Journalist takes “8 inch” knife aboard BA flight

[Whippersnapper]

Getting a weapon aboard is an offence, as is carrying a concealed weapon, regardless of intent, and being a Journo should make no difference.

The mere fact that journalists are endangering aircraft and passengers in order to show the world how they got weapons aboard, including those with more sinister motives, and cause public hysteria about further terror attempts should, in my opinion, be treated as conspiracy and colusion with terrorism - after all, they are effectively carrying out the security recon for terrorists, which is the highest risk part of an operation.

By the way, the comment about bar carts penetrating the door is, I think, a joke refering to when an unsecured rear galley cart damaged the door on one of the new 73's at EZY on landing after an empty positioning flight. The door needed a fair bit of Isopon, but it didn't breach. Furthermore, it was the original standard door, not the reinforced type.

[DocManhattan]

With respect, the faith some of you have that security failures can be dealt with internally is quite stunning. It's been proven over and over again that unless companies, governments and their agencies are exposed to external scrutiny then eventually someone will stop doing their job properly, and eventually there will be a catastrophe. In the last couple of months, the news agencies here in Japan have helped expose two large companies -- an automaker and a revolving door manufacturer -- that tried to hush up internal quality failures that killed three people, including a young boy that was crushed to death in a revolving door. In that last case, there were 30 previous instances of minor injuries caused by the doors in question which were hushed up. If companies were not at risk of being exposed by the media, then they would not be answerable for these kinds of failures and everyone would be at greater risk.
And you guys are trying to tell me that it's the media's fault that airport security isn't up to scratch? That reporters should be punished for embarrassing your industry by exposing its failures? Pardon me, but bullsh*t.
I'm not a tabloid reporter, and I am a full-blooded supporter of the aviation and aerospace industries. But there is NOTHING that makes these industries exempt from the same media scrutiny that's applied to all others, to everybody's benefit. Thats democracy for you, so stop whining about it.
Right then, where's my hardhat?

[West Coast]

So by virtue of claiming to be Mickey Spillane, journalists are given some carte blanche and are above the law? What this cat did was illegal and he should be punished. I remember the kid a number of months ago who hid questionable objects on SWA aircraft. He did so as a study of airline security, should he receive the protection you seem to believe journo's do? Where's the line? Next some tabloid tries it and claims immunity by virtue of some journalistic expose in the making, right next to the page three girl.

Who made journalists the sentinels of aviation safety? (besides themselves) There are many other entities I trust far more than the press. I don't think I am among a small minority in that feeling.

[Billy The Squid]

Here's a idea i'd like to put to my fellow Ppruners...

How about we set our our own tabloid newspaper. We then select our best undercover reporter to put on a gormless expression and try and smuggle something into the offices of one of our countries fine tabloid newspapers....

...something they have actively banned

...something they search all who enter the building for to make sure it can never sully their publications

I am of course talking about....THE TRUTH.

What we do is try and smuggle the truth into one of their offices and have our picture taken with it. We then publish it on the front page of our paper with the pretence of giving a flying stuff about our readership and pretending to be the champion of the people for exposing this 'in the interests of the public' (all the while blocking out the cold realisation that we are in fact putting people out of working by keeping a bruised and battered industry on it's knees just to sell a few extra papers)

Who's with me?????

[DocManhattan]

Billy, you're probably being facetious, but still ... no-one cares what you smuggle into a newspaper office unless you actually blow the place up or spray it with bullets. But everyone, whether they read the Currant Bun, the Mail or the Guardian, cares about aircraft security, because almost everyone flies and they want to know how safe flying really is. The newspaper serves the interest of its readers. There you have it.
No, I'm not suggesting journalists should be above the law. I'm just saying that these kinds of exercises -- testing security, testing the safety of products, testing the truth of government statements -- are all legitimate journalistic exercises and don't warrant the outrage that's apparent on this thread.

[Danny]

DocManhatten, you defeat your own argument when you say:

no-one cares what you smuggle into a newspaper office unless you actually blow the place up or spray it with bullets.

Just as you don't care what is smuggled into a newspaper office, I as a pilot don't care what you smuggle into an aircraft as long you don't blow it up or spray it with bullets.

I and probably most other people do not mind journalists exposing flaws in airport security. The problem I and many others have is with the more serious flaws in airport security that journalists fail to realise exist. In this case, the journalist rightfully exposed a flaw with the security screeners and no doubt that has been dealt with. However, based on your quote above, it is fairly obvious that the biggest flaw in security is not the detection of weapons but the INTENT to use a weapon, whether smuggled on board or not!

Now you tell me where you have seen ANY kind of security that deals with the INTENT to use any weapon (and that includes everyday objects readily available beyond 'security') other than with a very few select airlines. I don't include the "did you pack your own bags and has anyone given you anything to carry" question from the bored check-in person.

[Engineer]

Interesting point here is how do you assess INTENT Do you look at the Muslim at check in and assume that he MAY pose a greater threat than the guy wearing a kippah behind him. Or may be the unshaven/unkept person wearing jeans against the suited person? Or vice versa in both cases.

[West Coast]

"No, I'm not suggesting journalists should be above the law. I'm just saying that these kinds of exercises -- testing security, testing the safety of products, testing the truth of government statements -- are all legitimate journalistic exercises and don't warrant the outrage that's apparent on this thread"


That said then you agree this individual should be punished for violating the law? Otherwise your in conflict with what you say above.

[Danny]

The INTENT is assessed by highly trained security people. The usual quip about singling out 'Moslems' is just typical of those that don't understand precisely what profiling is. It starts with simple questioning and observation followed with more questioning based on the answers to previous questions. These highly trained security people will know what they are looking for, not just the answers to their questions but the physical reactions to their questions. They also know how to read an airline ticket. Once their suspicions are aroused they can call in people more experienced than themselves to take the matter further if necessary. There are many ways to profile a person and using the typical discriminatory statement that they would single out young, middle eastern males travelling alone is just not good enough. Yes, those people may be singled out but a good profiler will be able to make a decision based on answers to their questions fairly quickly. Let's not forget that many people who have slipped through the net have not been single, middle eastern looking men.

The problem is not the discriminatory side of profiling but the cost of it. Unfortunately the airlines, governments and passengers pay lip service to the security needs but when it comes down to forking out for this real security it is probably cheaper to risk another 9/11 than face the long term costs of such a secure system. As long as it looks like something is being done, ie. a bunch of uniformed people operating a metal detector and an x-ray machine then that is much cheaper than real security and everyone who has a friend or relative who has had nail clippers removed will believe that it was for the best. Like lambs to the slaughter, the travelling public will believe that journos like the one featured in this post are doing a real service. Until those journalists highlight the real deficiencies, then nothing much is going to change until some very clever terrorists realise that it really is quite easy to bypass the current cosmetic farce most people call 'security'.

[Whippersnapper]

There is no justification for smuggling weapons aboard. The Journos are not trying to provide a safety service, they are merely trying to make a quick buck out of selling a scare story. If they were interested in our safety, they'd conduct their research legitimately or use fake weapons.

If they tried to storm the flight deck, would your arguement "they're only journos testing security" stil hold water? What if they sabotaged aircraft (testing engineers etc)? Or having breached the flightdeck, interfered with the controls to "test the pilots abilities to recover a situation"? Where do you draw the line?

There are licensed and controlled groups who test security arrangements. Let them get on with the job, and stop defending self-interested, panic inducing and dangerous journalists.

[Invictus]

Whippersnapper, - Well said.

Even the ploy of testing security (in this instance) could be used by evil intending people who could then claim that they were just "Testing the system".

If anyone feels inclined to do private testing of the aviation security systems, they should be invited to test the law and the jails when they are caught.

Invictus

[DocManhattan]

Danny, While I'm pretty sure I appreciate where you're coming from, I must say I think you're on very dodgy ground. Unless you're a mind reader, it's impossible to be completely sure of another person's intent. I believe you support profiling and treating people differently based on their profile -- banning some ... based on what? Their faith? Their race? Whether they've attended political rallies? What Web sites they've visited? Whether they were more outraged by the murder of Nick Berg or the U.S. bombing of that Iraqi wedding?

Find it a bit hard to imagine exactly what you're suggesting. That you profile people when they buy their tickets? Or when they arrive at the airport? Enormously time- and resource-consuming, expensive and necessarily inconveniencing a whole bunch of people that are not terrorists. Whatever you say, this will be perceived as racist harrassment when innocent Muslims are questioned and delayed or kept off their flights on suspicion, and this will make more aggrieved yougsters sympathetic to the extremist cause. Or do you think it's better -- certainly more egalitarian -- if your local authorities prepare profiles of everybody, regardless of race, etc?

You cannot have a free society that tries to police intent, or inclination. Societies that have tried -- like, say, the Soviet Union or Communist China, especially during the Cultural Revolution -- are pretty horrible places to live. If you want freedom of speech and thought, then you have to accept that some are going to say and think and believe things you violently disagree with.

You might think it's a relatively minor sacrifice to guarantee safety. Well, I disagree. Firstly, once terrorists get to grips with how profiling works, they will find ways to sidestep it. Recruit covertly from among people that don't fit the typical profile. Then the profiling and scrutiny of the authorities has to get more rigorous and intrusive, and then eventually you no longer have any kind of a society worth fighting for -- all you've got is Orwell's 1984. That's not acceptable to me. Living in a totalitarian state is, for me and many others, too high a price to pay for security.

So the alternative is that you have to police the concrete things as rigorously as possible. You make sure no weapons get on the aeroplanes. You make damn sure that airport security is tight as a gnat's chuff and everyone's on their toes. And one of the ways of doing this is by making sure the guards know they could be tested, independently, at any moment. And if they fail to do their job properly, then people are going to be reading about it over their Corn Flakes the next day and their career prospects will suddenly be much more limited.

As to whether I believe this reporter should be prosecuted -- well, if he broke the law and this can be proved in a court of law, then yes. The media are supposed to be a rogue element, but they're not outlaws. As a journalist myself, I believe that there are times when it's justified to break the law in the interests of the public. Then you publish and be damned, face the consequences and you've done your job. I don't think this guy will be prosecuted, though. Bad publicity ...

Equally, to be completely fair, I think TDK Mk2 (see post on page 1 of this thread) should face the consequences of habitually smuggling nail scissors through BAA security. After all, it's against the rules -- and frankly, I think that's much harder to justify.

[Danny]

Unless you have experienced passenger profiling you will not have any idea what it is about. no one has mentioned anything about racial profiling and your assumption that that is what I was referring to shows how little idea you have about it.

Of course it is going to be very expensive and time consuming. My point in this debate is that if you want better security then put up or shut up. We all know that there is indeed a price or value placed on a human life when it comes to aviation and the regulatory groups that control it.

No one has guaranteed that any system is foolproof but some systems are better than others and the point I am trying to make is that what we see at the moment is nothing short of farcical. Maybe not to the travelling public who are spoon-fed nonsense by the tabloids and other audience hungry news media that what we have now is as good as it gets.

To recoil in shock horror at the word 'profiling' and to immediately assume that it is based someones appearance only goes to show how limited most peoples experience and knowledge of how proper security works. It only shows an aversion to questioning that cowers behind the cloak of Political Correctness.

If you want to reduce the chances of another 9/11 style attack using airliners or just reduce the chance of a hijacking, then more needs to be done and passenger profiling is just another tool in the armoury. Unfortunately, it is an expensive one which is conveniently avoided under the guise of erosion of civil liberties.

What do I care? I'm safe behind my bullet-proof cockpit door. If other people can't understand that a few qualified questions and a glance at the ticket will be all that's needed for the vast majority of passengers with the occasional need for further questions should there be anything that doesn't seem quite right, based on current intelligence, then just let them keep the current joke that is so easily bypassed. Once again, the authorities can close the stable door after the horse has bolted. It's probably just a matter of time.

[Engineer]

Unless you have experienced passenger profiling you will not have any idea what it is about

Are you talking about CAPP or Matchmaker?

[Taildragger67]

Whippersnapper, IMHO you are right to suggest that journos don't do what this guy did and that it should be left to "controlled and licenced" organisations.

But maybe that's where Danny's cost arguments come in - maybe the "controlled and licenced" organisations don't have the resources to do their job to the extent that it should be done. So maybe, the hysteria created by the likes of this journo do two things:
a) create a bit of heat under the relevant administration to put a few more resources into security (in whatever form, eg. pre-boarding or profiling as suggested in this thread);
b) create a climate where the punters are happy to pay a bit extra (ie. be less "penny-pinching").

So whilst not defending the journo, maybe his (illegal) actions can have a positive outcome. Of course the negative is that it might encourage other more nefarious persons to give it a try themselves, before any resources can be applied - so for that reason alone, the guy deserves some condemnation.

However it does beg the question, what is happening to the extra charge made for security these days?

Drags

[DocManhattan]

Danny's right, I have no idea how passenger profiling will work in practice. However, as an educated layman I'm going to need some convincing to believe that you can accurately assess a person's intent just from a couple of questions and a look at their ticket. And I'm going to need a lot more convincing before I believe that profilers are going to be entirelly colourblind in deciding whom to take aside for further questioning. I don't understand how you can be so dismissive of this issue, Danny.
I also fail to understand how you can say that the media is trying to convince the public that the security we have now is ``as good as it gets''. It's precisely the sort of article we're discussing here that shows security as it is is really pretty hopeless and needs to be tightened. I take it we're in agreement on that point.
My argument is that it's better to tighten measures that keep the tools of the terrorist's trade off aircraft than it is to adopt measures, such as profiling, that risk inflaming racial tensions. Scoff all you like, but until someone demonstrates otherwise, then I believe that is what they will do.
Taildragger, from your post it's clear that you understand the benefits that this type of article brings, yet still you can't quite bring yourself to admit that the reporter may have been justified in doing what he did. The story ``might encourage other more nefarious persons to give it a try themselves''? I hardly think so. Firstly, guards will be that much more alert after a publicly embarrassing expose like this, and secondly, if someone's got the fanatical mentality of a terrorist, then it's going to take a lot more than a newspaper article to sway their decisions one way or the other.
I'm not trying to suggest that what this reporter did is in any way revolutionary, or worthy of special praise -- it's just a typical, bread-and-butter expose and it's been done many times before. But the fact that it still CAN be done clearly shows the need for improving our approach to airport security. And the fact that it was done publicly means someone may be embarrassed enough to actually do something. Democratic societies need this type of reporting. Period.

[West Coast]

"Democratic societies need this type of reporting"

Then who protects us from you, the rogue reporter who believes himself above the law?

[DocManhattan]

West Coast, if you'd read my previous posts, then you'll see I say that I don't believe reporters are above the law. If a reporter breaks the law, he is liable for the same punishments as anyone else. But sometimes I believe it's the right thing to do to break a law - and face the consequences - to make a more important point.
And exactly what type of protection do you, the private citizen, need from us scheming journalists? In what way have you personally been damaged by this newspaper story, or any other?
Any protection you need is provided by libel laws. Believe me, in my organization we have to be extremely careful what we write ... (not sure I can say the same for all publications ...)

[Engineer]

Pax profiling was employed on AA77 for 3 of the hijackkers and also a further check pulled 2 of the other guys. But to no avail.

Maybe El Al have had success with their PF but you cannot base that limited result on a world wide hope

What do you say Danny?

[satis 5]

if anyone is aware of a security short coming, they must make the relavent authorities aware as soon as possible.
failure to do so could have consequences too great.
if reporters are caught, they must be made to suffer the severity of the law.
if the item was misplaced in their journey would they raise the alarm?
or if it was found in an a/c, world wide terror alerts resulting?