Originally Posted by
YPJT
A search back through the threads will reveal a not insignificant number of posters complaining about the lack of screening for airside workers.
Well you got what you wished for but now the other side is screaming blue murder.
I wouldn't worry too much though. Apparently they still haven't figured out how the compulsory ID verification at boarding gates will be done.
Pointing out the gaping holes in the aviation security system is not so much complaining about the existence of the holes, but rather complaining about the patent illogicality of the system. It seems that the level of the stringency of security processes and procedures depends not so much on the objective risks and the ways in which practically to mitigate them, but rather how easy it is to stuff various classes of people around.
Individual pilots are easy to stuff around without political consequences, so it’s easy to make the ASIC system more and more difficult (sorry, I mean ‘security effective’) for pilots. But it’s ‘different’ when it comes to requiring photo ID of passengers or screening ground staff. The former could be politically problematic and the latter could put sand in the slave-labour 457 visa ground-support gearbox.
I’d like to point out the gaping holes in the security system
so as to highlight the pointlessness of the nonsense through which I have to go. But if I do so, it’s interpreted as me ‘complaining’ about the holes and urging for them to be filled.
Imagine a hypothetical aerodrome. One boundary of the aerodrome has a huge wall, topped with razor wire, and a security gate that’s monitored for the purposes of ensuring that only security-cleared pilots or screened passengers go through the gate. It costs a lot of money to build and maintain the wall and gate and pay for the screening.
The other 3 sides of the aerodrome have a sheep fence that anyone can easily step over or cut with a $2 shop tool.
Anyone can fly into the aerodrome from other places that do not have any security screening processes.
There are patently obvious huge holes in the security system for this hypothetical aerodrome.
But why has this hypothetical aerodrome not been the subject of a terrorist attack? How is it that aircraft depart this place without bombs on board?
An objective analysis of these hypothetical circumstances would conclude that the threat is almost non-existent and the huge wall, the gate, the guards and the security clearance and screening system are a mere facade the cost of which is unjustified. Faced with the choice between a sheep fence and the huge wall, even the stupidest of terrorists or maniacs is going to choose the sheep fence. Those for whom the sheep fence is an insurmountable problem could just fly in from somewhere else or drive a truck full of superphosphate through the security gate.
But what actually happens in the Orwellian world of aviation ‘safety’ and ‘security’ is that more rules must be made, bureaucratic empires have to be built and empowered and procedures have to be implemented, to fill all the gaping holes. In that world, there will eventually be huge walls and gates and security screening for every place from which any aircraft could be flown, because aircraft can be flown from anywhere into e.g. Sydney or Melbourne or...
Given that in the real world there isn’t enough money in the entire GDP to build a hole-free aviation security system, we’ll just implement the easy bits that look and feel good.
Fortunately my ‘hypothetical’ aerodrome doesn’t exist.