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New Of course you'll disagree.
We disagree on everything.

Now, I'm not saying profile *just* because they're Arabic. There are lots of suspicious behaviors. Richard Reid, so-called "Shoe Bomber", a British citizen with British papers, perhaps not obviously Arabic but certainly a bit odd-looking with a "druggie" look (one account says, and the pictures I've seen agree with that assessment), raised red flags when he tried to board a flight from Paris to Miami - so much so that he missed his plane while being interrogated.

Perhaps the white chick with the Arab boyfriend might not raise the same flags, but her carry-on baggage has to go through the same machines. (Which raises other questions, such as Cincinnati's 57% failure rate to spot OBVIOUS guns going through the X-ray machine, but that's almost beside the point. The people at those X-ray machines are mininimum-wage people, commonly non-citizen immigrants, some here illegally, some of who likely wouldn't care if the entire Western seaboard fell into the sea, some of whom, so it appears, don't even bother to check if the X-ray machine is on.)

Current airline security is *still* a joke. Bomb-sniffing equipment for checked luggage has been installed in, what is it, .01% of the airports in the U.S.? Air marshals are few and far between and there are people who argue against giving the pilots *anything* more than the axe they have in the cockpit to help protect themselves.

Leaving your security in the hands of the government (or the airlines, or private corporations) has proven almost worse than uesless. Richard Reid was brought down by fellow passengers, not security screeners, but he's one fellow who could have and should have been profiled out the wazoo.
Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."
New Pretty much. :)
Well, if we always agreed life would be boring.

Now, I'm not saying profile *just* because they're Arabic.
Okay, but it seemed that you did. Okay, Arabic, in the US and trying to board a plane.

Is that detailed enough. :)

There are lots of suspicious behaviors. Richard Reid, so-called "Shoe Bomber", a British citizen with British papers, perhaps not obviously Arabic but certainly a bit odd-looking with a "druggie" look (one account says, and the pictures I've seen agree with that assessment), raised red flags when he tried to board a flight from Paris to Miami - so much so that he missed his plane while being interrogated.
You've never seen me. I've never been interrogated, but I've been felt up a few times.

So, you buy all the terrorists nice suits and such. The problem is focusing on a "look". All it takes to crack that system is changing your look.

Perhaps the white chick with the Arab boyfriend might not raise the same flags, but her carry-on baggage has to go through the same machines.
Yep. And if we were talking machines, it would be harder. But we're talking about people manning the machines. Then it becomes easy to get stuff through, as you've noted.

Current airline security is *still* a joke.
And it will always be a joke.

Until we grow up and realize that what a person looks like is NOT a reliable indicator of whether s/he is a terrorist or not.

In your previous post, you talked about searching all the Arabs coming through the airport.

This is a problem because it conditions the security personnel to focus on the Arabic look.

The security personnel are human and will make mistakes. To crack them, you send a series of false positives through. Meanwhile, you're slipping your weapons through on the least Arabic looking mule you can find.

Richard Reid was brought down by fellow passengers, not security screeners, but he's one fellow who could have and should have been profiled out the wazoo.
Exactly. When you ONLY try to secure the access points, you have problems. Each flight should have one or two ARMED and UNIFORMED security personnel next to the cockpit. Facing the passengers.

Defense in depth.

Check for weapons before allowing them on the plane.

Our gun them while on the plane.

Lock the cockpit from the inside.

Even this won't prevent 100% of the attacks. A terrorist can still spend years working his/her way up to commercial pilot and then crash into a building.

But this will reduce the threat. Make it as difficult as possible. Make it as time consuming as possible.
New Further disagreements
Okay, but it seemed that you did. Okay, Arabic, in the US and trying to board a plane.

Given that the 19 September 11 bombers were Arabic (18 of them Saudi Arabs, in fact, some with perfectly valid visas, some with forged ID and papers) it doesn't strike me as too terribly bad to give them a bit more scrutiny than the 80-year old combat veteran who had shot down 26 Japanese planes during the Battle of Midway. And any supposed screener who can't tell the difference between the Medal of Honor and a weapon should be fired on the spot.

Those in the FAA who issued "confiscate nail files and fingernail clippers" rules should also be fired. ASAP. (Not that the bureaucracy is going to let that happen.)

This is a problem because it conditions the security personnel to focus on the Arabic look.

That's a bureaucratic answer to the problem, which is not what we need. The trouble is, damn bureaucrats need to make rules and Oh My God Forbid that they be unfair to a particular racial group no matter how weird their behavior might have been. We need to hire, and pay for, intelligent screeners.

Racial makeup *should* be taken into account. Detaining a 10-year naturalized Arabic US citizen just for his racial makeup is dead wrong. But totally ignoring race ignores the facts: 18 Saudi Arabs, members of a fanatical faction of Islam, killed upwards of 3000 people (it's a miracle they didn't kill more) and inflicted billions of dollars of damage. Ignore that and you're burying your head in the sand.

(side note: the U.S. is doing this, burying its head in the sands of Saudi Arabia, despite Saudi support and funding of terrorist groups. We've got to issue an ultimatium. You give one more dollar to Osama binLaden or whoever his successor is, and we'll replace you and your government with something else. Whatever it takes.)

The security personnel are human and will make mistakes. To crack them, you send a series of false positives through. Meanwhile, you're slipping your weapons through on the least Arabic looking mule you can find.

I'm not sure you can really call the security personnel currently on duty (still pretty much the same minimum wage people who were on duty September 11, although there have been *some* firings and investigations) human. Every other day it seems you hear of some other abuse; patting down in great detail curvacious blondes while ignoring the wild-eyed unshaven guys who would meet any profile you might come up with. They've issued new regulations about that (female examines females, f'r instance) but I haven't heard much about disciplinary actions against those jerks who got their jollies out of searching women who had a spec of metal in their uplift bra.

Exactly. When you ONLY try to secure the access points, you have problems. Each flight should have one or two ARMED and UNIFORMED security personnel next to the cockpit. Facing the passengers.

Seriously disagree with this. A uniform means the security guy (air marshal or whatever) is an obvious first target a terrorist will plan to take out. Unless the marshal is holding his gun in his hand at all times, some terrorist can walk down the aisle to the first class section (or wherever the marshal is sitting) and, if prepared (as he would be), likely draw and shoot faster than the marshal can get his gun out of his holster.

And if there are four potential martyrs on the plane, the marshal(s) are unlikely to be able to outgun them.

Air marshals or armed security on every flight, I'll go for that. Just don't make them obvious targets.

Even this won't prevent 100% of the attacks. A terrorist can still spend years working his/her way up to commercial pilot and then crash into a building.

Or crash an aircraft into the ocean, as happened a year or two ago (and, if I remember correctly, Egypt still denies that it was a suicide.)
New As always.
Again with the racial profiling. Yes, the hijackers were Saudi.

But you cannot focus on EVERYTHING.

Focusing means to pay more attention to one thing than to other things.

If you develop a rules system that focuses on arabians, then, by definition, you are paying less attention to other passengers.

Which is why I gave the example of using the white girlfriend to get the weapons through security.

As for a terrorist being able to out draw a uniformed security guard, that depends upon the terrorist having a hand gun and if the terrorist has managed to get a hand gun onto the plane, there's nothing any sky marshal is going to be able to do to stop them.

My scenario relies upon the guards being better armed than the hijackers. If we can't achieve that, then we need to seal the cockpit from the rest of the plane.
New Re: Agree re the focus - IRA understood this well ...

As did the 1970 palestinian terrorists.

Start up a romance with a lost soul - fill her bags with the stash (guns, drugs, whatever), provide an excuse for why she has to travel or start to, travel alone. Defeat the screening who are looking for an Irish Male Terrorist or a Palestinian male Terrorist.

This has to be a no-brainer.

Cheers

Doug
New El Al
Israel has not had a single problem with hijackings since the 1970's. They profile extensively. They have an equivalent of air marshals on every flight.

The U.S. could learn a lot from them, if we weren't so damn politically correct.
Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."
New Capacity.
Israel also runs fewer than 1/1,000 of the flights the US runs each day.

Israel has multiple check points along the roads leading to the airport.

Think about what would happen if the US decided to block all traffic 2 miles from each airport and do a car by car check for suspicious individuals.

And that does not even include UPS and Airborne and FedEx aircraft.
New %100 of little Timmy McV wasn't Arabic
And was a vet, no less.
----
United we stand

Divided we dominate the planet without really trying
     Get over it! - (wharris2) - (30)
         Security Checks - (orion)
         It's simple: those paid to 'do security' - (Ashton) - (1)
             Those paid to 'do security" - (orion)
         I'll disagree. - (Brandioch) - (14)
             Yours is better. I retract. -NT - (Ashton)
             Of course you'll disagree. - (wharris2) - (7)
                 Pretty much. :) - (Brandioch) - (6)
                     Further disagreements - (wharris2) - (5)
                         As always. - (Brandioch) - (3)
                             Re: Agree re the focus - IRA understood this well ... - (dmarker2)
                             El Al - (wharris2) - (1)
                                 Capacity. - (Brandioch)
                         %100 of little Timmy McV wasn't Arabic - (mhuber)
             that was how the lockerbie plane blew - (boxley) - (4)
                 Exactamente! We don't *want* to face things ever. - (Ashton) - (3)
                     Can't we just put better procedures in place? - (mhuber)
                     You see, Ash, that's the problem! - (jb4) - (1)
                         And it kinda makes discussion superfluous. - (Ashton)
         Are you just NOW getting to this? - (Simon_Jester) - (6)
             "Irregardless" is not a word. It's "Regardless". - (mmoffitt) - (5)
                 Oooh! A nit war! :-) It's in dictionary.com - (Another Scott)
                 Ya know... - (Simon_Jester) - (2)
                     Huh? - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                         That ain't 'murder', just a bit of battery. - (Ashton)
                 Burns my butt also, sir Moffit -NT - (wharris2)
         I've said it before, I'll say it again. - (mmoffitt) - (4)
             There is no 100% secure. - (Brandioch) - (1)
                 Obviously.. and thus far - Whole Const. Amendments-full.. -NT - (Ashton)
             Another exchange. - (inthane-chan) - (1)
                 In that world - (boxley)

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