I have to quibble with Jackonicko on several issues, viz:
"1) Tell me that four Arab hijackers could have got on four simultaneous European flights, with weapons or without. Tell me you wouldn't search their hand baggage more thoroughly than that of the unfortunate headcase who caused the air-rage incident to which you referred."
Well, pardon me, but how did they get the the US? Via Europe, it would seem from all we know to date. Now, you will say that they travelled separately, and they were not hijackers when they crossed the pond. Well, that's being wise after the event. But if proper screening of passengers - as you suggest works in Europe - were the simple answer to these kinds of problems, should it not have caught these clowns when they flew from Europe - even though they did not intend to hijack that flight, but the next one? Or does passenger screening only work for the flight that they are about to board?
"Over there, security precautions are seen as an assault on individual freedom. "
A sweeping generalization, which is at best sometimes partly true.
What irks Americans so often about security precuations is that a) they are sometimes so obviously ineffective, and that b) they are so often intrusive (or at the least, grossly insensitive) to personal freedoms and personal security while they are being so obviously ineffective.
Search my carry-ons all you like, I don't care - but don't lay out the contents of my briefcase in front of any passer-by. I'm not a hijacker, but he may well be a mugger. Do like they do in Europe, and search in private.
Teach the people who do this work to treat people as though the troublemaker is the exception and not the rule. I've been detained in Europe and searched to an extent that I would normally have expected the guy to buy me dinner first - but always with at-least-distant courtesy and professionalism. US airport security is often staffed by a collection of jumped-up jack-in-offices and doleful jobsworths (lovely expression, by the way) who seem to delight in tormenting and frustrating pax while being - as said - so obviously ineffective.
Americans will put up with a lot of things, but they are very demanding, and one of their demands is that what they are asked to put up with be effective, that it be seen to be so, and that their voluntary acceptance of it be seen in the proper proportion. Yes, they value their personal freedom highly - that's exactly why they want a damned good reason before they give any of it up, and airport security as presently practised in the US fails that test miserably.
Ask a US traveller who has flown on El Al - I'll wager you a pint at the Goose and Firkin that he/she will express nothing but admiration for the quality, depth and seriousness of their security measures. Because they are obviously effective on their face, and they are obviously effective from their track record.
Now - having said that - I think it's a mistake to see security as a separate, walled-off activity. Once again, as expressed in other threads, it has to be part of a spectrum approach.
Why is security in the US practised so poorly? Well, we all have answers to that, but I'd offer for your consideration the following:
- the system is so overloaded that noone, from the ticketing staff to the security staff to the cabin crew, have the time or the access to pax to practise good security measures.
- the various agencies and businesses involved with security are locked in a bureaucratic and profit-driven p***ing contest which left the actual question of improved security behind years ago. Pax (especially in the US) know this - that's one reason why they are so unhappy about security precautions. Make security a matter of law enforcement, make it a federal matter, put Mary Schiavo in charge, get the damned dollars out of the equation - in other words, make it count and make it real.
- the "broken window" theory. There are lots of rules about flying. Many are seen more in the breach than in the observance. The obvious ones are things like carry-on rules, smoking restrictions, and so forth. When pax see these rules being bent and broken, how can they take others - which are presented to them as "for their safety" - seriously? And this ties back into my first point - how can cabin crew, for example, take security issues seriously when they seem to spend all their boarding time trying to stop people from packing the kitchen sink in the overheads? Make the rules - all the rules - stick. Start putting passengers who quibble at the curb. If you want pax to take the rules seriously and accept them, you must treat them seriously yourself.
I'm frequent SLF in Europe as well as the US. I want better security, in fact, I demand it. In Europe, I at least see what looks like a serious attempt to make me safer, and I'll accept the minor incoveniences on those terms. In the US, I see a pathetic and half-vast show of make-believe which is obviously designed to fulfil the absolute minimum requirement that those doing it can get away with - and sometimes even fails to meet that standard. You bet I kick and moan about the intrusions on my personal freedom and security, as do many other Americans - because we're being sold a pig in a poke, and paying for it with our constitutional rights. It's a lousy bargain, and we're sick of it.
Hey, JMHO. Have a good day.
llater,
llamas