Heightened security at U.S airports (and overseas?)

[500N]

Not enough people in NZ to queue for miles.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Not enough people in NZ to queue for miles

Smaller Imm. halls - so it just looks like miles !

The whole thing is a monumental waste of time anyway, the Bad Boys will do exactly what they want to do, precisely when they want to do it, all we are really achieving is stopping a few nutters hijacking their grandmother to Cuba.

[ballyctid]

Ah well it will give the Manchester jobsworths more ammo.... Excuse the pun!

[7x7]

I note more than a few comments here expressing what can only be called cynicism about governments and government agencies having hidden agendas in ramping up security. I'm as fed up with the security measures we endure post-2001 as anyone here, but the cynicism makes me wonder what would have happened if the US had pulled off a "Bruce Wiliis" last minute "save" and quietly arrested the 19 young Arab men at three separate airports (or, if you want to take the Bruce Willis thing to an extreme, if some heroic passengers had overcome all the hijackers on board the aircraft after the hijackers had shown their hand)?

- 90% of the population would have gone "ho hum" and got on with their lives.
- visitors to airports in the US would still go right to the gate.
- Governments would never have been able to bring in 90% of the security measures that have since that day. The civil libertarians would never have allowed it.
- The 19 young Arabs, particularly if denied boarding, would have walked away uncharged - and if charged, would almost certainly have got off scot free, doubtlessly enthusiastically defended in court by well-meaning American lawyers.
- 99.9% of the population could not bring themselves to believe that the concept of suicide hijacking could be even a consideration.
- no Gulf War 2 (or at least another excuse would have to have been found for it)
- no Afghan war
- what else?

[Passenger 389]

Pilot arrested after stripped to underpants to protest security screening procedure

South African Airways pilot Captain W Van Ginkel was arrested after he reportedly lost his temper and stripped to his underpants to protest security procedures at Zimbabwe's Harare International airport.

The flight was delayed by more than five hours to allow another crew from Johannesburg to take over after Ginkel was barred from flying.

"The report said the detectors at the screening gates beeped as the pilot went through, prompting the authorities to ask him to remove his shoes.
But again the detectors beeped, resulting in him being asked to remove his belt, a directive that triggered a furious protest that saw him undressing to his undergarment.

Security officials subsequently moved in and arrested him."

Drama as angry SA pilot strips at Harare airport | News24

SAA pilot arrested for stripping - DailyNews Live

[F14]

Reading the comments sections of most UK newspapers, it would appear the sheeple are no longer convinced. At least the "send the tanks to heathrow", escapade did have a credible threat of MANPAD in the uk mainland.

BBC NEWS | UK | In pictures: Army patrols Heathrow

Some choice tid bits from Guardian comments:-

"if the devices are undetectable, how will current frisks and swabbing find them?"

"if liquids are possible explosives, why are they not being immediately disposed of, rather than piled up under the scanner next to the passengers?"

Maybe the pax are starting to think for themselves?

[HeliBot]

Passenger profiling exists (I'd imagine in most of the Western World, but certainly the places I'm familiar with). There's only so much that it helps, though, because not all airfares are booked well in advance, and information may only be available to authorities shortly after check-in. Given the interested parties would need to then run assessments it would be unlikely that a problem would be identified before takeoff - and for something like this thta would probably be too late, unless you can discretely divert (or have a marshall on board that can play James Bond).

[lomapaseo]

if the devices are undetectable, how will current frisks and swabbing find them?"

"if liquids are possible explosives, why are they not being immediately disposed of, rather than piled up under the scanner next to the passengers?"

Hopefully the nutters carrying the stuff, think the same way and get caught

It's combinations that are being looked at harder. You just don't announce it

[Espada III]

Interesting comment on Radio 4 yesterday. The customs and immigration people at ports/airports use profiling in terms of seeking out some unusual behaviour or answers so they leave most people untroubled. Only for security do we have the silliness of assuming everyone is a potential terrorist.

The Israelis do profile. I go through their security in one minute; others can take a lot longer. Reason? I am Jewish, can prove it and travel with family. As Golda Meir once said ".....Only when the Arabs learn to love their children more than they hate ours, can there be peace..."

[Alogan]

Whilst I understand that governments have to take threats to the safety of their citizens seriously, questions need to be asked about the extent to which these security measures are eroding our civil liberties, i.e. the very things which make our society worth living in.

I'd like to live in a safe world, but I'd rather live in a free world. And if the cost of living in a free world, where innocent human beings are treated as such, is a small risk of being attacked by nutters, then that's a cost I'm willing to pay. It simply has to be, or else our society is no better than the one these loonies want.

[Simplythebeast]

So Alogen, a 747 being blown out of the sky every couple of years is a reasonable price for your Civil liberty? Lets get real......please.

[Capetonian]

Unfortunately, all this goes to show that the terrorists have won and the world has submitted.

[Sober Lark]

Enhanced security measures to get you to the US safely and once you get there you read various articles using 9/11 as a marker to point out that since that date they've had over 300,000 gun deaths in the country. Seems like I'm kept safe so I'm fresh for target practice once I get there. (For US readers - only kidding!)

[Hotel Tango]

My only beef about the USA (and to some extent the UK too) is that many law and/or security enforcers don't know the difference between sensible objective security and rampant paranoia.

[Alogan]

So Alogen, a 747 being blown out of the sky every couple of years is a reasonable price for your Civil liberty? Lets get real......please.

I don't think anyone is saying that, merely that there's a balance to be struck between reducing security risk on the one hand, and maintaining liberties on the other, and that trying to provide 100% guaranteed security just makes all our lives a misery without ever being able to achieve its aim.

[deefer dog]

In my experience it is not the security screening that annoys pax and crew alike, but rather it is the manner of the operatives - most of whom are alluded in the belief that they are either important, or posses authority.

Neither of these attributes are required for them to perform their basic function which is to herd humans through a process that is not really that intrusive. If the operatives left their attitudes at home the entire rigmarole would take less time.

[fergineer]

Update from Auckland.....that was the quickest Ihave passed through, now sitting in the lounge enjoying a beer or three

[nivsy]

There is no doubt that security and the issues surrounding it is now a vital requirment in every day flying and is of importance to all airports.

I find it interesting that some airports do try and cope with what will be varying degree of heightened security compared to other but all airports are ultimately, I assume trying to get more pax through and utilising their facility. I am still amzed however how ill thought out, unfriendy, lack of personal space security areas are compared to the vast shopping complexes that are avaialable after security.

I would far prefer a better security area, with more space, perhaps a little more "less open" and able to filter pax easier and better. Far prefer that than yet another so called duty free shop that actually sells stuff probably more expensive than the high street and certainly more than "on line". I look around these days and see lots of "bored staff" lucky if they manage 5 sales a day!

[500N]

One thing i would like to see, that would speed up processing is tell or train passengers to wear less metal - less jewellery that needs to be taken off, less metal, easier to get off shoes etc etc.

That is based on seeing how long it takes some people to prepare for a search.


Also agree with
If the operatives left their attitudes at home the entire rigmarole would take less time.

[Cameronian]

I'm probably about to get shot down in flames but I simply don't recognise the difficulties with security which upset so many posters. I and mine have made perhaps thirty to forty journeys each year, for almost thirty years, to and from PMI. The main destination is LGW but quite a few trips have been to and from GLA, EXT, BRS, STN, LTN, EDI, AMS, BCN and MAD - and there will have been a few more airports besides those, but less used, too. I can't remember having the slightest issue with any individual security officer anywhere, ever. We have lots of guests coming to visit us each year and, while I have never specifically asked, none has complained about their experience with security staff - ever. I suspect that we are obviously polite and happy sorts who recognise that the security rigmarole is a fact of life and that the details of how it all works are beyond our ken. I'm grateful that these people do that work and am delighted that I am not in their shoes (sorry!). By and large I'm struck by how polite and reasonable they are while doing an unattractive and, perhaps, under-appreciated job. Perhaps some passengers take a clear attitude and some may even set out to rub them up the wrong way and if they do that then it seems reasonable to say that they deserve what they get.

I know, I know, I'm in for it now but that's the way I see it. Flying can be a frustrating affair and I admire the professionals who put up with the worst aspects of it - not to mention regular jet lag. I confess that I have never flown into the USA and I know that many see American destinations as particularly difficult from the security experience point of view but I have no experience of them at all.