thousands of people on the ground who never
consented to the risk. It is their responsibility to secure that
machinery from unauthorized persons, thus security is a normal cost of
doing business. If this makes them non-competitive on certain routes
with other forms of transportation such as cars, trains, or light
airplanes, that's just too bad. Maybe we really don't need airline
flights from Houston to Austin. If foreign carrirers won't implement
security procedures, we are under no obligation to permit them to
operate in our airspace.

Michael

Jeffrey Voight wrote in message ...


We don't protect the roads, we don't protect the schools, we don't
protect my office building. Why then, do we throw great gobs of money
into protecting the airline industry? It's because it's a visible and
obvious target. All the other targets are either obvious or visible or
both, but they don't get the press the way that a jumbo-jet vaporizing
itself into a building gets press.

Yeah, all good points in your post. My sense is that the special
attention paid to airports and aircraft derives from (1) the capacity
to cause tremendous damage with a single terrorist attack, and (2) the
extremely severe economic and psychological "ripple effect" that
ensues if an airplane is successfully targeted. Even though thousands
of people die in car accidents every year in the US, these occur
usually in ones and twos, and there's at least the perception of
autonomy and control for drivers since so many fatal accidents occur
consequent to (a) driving drunk, (b) failing to wear a seatbelt, (c)
driving at recklessly high speeds, and/or (d) outright daydreaming by
the driver, all of which a cautious and alert driver can avoid.
(Although IIRC some decent percentage of auto fatalities occur even in
the presence of such precautions-- don't know the actual figure.)

OTOH a traveler's safety on an airplane is usually in the hands of
others, and while a single auto crash can be tragic, a single airplane
crash can be catastrophic-- entire families were wiped out when that
Iranian jetliner was accidentally downed in 1988, and the downing of
Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland later in the same year
killed nearly 300 people, including many on the ground. It basically
ruined Pan Am and caused massive economic damage. Since airplanes are
large, rapidly-moving objects filled with fuel, they also have the
potential to cause enormous damage on the ground as well. If
terrorists were to hijack a plane and go kamikaze, as on September 11,
or bomb it during ascent or descent near a major city airport, they
can strike buildings and shopping malls, kill thousands, and
perpetrate enormous property damage. (9/11 alone, IIRC, not only
killed over 3,000 people but caused over $1 trillion in damage.) When
the business air travelers begin to shift to teleconferencing and the
would-be tourists scrap their plans to take little Billy and Jenny to
Disneyworld or London (as occurred post-9/11), there's very severe
economic pain felt on many sides for a long time.

People cancelling their flights like this may not constitute strictly
"rational" behavior, but the human mind isn't rational; there's a
primal urge to feel secure when one's safety is in the hands of
others, especially when entire families are grouped together. That's
why the notion of accepting the fact that some innocent people will be
killed by terrorists every year, however philosophically admissible,
just isn't practical or politically workable when it comes to
passenger aviation; the large number of casualties in the air, coupled
with the death toll on the ground, and all the awful economic
dislocations afterward, make even rare events extraordinarily
detrimental. People often point out that the British people became
psychologically inured to the specter of IRA terrorism over many
decades but, then again, even the worst IRA attacks didn't kill
hundreds of Britons.

I concur with you that much of what the TSA does now in its screening
is ineffectual "window dressing"; however, the solution is not to
dampen the security, but to switch to still rigorous yet smarter
screening methods that actually pay dividends. IMHO frankly this
amounts in large part to doing the obvious: Stop obsessing so much
about pocket knives, nail clippers, and staplers, which just
inconveniences everybody and costs billions of taxpayer dollars (and
it's doubtful a hijacker could use such small items anyway, since
cockpit doors are bolted). Instead, focus more on stopping bombs and
obvious weapons (like something that could actually fire a bullet),
especially if aided by specific intelligence. It probably doesn't
even require much fancy technology. Although there are some recent
advances in plastic explosives and similar chemical detection
technology (http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010911S0063 and
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2003/split/649-1.html) along with
the bomb-sniffing dogs and hand searches, we probably don't need to
breed Fido 5.0 The Super Sniffer to enhance security; there are some
relatively cheap, patently obvious improvements that can be
implemented chiefly in the background checks and access restrictions
for the teams that service and supply the planes, or load cargo onto
it. Charles G. Slepian
(http://www.voicesofsept11.org/security/062203.php) points out that
it's here, at the "back" of the plane, that security most needs
tightening. We'd probably get a lot more mileage for our taxpayer
money if the TSA stopped frittering away billions on confiscating
people's hair curlers and dentures, and redirected the money to better
control at the back of the plane as well as on more vigorous and
effective counterintelligence. These wouldn't allow for absolute
security of course, but there are some common-sense measures like this
which can boost security substantially and in a cost-effective manner.

the nations that support them [terrorist groups and funders] and allow them to live
and organize and
train and plan in their lands put on a front of being our allies. For
example, it is well known that the Islamic Jihad, responsible for many
terrorist activities in many lands, is based in Egypt - supposedly an ally
of both the US and Israel.

If the Arab Nations were pressured to take a stand, they would either
support the US or support the Terrorist Groups. It might lead to a war,
maybe even a World War, but it would be a war that was fought by nations
using war type tactics. Instead, we are left digging in caves for
terrorists that aren't even there. While I'm not very much of a Bush fan
overall, I think Bush was close to the mark when he demanded that the other
nations cut terrorist funding, and demanded Saudi Arabia turn over its
terrorists and intelligence.

Then he went off on his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein and
destroyed all his credibility, both within and without.

I totally concur. I found it ironic that Bush launched this war
against Iraq on the pretext of "combating terrorism," when if anything
Iraq had the most tenuous connection to Sept. 11 of any of the Arab
countries. 15 out of 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia; the
ringleader was from Egypt; others were from smaller Middle Eastern
States. And you're right, it was our supposed "allies" who were doing
the most to incite the terrorists, especially Saudi Arabia, by
spreading radical Wahhabism worldwide, teaching their *kids* to hate
Jews and Christians in their textbooks, and blaming their own failures
and corruption on the West. Baathist Iraq was a secular society and
itself targeted by Osama bin Laden; not a single Iraqi was a
participant among the hijackers and Saddam did not support or plan
Sept. 11, yet Iraq was the invaded country of the month. It wasn't
smart for the US to have posted the troops in Saudi Arabia like that
since 1991 (they were there just to enforce the no-fly zones in Iraq
and could have been rotated to more peripheral nations), and the Iraqi
sanctions weren't working, but the main wellspring for terrorism was
Saudi Arabia's corrupt policy and deflection of culpability for their
own inadequacies in the position of a ruling government. Fortunately,
the Saudi officials are starting to cooperate now more intensively,
since the Riyadh bombings in May 2003 at least, because they've
started to realize that they're a target of al-Qaeda as well, perhaps
even the main target, and they'd be wise to shape up quickly before
they wind up with even deeper problems than they already have.

Wes Ulm