I respect currawong’s opinion. I just disagree with it

My perception is that currawong puts greater faith than I do in the efficacy of these bureaucratic processes to achieve the outcomes they claim. My (educated) guess is that I have a deeper insight into these processes than does currawong.

But it’s likely currawong’s opinion will continue to prevail. These processes provide busy-work and comfort for many.

Meanwhile, I’m guessing I become a criminal next week. ASIC expires. As I haven’t been asked to produce an ASIC by anyone in authority at a security controlled aerodrome for years, I’m guessing that any failure to have a current ASIC will go undetected. Which kinda makes my point.

I've been in another industry for over a decade, but even in Rail, I've seen probably more than a dozen people lose their job over the last decade due to blowing the bag, or otherwise failing a drug test. Not just train driver's, but shunter's, and even a supervisor. Random testing sadly is required, because some people just don't get the message.

Then again, other companies aren't as stringent about the testing process - as evidenced by a recent ATSB investigation where a Driver failed the test after an incident, yet had not had a random test in the 14 years he was with V/Line

KRaviator:.....And the answer to that is; “so what?”

This is not to downplay the seriousness of the offence but to ask the question whether the cost justifies the result - that’s a risk management calculation.

Considering that Mining and similar companies have the same programs, I can probably answer my own question, it is cost effective, but that doesn’t mean the calculations shouldn’t be done.

What some of the pilots here don’t understand is that “public opinion” of what is a serious risk and what is acceptable behaviour is constantly changing. Those same people get blindsided by change.

Examples:

- As a kid I rode home on the tram with a .303 SMLE on one arm and my school bag on the other.

- Ansett and TAA management ran the two airline policy each lunchtime from the bar at Mac’s.

- Dangerous driving - speeding had to be proved by police.

- Divorce and casual sex could get you fired.

- Homosexuality was a crime. Lesbians didn’t exist.

- illegal drug use was a serious crime.

- Certain books, plays and movies were officially banned. Sex, nudity and swearing were verboten.


Now look at what’s approved and what isn’t.......

Furthermore, Coronavirus is going to see all that change again! For example, we have just passed peak feminism, green BS and LBGTQwhatever. The coming recession will sweep that away, and with it probably the ASIC and much expensive government regulation.

Jeeeez Sunny. I hope yre right.
My take would be that Bureaurats will rise from the ashes, rebuild their Empires and continue to do what they do
Over regulate, waste collossal amounts of taxpayers money on 'brain farts' and continue to enjoy the troughs.
I do hope I'm wrong.

I fear the same aroa, in the near future it is more likely your entire medical records will be carried on your person in the form of a "secure encrypted ID card" readable by any "official of state". It will be justified on the basis that 'post COVID-19', in order to "protect" society at large, all members of said society will need to prove that they have been vaccinated, or otherwise 'safe' from risk of infection. It will extend to your entire medical history. And if the fallout from COVID-19 extends any length of time (12+months) that will be just the beginning. ASIC will pale into insignificance and all will forget the test case that it was on how well a community can organise to protect itself from infringement of basic rights and undue burden by bureaucracy.

The simple fact this 'flippant and childish' thread has drawn so much response is proof enough for me of the poignancy of the subject.

Sorry currawong - so much going on that I’m losing track of the various threads.

Do you believe the ASIC system prevents “recently returned Jihadists” and “someone just out of a life sentence” from being airside?

(And by the way: Why, precisely, should “someone just out of a life sentence” be prohibited from “being airside”?)

I’m genuinely interested in your perspective, because it evidently results in you supporting the ASIC system. The onus is on us detractors to convince supporters otherwise.

That is a bit wrong. People make mistakes (and pay for it); doesn't make them suicidal terrorists.

Even if it does make them suicidal terrorists, apparently it’s ok for them to be wandering around “landside”. Does not make sense to me.

Hate to be "that guy" again, but what about this (you'll never guess where this is implemented)

Instead of requiring an ASIC for people who fly the planes, require it for the people meeting these criteria:

• Has to have access to the secured side of a security controlled airport (domestic or international) as part of their job duties? You get an ASIC Level 1 - which should encompass criminal, background, and intelligence (as in, spy stuff) checks.
• Have to have access to the unsecured side of an airport as part of your job duties? ASIC Level 2 for you, with corresponding reduced requirements.
• Want to train to fly? Apply for a Level 3 card (with all the background check fun), but be provided with a Level 4 while you wait so you can actually train.
• Waiting for your Level X card? You get a temporary Level 4 card, which requires an escort from a Level 1. Crucially, that level 1 doesn't have to be a pilot!
• Include biometrics in the card
• Define the "security controlled airport" as one having 24/7, on-site security presence, biometrics checks, and proper fencing (not the 1m tall fence easily scaled by a child I've seen in some places.
• Make application charges to be cost recovery only, in legislation or regulation.

This way, you've solved a few problems: 1) you're targeting appropriate people, since terrorists (unless they're sleepers... And how many of those have there been in the history of aviation?) aren't really the flying job holding type; 2) the recreational and private flyers don't need to get it - since they're unpredictable transients anyways, they'd need to comply with whatever by-laws or rules their field has for them; 3) students and instructors don't get cornholed with unnecessarily wait times in the training world; and 4) instead of just designating a place "security controlled" for no good reason, councils and airport owners might have to do some sort of cost vs benefit analysis of designating themselves as such.

Something along those lines seems better than the current system, while also not as drastic or dramatic as simply throwing the whole ASIC baby out with the bath water

Seems to me to be some steps is the right direction.

I suppose that in a coherent process the first question would be: What is the purpose of the ASIC system? The purpose.

Quote:

---

since terrorists (unless they're sleepers... And how many of those have there been in the history of aviation?) aren't really the flying job holding type;

---

It’s easy for terrorists to get airside at a security controlled airport. They can just fly there from somewhere that’s not security controlled. The fact that they haven’t yet in Australia is evidently not a consequence of the ASIC system.

What is the purpose of the ASIC system?

OK I’ll bite.

The purpose of the ASIC system was to remove anyone with a criminal background from the front end of Aviation industry. The criminal background check does that. It also conveniently dovetails with CASA regulations which criminalise breaches of regulations. It thus helps CASA control industry employment or participation. This is also what was allegedly done to Glen Buckley although not through the ASIC denial route.

In this manner “undesirables” are prevented from employment in selected industries. The practice is creeping into use more generally in my opinion and it has some rather nasty human rights implications that will surface eventually. The practice does give the general public a warm feeling.

Preventing terrorism? How? Not possible.

I'd like to see the risk management case that justifies this useless ASIC system. Any person who seriously wants to get into any secure airport will research the many ways it can be done undetected.

What a joke - keeps a few people employed, but that's all. Airline or Airport ID cards achieve the same result.

ASIC and airport security are unrelated.

I'm sure I've said this before somewhere on prune. Pilots in Australia have an ASIO check as part of their licence application, is that not enough?
A photo licence (Proper one not the rubbish photocopy that CASA came up with a few years ago) should be all that's needed for access to airfields. The current 20 pages of photocopied useless information is rubbish.
Basic information could all fit on a standard size the same as a drivers licence, or CASA could be daring and have a smart card (Also with photo) that would include all information. Sums up CASA really, licence issue hasn't changed much since 1920's. The only thing to change much is the exponential increase in regulation. SNAFU should be a term incorporated in the CASA watermark.

Councils and Airport owners don't decide if their airport is "security controlled". That is foisted upon them by the regulator based on criteria they have no input or control over, and they are left to implement the requirements that thus ensue. They too are dealing with a bureaucracy who answers to no one.
Unfortunately, the worst atrocities have so far been committed by people (pilots or passengers) sitting in the front two seats. People with any sort of access (or means to enable access) to those seats will always be suspect.

More damage has been done to aircraft by unlicensed kangaroos leaping the security fence and parking themselves on unlit runways, to ambush unsuspecting medevac aircraft in the wee small hours, than by jihadis.

Maybe the terrorists are training the kangaroos.

I wouldn’t put it past the bastards.

What will they think of next?

Who needs terrorists? The Seppos have been training and deploying dolphins for years...

Yeah, but dolphins have a little trouble getting onto runways.

I would argue it should serve a few purposes.

First, it's an identity card, like many workplaces have these days. Basically, a first point of "does this person belong here", quick glance kind of thing.
Second: it should be an identity verification tool (this would be where the picture and the biometrics come in). This is that newfangled "2 factor security" thing, but in the real world.
Third, it should be a confirmation of the user having passed a background check. This basically ensures that people that attempt to perform the work functions are legally allowed to perform them.

As of right now, it only really serves #1 and #3, and it's mandated for all pilots. So, it doesn't really get verified (anyone can get a card printed and laminated from the internet), and it's applied too broadly.

That's unfortunate. That's the big thing in my proposal above, it would be pretty much left to the airport to decide whether to become security controlled (with the security standard being set by the regulator, which has to be continuously met to qualify as security controlled). Obviously, this would have to be within reason - if you're a port of entry, you would have to become security controlled - but outside of a few obvious cases like that, there's no reason for CASA to dictate those security requirements to every airport in the country. Especially when most would not warrant it even with a high bar of security.

You could argue that those are the purposes. Others could make different arguments. Nothing wrong with that.

But what are the actual purposes of the system now? If the actual purposes are not or cannot be identified, it is not possible to determine whether those purposes are being achieved. Nor is it possible to debate whether those purposes are worth what it costs to achieve them.

Hypothetically, if the purpose of the ASIC system was originally to “be seen to be doing something” about the 9/11 hijackings, is that a purpose that justifies the ongoing costs?

This argument is circular:The ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ and what’s ‘legally allowed’ are determined by rules made by bureaucrats.

currawong appears not have had a chance to answer my question. Maybe you have a perspective: Why should a person “just out of a life sentence” be prevented from getting an ASIC? When can that person ‘pass’ the background check, or are they permanently precluded? What is it about being “just out of a life sentence” that renders a person an unacceptable risk behind the wheel of an aircraft but not a car or truck?

I’ve always been struck by the fact that many pilots are their own worst-enemy. They revel in the mystique of aviation, which merely invites more and more regulation and bureaucratic intrusion. Flying is ‘special’. We must make sure only special people - like me - can fly. People with the ‘right’ ‘background’ - like me.

But that means bureaucrats deciding what is the ‘right’ background and ferreting into everyone’s background to make that judgment.

As has been pointed out, it wasn’t that long ago that homosexuality was a criminal offence. Back in the ‘good old days’ the punishment was execution but, in a very bold and generous act by governments, it was reduced to life imprisonment. No worries about poofs in the cockpit back in those days! They were executed or rotting in prison. Now homosexuals can get pilot’s licences and even ASICs! Who knew that ‘they’ could fly just as well as ‘normal’ people and were just as trustworthy and untrustworthy?

The ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ of a ‘background check’ is just a value judgment. And that which is judged a heinous crime punishable by death one day can be an accepted part of a civilised society the next. Best to hope that your values remain acceptable to the bureaucracy!

CASA doesn't. They don't have anything to do with security or ASICs. That's the Department of Home Affairs job. They are the Security regulator. CASA is the Safety regulator. Airports, like pilots, answer to many masters.

An ASIC does contain certain features designed to circumvent that.

In 2020, it is not technically difficult to reproduce an ASIC card.

ID Card reproduction technology is universal, so its naive to think that a "lookalike" ASIC card can't be created complete with hologram.

Ssshhhhhhh!

And don’t say, out loud, how few times anyone’s looked closely at your ASIC, even assuming you’ve displayed it.

It would reveal the system for what it is.

I'm certainly not naive enough to think that the cards cannot be forged. I guess they make it difficult enough to deter muggins from having a go at home with his inkjet. If someone goes to the expense and trouble of either buying the equipment to print their own, or buying a forgery on line, then they are probably not the type of person you want airside anyway.
I guess it establishes a base line. If no one is wearing anything, how do you know who should be there?. A lot of places these days require people/staff on their premises to display an ID card of some sort. An ASIC is not the be all and end all either. It is just one part of the overall security system. Just because you have one, it doesn't mean you can go wherever or do whatever you want. It is only an ID card after all. It just signifies you have undergone a standardised check.

A decent copy would be hard to spot as a fake unless you stuck it under someone official’s nose.

A metro authorised officer told me recently that heaps of people on the train in Melbourne use fake photo copied police ID’s for free travel and they don’t usually say anything because they don’t want to accuse someone accidentally if they are actually legitimate and cause a scene.

Sprocket Check
I dunno who the hell taught you to fly but this is Crazy talk.

The end of ASIC?

A wise man, who fled communist Checkoslavakia, told me that modern Australia is a worst police state than what he fled in the 1970s.

...that was 15 years ago!
Send me a text or a PM and I will put you in touch with that guy.

Leaf Blower.....If you belive that are you interested in bridge sales at all ?
I suggest you get hold of the book by American author James Michener. "The Bridge at Andau " for a bit of backgrounding of that once communist State. Has that modern State regressed that badly ?
Is Australai really worse ?.
While I accept that we do live in an authoritarian democracy, and there are many rotten things happening in the State of Oz, no country is the perfect Shangri La.
Citizens of this country should take the time to think a bit about the future ,tho
"Those that give up essential rights and liberties for a bit of temporary security, deserve neither," B Franklin.
This is why CAsA and ASIC and other stupidities need addressing.

The irony of a ASIC is that it is not a valid form of ID in Australia.

The opportunity for licence holders, (i.e. pilots and LAMEs) to engage in some gentle civil disobedience has sadly been lost.
If - when aviation was booming - there had been an organised week where every licence holder turned up for work with a passport (for the photo) and a professional licence (for validation of occupation) while leaving their ASIC at home, it could have forced the authorities to capitulate on the requirement for certain sectors of the aviation industry to hold an ASIC.
The authorities' climb down face-saver could have been to link licences to police records, Kiwi style.

But now the aviation industry is trashed anyway, civil disobedience or industrial action won't work. In lean times history shows that there are always those willing to comply with whatever onerous hurdles are put in the way to put food on the table. When we come out the other side of this current pandemic, expect more, not fewer, limitations to our freedoms dreamed up by Big Brother - for our own good, of course.

"Correctly worn ASIC's"
 

In the beginning the problem was that terrorists could access an airport with the post 9/11 hysteria. The solution to that apparently was to bring in a new ID card that everyone who worked on an airport needed to get very 2 years. The terrorists would not be able to get one, and so that of course been an unsurmountable barrier to those of criminal intent. Nothing much has happened since other than tens of thousands of hours wasted by people who need to work at an airport. For those that would argue that an ASIC card has prevented anyone with criminal intentions being able to access an aircraft, spare me. Besides how easy it would be to mock one up, airports are often not well fenced or patrolled in early mornings. Plus easy to get a job as a baggage handler, cleaner and an so get an ASIC for those without a prior criminal record)

So now because things are quiet and people need to justify their job, especially ARO's as they really have bugger all to do at many airports, the "crime" is not to be without an ASIC airside, but to be not wearing one correctly. So much so that a firefighter at Ballina was reportedly either fined $5000 or threatened with one (not sure) for not wearing their ASIC correctly by the ARO. What ARO in their right mind could possible think they are doing anything constructive by pinging an airport firefighter for not wearing an ASIC card correctly? It certainly won't help the firefighters attitude, it wont save any lives, its just being a bloody nuisance. ARO's are sure developing a reputation.

To pre-empt the "well he/she could have been an imposter" reply...wouldn't asking to see the ASIC be enough? Does it really need a fine because it is not displayed in the correct manner? Personally i have kept mine in my wallet as i have found it dangling around my head when inspecting underwings etc and this is distracting. Also had a lanyard break and it fall out. So a FOD hazard as well as a security hazard. If anyone wanted to see it, it is right there. The one time i have been asked, by a Fed, they were fine with me pulling it out.

Not good enough now apparently. There is an "alert" that the "Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre" (can you just imagine the pointy heads in Canberra there dreaming up new embuggerances every day) has commenced targeted and increased surveillance" of incorrectly worn ASIC cards. I wonder if there will ever be any pushback against this bureaucratic madness. How good would it be if just for once a change came out that actually made things easier for those working at airports. eg...ASIC for 5 years, or a passport instead of a birth certificate as ID, or a note from employer with reason to be on airport, or god forbid no ASIC but just a plausible reason to be airside and a valid ID.

Have to agree, the ASIC is bull****. But in response to your comment, an ARO can’t fine a non-ASIC holder, only AMS can do that. And they have been doing that for a couple of years now, it’s nothing new. The big issue is that if you get pinged by AMS for not wearing your ASIC, apart from you receiving the individual fine, the aerodrome owner/operator also gets hit with a non-conformance notice as it occurred on their aerodrome. That’s why ARO’s are often so trigger happy when it comes to reprimanding a person who is operating airside without an ASIC (depending on your category of aerodrome).

As with all things Government, the requirement for an ASIC does very little towards preventing fraud, preventing unauthorised access via a step ladder over the fence at midnight, or stop people using a fake ASIC. It’s just another tool for big brother to use to monitor you, curtail your freedoms, and let you know that it is not you who is in charge, it is they. No ‘terrorist’ is going to apply for an ASIC under their real identity (therefor getting caught before they commit an act of terror), nor will they obey regulations, comply with silly signs on aerodrome fences or any other primitive Government folly. I would be more concerned with the amount of ‘missing’ surface-to-air missiles worldwide, and the damage they could do to an aircraft approaching or departing an aerodrome on the fringes of a city or beside a nice wide ocean or river system.

Defininitely. I reckon it has to be easier to hijack a jet than apply for an AUS ASIC these days, though the process has nothing on renewing a Defence access card (DCAC).

The department (and therefore Minister) administering the ASIC and MSIC legislation recently changed from Infrastructure and Transport etc to Home Affairs. The “Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre” is part of Home Affairs.

The Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs has been slowly building his own para-military force and accruing ever-more powers as he has been thwarted (so far) in his aspirations to be the Secretary of Defence. The Australian Border Force has its own internal system of medals and now gives more of them out than the Australian Defence Force does each year.

If you think the invocation of “safety” by CASA as a justification for its intrusion, restriction and destruction is wearing a little thin, wait until the Secretary of Home Affair’s sycophants get going on actions in the name of transport “security”. I’m guessing that the ‘alert’ to which extralite referred is a mere taste of an increase in the insults to our intelligence and integrity to come.

So don’t plan on celebrating the demise of the ASIC any time soon.

Pilots are just collateral damage in the response to the real current problem: Porous borders, now exacerbated by, for example, a baggage handling workforce which is in a state of constant flux. Some of the organisations issuing ASICs have a bit of a conflict of interest: They need as many warm bodies as they can get, doing work airside to keep the airports and airlines up and running again. Spotting the bikie associate (with no criminal history) in amongst the much-needed casual workforce can be difficult and inconvenient.

I just can’t wait for the “Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre” to find out that when I and thousands of other pilots fly into somewhere important, Air Traffic Control does not know our identity, doesn’t know if we hold a pilot’s licence, doesn’t know if we hold an ASIC, doesn’t know if the aircraft we’re flying has an airworthiness certificate, doesn’t know if we are using the correct callsign and doesn’t know what we are carrying on board.

I shake my head and marvel at our capacity to create ever-more complexity and costs that inconvenience only the law-abiding, each time I fly over Commonwealth Parliament House or downwind over what is the Prime Minister’s or Governor-General’s or MINDEF’s or some other important person’s aircraft on the tarmac at 34SQN, knowing that an actual terrorist could actually announce his or her arrival at Black Mountain tower and intentions to do something nasty, and nobody could do anything practical to stop that happening or get anyone ‘out of the way’ of the damage about to be done. They could turn YSCB into a Romeo and ‘ban’ any aircraft other than State aircraft from entry, and it would make no difference to the actual risk (unless, I suppose, they mounted anti-aircraft weapons on various of the hills around YSCB and were ready and willing to use them immediately some unknown aircraft entered the Romeo - just like Pearl Harbour in '42).

What on Earth have we become?

GA is a very large thorn in the side of any government hell bent on total control. Can't have the plebs with a form of transport that's free and unconstrained. How do we tax it, police it, and manage the terrible threats it poses? I mean one of those Cessna things could possibly fly over our barricades we installed to stop all the car/truck/bus terrorists out there... so what if a truck can do 100 times more damage and simply be stolen from anywhere, or just borrowed from a mate. Now we have 'airlock' security doors coming for airliners, that since 9/11 more lives have been lost to those locked in the nose than terrorists.

And any member of societies fringe dwellers and fruitcakes could crash their loaded car or a truck through any major airports chain wire fence and be parked under the wing of a wide body aircraft that is being fuelled in less than 60 seconds. An ‘ASIC’ won’t prevent that either. An ASIC also doesn’t stop said lunatics from purchasing and retrofitting a drone and then playing havoc on the airside of an airport. Drones in the wrong hands don't require an ASIC, they don’t need to go through body scanners and they don’t need to abide by an authority to drive airside. Fences? What fences?

Here we are in 2022, it’s a brave new world, a changed world, yet AMS still insist on ASIC’s and CASA still insist that it is illegal for a Cessna pilot to change a $0.20 bulb on his aircraft. Regulation by stealth, regulation by incompetence, regulation by stupidity. The alphabet agencies are outdated and irrelevant.

CAR 1988 schedule 8, permissible pilot maintenance.

11. Replacement of bulbs, reflectors, glasses, lenses or lights.

Have to laugh though that the millions spent on security fences around airports and kangaroos and foxes still make it in and 'terrorise' aircraft. Guess they think the average criminal is less intelligent than a roo... Can't even stop large wildlife strikes at airports, and they are not even trying to harm anything. Billions squandered on fences and facade security. Then don't even get started on the billions being spent on edge barriers on roads, where one state proclaimed 1000s saved per year, except the road toll per year was never that high, and has barely changed since the implementation.

Thanks for the clarification mate. Good thing I don’t fly anymore and also a good thing I’m not handy with the tools.

I don't believe the ASIC serves any purpose at all. The Airline Identification Card or Photo Licence is just as effective. If an ASIC, those that require one shouldn't have to pay for it.
The sad reality is that while all those things are a deterrent, it is very unlikely a 9/11 style terrorist attack will come from the Airline Industry again, why because it's been done already. We won't see the next one coming the same as we didn't see the last one, it will most likely come from Ambulances or Fire Trucks, the confusion and urgency of all those lights and sirens, we'll just open the gates for them. The target will be major like the AFL Grand Final. That is how terrorism works.