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View Full Version : Are the new security measures a farce?


Celtic Emerald
17th Nov 2001, 20:45
We've been hearing all about greatly improved security measures especially in the US but is the reality living up to the hype and are they being applied in a correct & proportionate way.

Take the ban on anything that may be thought could be used as a weapon, scissors, tweezers, pen knives, razors, nail clippers are all included in this arsenal while duty free flies off the shelfs in nice glass bottles, an ideal potential weapon for the nutcase to use to smash over someones head or for a shard of glass to hold to someones throat, just as effective as a stainless steel piece of cutlery which have been banned with great fanfare & publicity even the ppludocrats who use Concorde are forced to eat with plastic utensils while they sip champagne from crystal glasses.

What about the US. Has anything really changed. Last week custom officers found numerous knives & stun guns in the luggage of 4 Britons on return from Florida. At Chicago O'Hare Int a pax carrying knives, pepper spray & a stun gun passed through various levels of security & was finally detected at the boarding Gate by a UAL member of staff. Aviation experts claim there have been many more incidents.

The turth is on domestic flights there has been little improvement and experts will say that plastic cutlery can be uised as effectively to maim & frighten.

Planes routinely take off carrying baggage in the hold belonging to a pax who has missed the flight. Hand baggage remains unchecked. More than 70% of baggage in US planes is cargo which is nnot checked at all.

Pooly trained security staff still earn farcical wages, electronic screening is out of date & sniffer dogs & armed guards brough in after the hijacking have been decommissioned because cash strapped airlines ain't got the money.

Security measures favoured by American aviation officials such as sky marshals & locking of cockpit doors are not popular in Europe, where they will be forced to adopt them.

It is maintained they could compromise security. Contact & interaction is needed betwen pilots & cain crew for problems such as fire where information must be passsed quickly & it would impose an obstacle

[ 17 November 2001: Message edited by: Celtic Emerald ]