Spotting the stupidity
Derek points out some of the weak thinking at the TSA with a personal example. The last time I ravelled, I had something else occur to me in terms of threats - the huge backup in front of the security zone. Think about it - there's the TSA, asking you to remove your shoes, take your laptop out of your bag (and going on breaks in the face of huge lines, but never mind that) - the whole dreary experience. The result is a huge line in front of security, and most airports have reacted to that by putting in theme park style maze lines.
Now look at that situation. If you really do want to commit an act of terror, do you care whether the dead bodies are on the plane or not? What the TSA has unwittingly created is a target rich environment in front of the screening area - a huge mass of compliantly waiting, penned in people with nowhere to go. I can't wait to see what stupidity the TSA comes up with after this gets exploited by a bad actor somewhere.
Comments
You miss the point
[You miss the point] April 23, 2005 14:38:12.807
The idea is that everybody is reminded to be scared all the time. If you are scared, chances are you are going to put up with a lot of BS just so that your fear is soothed somehow. That is the point. So the security at airports, ferries which can be sunk, and all this crap is just a circus to distract us from the real issues. For example, last night Anderson Cooper on CNN (sigh) showed the footage of the helicopter crash survivor being shot, adding "see what monsters our guys have to put up with". Forget our own monsters in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, forget we sold the WMD to Irak in the first place, forget we have killed over 100k civilians in Irak, forget we're the only ones who have nuked other countries, forget depleted uranium, forget oil corporations working with the military government in Nigeria to kill Nigerian civilians, and forget all that is hidden behind National Interests and National Security. No. Those few idiots who shot down the helicopter are the unstoppable monsters we should be afraid of, see how TV shows you how bad they are? And as long as we do not realize about this, we will have a security circus, a terrorism circus, a government circus, and who knows what else. Mind you, the problem of hijacking the planes could have been solved back in the 80s - but Congress at that time voted against a law that would make it mandatory for cockpit doors to be hijacker-resistant. But if Joe Blow can get daily press passes to the White House, then all this security is just circus for us the peasants to continue to pay our dues and to send our kids to die for no good reason. Screw this bullshit of airport security when we are the ones who vote and cheer the real monsters into office.
Re: Spotting the stupidity
[ James Robertson] April 23, 2005 15:27:47.699
Comment by James Robertson
Umm, I'm not really trying to address any of the political issues here. That's not what I do on this blog (for a variety of reasons). All I was trying to point out was the insanity of the security policy at the airports
The goal of airplane security checks
[Dotan Dimet] April 23, 2005 17:27:43.460
The goal of Airport security checks isn't to stop a suicide bomber; it's to prevent terrorists from boarding aircraft with the means to hijack the plane for either (a) political hostage taking or (b) using it as an improvised cruise missile (the 9/11 scenario). To prevent suicide bombers from gaining access to a "target rich environment", well... in Israel we have minimum-wage schmooes with metal detectors to stop suicide bombers from gaining access to the "target rich" interiors of shopping malls or resturants. This of course leaves the "target rich" area just outside the interiors, where a lot of suicide bombers did in fact detonate, usually killing the aforementioned security guard with his hand-held metal detector. There's no such thing as perfect protection from terrorist attacks, but most security mechanisms stop at least some attacks.