dude,
No, I don't. I worked for the Government. I wrote Government reports. I changed occupations because of my frustration about the way they do business. However, I thought that particular report was reasonably matter of fact and had some sensible recommendations. Whether they are implemented will come down to perceived public/industry opinion (which can be very different from actal opinion), risk assessment voodoo and costs.
The screeners should be watching the screeners. They should be screened on entering the point when they start work. I recall a screener who tried to smuggle weapons into the secure area, although not for malicious purposes (he had a second job as a goon). He was picked up by other screeners. Sure it's possible to infiltrate them, as with any airport employee group. Your solution?
Of course the bag is irrelevant and inconsistent. So is a lot of the crap they go on with. However, only the government can change these regulations (because they implemented them in the first place) so if you dismiss them as an irrelevancy you doom any attempt to get sensible at the outset.
Interesting article. There are a few issues though that doom profiling and many other advanced techniques in the US (and presumably elsewhere). This isn't a post about who we are picking on but rather the questions the impact of the system.
The first is that most of feel that an airline ticket is a contract to provide a service. If this can be breeched just on a profiler's say-so without full and just compensation not only for the price of the airfare but also the lost time, it seems to raise serious rule-of-law questions. It also creates a host of perverse incentives regarding overbooking policies (just get the profilers to hold a couple folks by passing along tips that a few folks are acting suspiciously)...
A second major point is that no security, no matter how impressive, is entirely foolproof. In the end, we must settle on some uncertainty and the possibility that we can harden airplanes to the point that the attacks aren't worth it (maybe schools, or whatever, become more attractive targets). The problem though is that even if it isn't objectively worth it, there may be a prestige issue of successfully attacking a hardened target. So after a certain point, additional security may not really reduce the probability of a successful attack and may introduce other vulnerabilities. Heck, today, it wouldn't be too hard to have a coordinated effort shut down (or substantially hamper) air travel across the US by staging fake attacks against major hub airports (no explosives needed), causing them to close. I am not sure that additional paranoia would necessarily
The third problem is the concern about privacy. This is particularly strong in data-mining-based-profiling and backscatter X-rays. It also raises the possibility of abuse of discression (as I joke about: "Department of Homeland Security: Protecting America from the likes of Ted Kennedy and Cat Stephens since 2001").
As for the success of customs agents.... I have known smugglers who have a very different perspective on their success...
So, from a terrorist's point of view, what is the difference between a crowded airport terminal compared to a crowded shopping centre or a crowded football stadium etc.
They clearly have a preference for bringing down aircraft, the bigger the better, for mere publicity purposes, to bring attention to their cause.
What is supposed to happen, that all passengers, and crew, undergo full body searches before donning paper suits? If aiport/airline security were so tight they'd simply move on to another target as 9/11 & 7/7 proved, after 9/11 airport security tightened so the subsequent target became trains and buses.
But it's the nature of the beast, a building can be secured but an open expanse of airfield, can that and the airspace around it be secured?
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 66
Posts: 5,335
Quote:
Originally Posted by edmundronald
Many airports do not provide space for you to put your luggage together, put your belt back on etc after you get checked. Surely a couple of tables behind the scanners are ot a security risk?
Quite right. At the cruise terminal there is plenty of room, chairs even.
At Gatwick we were rushed through so fast that my wife had her finger ripped as they dragged her case, passport and tickets through the scanner. She got passport and tickets back but the scanner managed to rip a zip off the carry-on.
Fortunately I had a couple of hours to spare so was able to spend an hour with security getting a claims form. Later I had to badger LGW for a response. Good result in the end, they paid up £30 for the damage.
OTOH at Luton their damaged baggage claim was absolutely A1. There was a computer terminal, a supervisor entered everything in in 5 minutes, even allowing for an error and restart, 4 days later the case was picked up, 4 days after a new case was delivered home. Brilliant.
This business about liquids though. What is to stop someone with 'solids' which are then dissolved in water or solvent once airside? Alcohol is a solvent and a flamable one at that.
The reason I get cynical about "security" is boring old history.
Once upon a time aircraft were being hijacked regularly, and Dubai was a popular place from which to carry out an attack. So after one such, the Ruler decreed that it would not happen again, and told his Police chief to get on with it, doing whatever he thought necessary.
So the terminal area, buildings and apron (this was the 1970s Dubai Airport) became an impregnable fortress with two access points. One was for people from landside, ie passengers, airline and airport staff and crews, and the other was the gap through which aircraft and fuellers to get to the apron. The perimeter was secured by 4m high Dannert wire piled in loose coils, reinforced by "shoot on sight" patrols.
Everyone, repeat everyone, who entered through the other way was separated from baggage, briefcases, toolboxes, whatever and thoroughly bodysearched while their stuff was equally throughly searched. Hold baggage was placed on a trolley, and passengers were reunited with their hand baggage which was emptied and searched, all bottles opened, nothing left to chance, in front of the passenger. They were allowed into a totally bare departure lounge; no shops, no catering, nothing. Staff went to work as normal, but only after an equally thorough hand search of everything they were carrying. Catering, cargo and mail were checked equally thoroughly on the way through to the apron, and in fact the volume of each dwindled rapidly as shippers used other airports and airlines rethought their catering policies.
Passengers were required to report to the terminal 4 hours before departure.
I've left out much of the detail; the fact was that the Police did exactly what they were told to do, without any consideration whatsoever of the disruption or other unpleasantness it would cause. All the details were dealt with in the same draconian manner.
And, of course, virtually perfect security resulted. It became impossible to attack an aircraft via Dubai Airport.
So the terrorists used other airports instead.
And, after a few months of this, the Dubai policemen got bored and standards slipped.
Then one day an Iranian DC3 left on a scheduled flight for Iran, carrying an extradited criminal with two senior Police escorts. Shortly after take-off a passenger seated behind the senior escort got out his aftershave bottle and from it poured petrol over the copper. He held a lighter against the drenched person and shouted to the steward that unless the aircraft went to Doha he would immolate the policeman (and of course eveyone on board), and that he had plenty more petrol where that came from.
The crew believed him, possibly correctly, and they went to Doha, which did not extradite to Iran as the UAE did.
I draw two lessons from this and other history; one that the EU and global "security" measures are little more than window dressing; real security can only be achieved by measures that are so draconian that they would destroy what they seek to protect, and secondly that not only will any measure eventually fail though human failure, but that the failure can be predicted and exploited.
It is a pity that the lessons from that period do not seem to have been learned; as always each new generation has to relearn them.
On Thursday (04/06), a US Airways employee was arrested at Philadelphia Airport (PHL) after he was seen taking a bag from a passenger, circumventing the security screening area, before returning the bag to the pax. The witness alerted the TSA. Airline staff boarded a US flight preparing to depart for Phoenix (PHX), and recovered the bag, which was found to contain a handgun. The passenger was arrested. The FBI later said that the two men were roommates in Philadelphia and one was moving to Phoenix. The staff member was assisting his friend to get the weapon on board without screening, for transport to PHX. Both men were later released on bail. The incident highlights the glaring loophole in security at US airports, where many airports do not routinely screen staff. The TSA has naively claimed that because staff have been vetted, they can be trusted
It is the same over here in UK!!I had to go to Manchester by another carrier, to pick up a flight,and when my Bag came through the carrousel,it was open and the lid flapping.When I examined it I found that the side flap was unattached to the side,and behind it should have been an envelope containing 2x 50Swiss Franc Notes.It had gone!!I always kept that sum in my Bag so that I could always get a taxi or book a hotel for my Crew,with cash, if the Company Credit Card was not taken,until other funds were wired.Anyway I went to security to report it and the Airport Police,so that I could obtain a "Crime Number" for a claim.Whilst I was in the Airport Police Station,the Sergeant told me,as I was "In the job",that it was not surprising as some 30% of the Security staff at the Airport had criminal records,but as staff shortages on minimum wage were the norm,that was the sad state of affairs.He told me that baggage thefts were on the same level as Thiefrow.That was not long ago.I hope things have changed,but looking at Crew problems with Security at almost all the Airports here,I am very glad I have retired.
Marvellous stuff this security. The "Proons" peforming this function (aka the real enemy) perform this important task meticulously and nothing slips by them. Vigilant and valiantly they peform their task, 24 hours a day. We are totally safe. Yup, obviously nasty pernicious liquids and pointy sticks are prohibitted from being taken airside by everyone. Airport staff, passengers, HM Customs, Border & Immigration officials etc. are all treated with equal contempt. So the Police helicopter at Brum must have caught fire by itself.
Let's face it, Security doesn't deliver and when tested, it is far too fragile. It is a waste of our time, money and scarce resources. We have to have security, but as implemented at airports it is not fit for purpose.
PM
Proon = A low form of life which is a cross between a Goon and a Prat.
I always kept that sum in my Bag so that I could always get a taxi or book a hotel for my Crew,with cash, if the Company Credit Card was not taken,until other funds were wired.
And if your bag goes missing, you're left with nothing...?
Although GBP57 won't go a long way towards getting a hotel for the crew.
Personally I am in favor of rethinking airport security in some fundamental ways (placing chokepoints between secure sections, which could be turned into security checkpoints when needed, among other things).
The problem though is that one of the most important concepts in security is that of acceptable risk. Folks want something which is perfect. Presumably in such a system all the pilots are replaced entirely with autoflight systems (since there is the possibility that terrorists could have pilots fully trained and accredited and infiltrate pilot ranks, and wait for an opportunity, and malicious actions on the part of flight crew is not unheard of), and all passengers fly naked and handcuffed to the seats in front of them.
However, in a realistic system, what we need to have is an understood level of acceptable risk. In such a case, the goal of security is not to stop every possible attack, but rather to merely make it a bit harder to pull off so there is a better chance for law enforcement to catch culprets before they carry out such an attack. Our security is pretty good but it does need some changes.
We seem to be missing the point here. Sucurity measures are in place in the EU, the USA and other western countries because 'people' want to destroy us and our decadent and pagan (to them) way of life. These people are driven by an ideology and sense of purposeful justice against the aggressive unbelievers of the Western World, who have 'invaded' Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, parts of Africa and so on. They do not care that extra security is in place at airports, or anywhere else come to that. They have simply moved the cross hairs to some other target and will always succeed in killing as many people as they wish. Nothing we can do, short of staying home all our lives, will remove us all from this danger. Train stations, hotels, pubs, whatever, are all easy and unguarded targets.
Security will only ever be enhanced and the dangers we face substantially reduced when the myopic governments of the West, us, remove themselves from all these places and allow the Islamic world to live in it's own kind of peace, however unpleasant such an outcome might be to the Isrealis and the US who, for whatever reason, still support them.
As this is not going to happen in our lifetimes, or even our granchildren's lifetimes, we will simply have to get used to the idea that underpaid thugs will continue to be employed in the security industry and we, the passengers and crew, are their 'enemy'. The real enemy has moved on.
Sad, but true.
These people are driven by an ideology and sense of purposeful justice against the aggressive unbelievers of the Western World, who have 'invaded' Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, parts of Africa and so on.
How true, well, sort of true, as far as it goes. Let's not forget that one of the USA's worst terrorist atrocities was perpetrated by a redneck moron with a grudge and possibly strong fundamental Christian beliefs.
Many more terrorist atrocities have been committed in the UK in the last 40 years by morons driven by Christian sectarian bigotry than by those driven by Islamic bigotry.
Only a bigoted simpleton would imagine that all terrorists are motivated by the same brand of stupidity. Fundamental Christianity is just as ridiculous and dangerous as fundamental Islam.
The person who said that religion is the root of all evil wasn't wrong. It drives wars and terrorism.
"Backing out" and leaving those countries "alone" will not help as you put it yourself, they are intent on destroying our decadent, dirty way of living.
Better to do as suggested in previous posts, get intelligent security that can work unhindered from political correctness etc.
you really but ca$h in your baggage?
Linear Mode
