Okay I'll go there.. exactly what would you do to find people hell bent on using planes as weapons

[Peacetrain]

I have been reading threads.. listening to numerous sides about the TSA patdwon and scans..

With people hiding bombs in their underwear.. (that was last Christmas..the guy tried to light his underwear for GOD'S sakes? )

Well endowed women, can easily hide a weapon under their breasts..

If a person does not want to go through the scan or empty your pockets.. a pat down would have to be pretty intimate to look in those other areas..

You don't want Granny patted down.. or Uncle Jim with the cane.. you will find us going down a very slippery slope of profiling.

And suddenly what we are going to see.. are people of color, and obvious ethnic diversity, cultural and religious being pulled out to be screened.

So I am a white older woman.. I would rather walk through the damn screen all of us together, than have that slippery slope of profiling take place.

Edit to add.. you will also see younger people being targeted and those with lots of tattoos..etc... just remember, our home grown terrorists are pretty damn blonde and blue eyed

[rfranklin]

1. I would go to Saudi Arabia or maybe Yemen....

Just a hunch.

[Politics_Guy25]

2. DUers think that terrorism is not a threat

and that no national security measures need to be taken.

[Lost-in-FL]

4. "DUers" are a lot of people. Please don't generalize.

I am not asking that "all national security measures" should be stopped, I am asking WHEN is this going to stop.

The debate is that the new guidelines are excessive, nothing else.

[hlthe2b]

11. That is demonstrably NOT true... but thanks for the RW talking point

:eyes:

[Arctic Dave]

15. Sounds like you live in Assholvania. I have a much more likely chance

of being killed in an bank robbery then terrorism. But go ahead with your fantasy of a terrist under every bed.

[high density]

27. I think...

... that if intelligence has failed us to the point of the terrorists making it to the airport TSA line, it is much too late to stop the plot. What the TSA is doing now is simply an overblown reaction to shit that has already happened while assuming that everybody who wants to fly is a criminal who wants to down an airliner.

[de novo]

46. Terrorism isn't the threat we are told to believe it is.

[slackmaster]

3. Create a system to allow people to be pre-screened

A thorough background check, a small fee, and you get a card that with your ID allows you to get on a plane after a metal detector check to make sure you haven't forgotten to remove a knife, gun, etc. from your possession.

We have that at the Mexican border (less the metal detector).

[Peacetrain]

5. I thought they instituted that after 9/11 ... there is a pre screening opt out?

[sally cat]

17. Why hasn't that been implemented?

[HipChick]

26. They already did that...I worked on the beta test for it..the program was cancelled

It was called CLEAR...

[XemaSab]

6. I can get crazier than that

A well-endowed woman could have had the fluid sucked out of her implants and replaced with something explosive.

Anyone could have explosives stitched inside themselves. Rip open the stitches with a pair of nail clippers and pull the explosives out.

Anyone could swallow explosives, then take a laxative, crap them out, and blow up the plane.

A woman could have explosives hidden in her lady bits.

And that's not counting the many ways to get explosives hidden in bags.


If someone REALLY wants to smuggle explosives onto a plane, they can do it.

Look at how much cocaine is flown into the US every day on commercial airliners. :P

[impik]

7. 4 out of 5 Americans support this method

It's sucks, but this is the world we live in. Couple of uncomfortable moments are better than an airplane exploding. But s always, this place lives in a fantasy land.

[Peacetrain]

8. If someone has a better idea outside of profiling.. I have yet to hear it

And profiling is the last place I want to go...Besides a really committed terrorist can pass themselves off as anyone..Wasn't it last week or so a young Asian man passed himself off as an elderly white guy on an airplane..and they only caught him when he when to the bathroom and changed his disguise.

[CreekDog]

24. do it like the Canadians do? at least I wasn't harassed there

:shrug:

[treestar]

58. He was probably headed for the US

Canada has not made themselves into a target.

The weak link there was in Hong Kong - if he were coming here he could not get on the plane without a visa, and that would have his photo.

[CreekDog]

85. I was headed to the USA from Canada

they didn't harass me the was TSA does.

[de novo]

12. Link please. And, it must be within the past two weeks, as the new measures are recent.

[Occam Bandage]

34. 4/5 support the backscatter machines.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20022876-503544.html

[Dr.Phool]

20. And 9 out of 10 doctors recommend smoking Parliaments.

They can stick their intrusive bullshit up their collective asses.

I'll boycott the airlines.

[Occam Bandage]

35. Frankly, the airlines are more against this than the general public is. nt

[treestar]

59. link for that?

They don't like losing planes.

[smiley]

70. it sucks...

that 4 out 5 americans are sucker to the continual 9/11 propaganda that is our security theatre.

If you're one of the 4 out of 5, then I truly believe you might be the one living in a fantasy (terror) land.

[hlthe2b]

9. Perhaps start with the 99% of cargo that is not screened at all

Perhaps listen to the Israelis and the Europeans who are the acknowledged leaders in this kind of security and who know that the personal interview for behavioral reactions is key. Perhaps stop reflexively throwing money at unproven technology to line the pockets of former RW heads of HS.

[Peacetrain]

14. you will get no argument from me on the importance of screening cargo..

[Rosa Luxemburg]

82. how many times do they screen before getting on a train?

[smiley]

84. I don't know about trains

but how about our seaports?

http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-chicago/less-than-1-percent-of-cargo-scanned-for-bombs


It's all a bunch of security theater. Get used to it, because if you're not gonna fight it, you might as well conform to it.

[smiley]

80. +1000

http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-chicago/less-than-1-percent-of-cargo-scanned-for-bombs

[Hawkowl]

10. Never happen again.

The airplanes all have reinforced doors and a lot of pilots are armed. No chance of hijackers getting into the cockpit again. Now we are screening for explosives. Nothing, NOTHING is more safe, more accurate, or more customer service friendly than a dog. We should have explosive sniffing dog teams at every airport. Dogs and other electronic sniffing devices could also be used to examine cargo and checked baggage (what brought down PanAm over Lockerbie). This is what is the likeliest and greatest potential threat as evidenced by the recent cargo packages mailed from the Middle East-Not some lunatic trying to blow up his genitals.

Your arguments are facile and ignorant. You cloak them in the same patriotic gibberish of safety, and yet add a befuddled attack against "profiling". Yet "profiling" is how the Israelis and many other countries successfully screen airplanes. They profile regarding body language and habits not for race/color/creed.

I think Ben Franklin was thinking of frightened old ladies like you when he said, "They who would give up essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither."

And yes, I fly often, being an airline captain.

[Peacetrain]

13. Well lets say people who would rather profile..

Give up everything.. You call it befuddled.. I call it profiling stupid and the lowest common scare tactic.. which is easily bypassed.. just look at that young Asian guy last week who passed himself off as an old white guy...

Talk about befuddled..

[Hawkowl]

16. Illogical hysteria

Profiling is merely the assemblage of a group of commonalities held by terrorists. The first being their willingness to commit murder.

You do realize you are profiled every time you use your debit/credit card don't you? All those coupons that automatically spit out with your grocery receipt? Profiling. All those spam emails you get? Profiling. Junk mail? Profiling. Insurance rates? Profiling.

We are profiled to the nth degree every day, except when it comes to security. Then we have to waste time, money, intelligence, all in the name of some non-existent objectivity and still not achieve anything remotely close to security, merely trash everyone's civil rights and human dignity.
'.

[Peacetrain]

18. Profiling.. the last harbor of the fearful...

Yeah..lets trash these selective groups rights.. pull those people to the side.. they look shifty.. they are wearing the wrong clothes.. Do you smell curry on them?

Give me an every loving break.. I will take my turn in line with everyone else.

[Empowerer]

21. With "THEY" being the operative word . . .

Increased scrutiny, invasion of privacy, etc. is all well and good - as long as it's someone else who is being targeted.

[Hawkowl]

22. That's not how profiling is done

Are you really that ignorant or just constructing straw men? That is exactly NOT how successful profiling as done by Israel and other foreign countries which successfully prevent terrorism.

And I offered alternatives. The main one being bomb sniffing dogs. A dog can find a bomb in your underwear a lot better than a machine or some GED, knuckling dragging TSA operative. A dog can also find bombs in the cargo hold. Problem solved. Now go manufacture some other crisis where you can suffer in solidarity with the masses.

[Peacetrain]

25. Ignorant is certainly in the eye of this beholder..

Behavioral profiling.. has a huge lusty amount of cultural profiling involved. Can you imagine being of Arab descent in Ben Gurion Airport .. Do you think, you just might be a little nervous, jittery..hmmmmmmmmmm

You get into a country the size of the United States.. and you try doing a two hour observation of passengers to find the jittery, sweaty, .. etc etc.

This country would grind to halt..and your alternatives.. well how would those bomb sniffing dogs sort out the box cutters?

Edit to add.. the bomb sniffing dogs are great.. even they can be side tracked, with an overcast of other odors..

Behavioral, Racial, Ethnic etc profiling in a country our size.. not a good option. I am not saying people acting squirrely should not be observed.. but a determined terrorist can steel themselves to bypass behavioral idiosyncrasies

[superduperfarleft]

28. Wait, you think the TSA doesn't ALREADY do behavioral profiling?

My brother's ex-girlfriend works for the TSA and that's ALL she does, walk around the airport looking for people acting "weird."

[Peacetrain]

29. I did not say that... I have an edit to that last post

[Hawkowl]

31. Reread

If you read my first response, it is impossible to take over an airliner with a box cutter. It is probably impossible to hijack an airliner period. Blow it up? Yes. Gain access to the flight deck? No.

[Jakes Progress]

33. I think you are out of luck

trying to convince some that they aren't special. Way too many are willing for others to be harrassed, arrested, persecuted as long at they get by. Now if you singled them out for that kind of treatment, you would hear the squealing across the terminal.

I kind of think the TSA crap is overdone, but I think what they do to one, they should do to all. That this is getting all the hysteria is work of the other side. republicans are getting ready to screw the nation as hard as they can, and all the MSM can do is talk about airport security. It's the old magician's ploy of diverting attention. We will get this hoopla until after the republicans have looted the country once again.

[Empowerer]

19. You're missing an important point

The "profiling" you point to is usually based on our own past behavior - it's not based on our ethnicity or what we look like or how our last name sounds.

Not only is the latter a much more heinous and invasive form of profiling than that you reference, it's also exceedingly less accurate - it actually means very little and does not protect us from terrorism since terrorists come in all races, ethnicities, national origins, etc.

[treestar]

60. Businesses can do it, but not the government

The government cannot be suspicious of people without probable cause. So it has to be everyone being treated equally.

[smiley]

83. link please?

to that young Asian guy you referenced in your post.

... and porn sites don't count. :evilfrown:

[boppers]

41. "more customer service friendly than a dog"...

Culturally diverse, much?

[CreekDog]

23. not spend 15 minutes examining each amputee

how's that for a start?

[Vinca]

30. They might check all of the stuff they're putting into the cargo hold . . .

instead of 5% of it. If OBL has Directv in his cave, I bet he thinks this whole TSA grope-a-thon is a riot.

[MadMaddie]

32. I would say, "Why isn't Israel doing the same thing"?

I would say the answer lies in Israel's answer to how they treat planes and terrorism.

You see they start way at the beginning, which is they have military style checkposts before you event drive into the airport. The cars are stopped and inspected as well as the occupants. There are several other checks that they imploy before a passenger gets to the plane.

I say that the Israelies also have intelligent and well paid employees doing the checks. We could not do that until the TSA was weeded out of employees who lack even the most basic common sense.

The Israelies have not had a terrorist attack in years and there is a reason why?

Oh and to say that the Israeli airport is only one and we have hundreds, I don't accept that excuse. We live in one of the greatest, technology advanced countries in the world. We have more unemployed people that are qualifed to come up with a workable plan.

[Phx_Dem]

37. You can't compare Israel with its one airport and population the

size of one American state.

[sally cat]

52. The complexity of security issues facing that airport make it an ideal model.

[Phx_Dem]

53. The logistics are completely different. We would have to have the

equivalent of FBI profilers interviewing passengers in hundreds (thousands if you include all airports) of airports in the U.S. Easy to do for one airport, not so easy or cost effective for every airport in the United States.

How many thousands of profilers would we have to hire? It works great for Isreal becuase they're a tiny country with one airport and one airline. It might also work for Great Britan or other countries with a limited number of airports/airlines, but logistically, it would be very difficult for the United States to implement.

[treestar]

61. It still sounds much more time consuming and intrusive

in a different way - most Americans are impatient and would rather go through the scanner is my bet.

And we have more diversity of people here, so that "training" might be much more complex.

[Phx_Dem]

36. I agree. I'd rather be patted down, then end up sitting next

to a guy with explosives in his crotch because he wasn't patted down. Or have a family member blown to smithereens for the same reason.

I think this whole thing is media-induced much ado about not very much. I don't think anyone is being pinched, tickled, grabbed, or "felt up." I have heard exactly one story that appeared to go too far -- the woman who had to remove her prothetic breast.

Is it unfortunate that we have to go thru this? Yes. Is it necessary? Probably so considering last year's Christmas bomber boarded a plane with plastic explosives in his underwear.

[truth2power]

38. Read this article...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x571284

The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

[Laelth]

39. I'd ignore them.

50,000 people/year (roughly) die in motor vehicle collisions. Fix that first, then I might worry about terrorists.

-Laelth

[Cleobulus]

40. If you want to be safe, advocate for cavity searches for everyone, otherwise you are just...

blowing smoke up our asses. Anyone can hid a small explosive and/or non-metal weapons in their vagina, anus, hell even mouth. As far as profiling, I'm against it, and it shouldn't be necessary. If you wish to be so god damned paranoid, then we will need to do this, otherwise we are never going to be safe on airplanes.

[boppers]

42. Full, *recorded* backscatter screening, for *everyone*, and X-ray for everything.

The "only screen on beep" shit is so wrong, considering the advances in plastics and ceramics, as well as the insane amount of potential bomb components you can carry on without anybody batting an eyelash.

People too religiously paranoid that "god will be mad at them for being seen naked", well, those are exactly the kinds of folks we don't want on the planes.

[CreekDog]

55. thanks for showing in such clear terms how incredibly bad your ideas are

can i quote you to people who think you are reasonable but misunderstood because they haven't read the post i'm responding to?

[boppers]

67. Interesting counter-argument....

Oh wait, it isn't.

[CreekDog]

68. how's this for a counterargument? x-rays are not demonstrated to be safe

therefore, requiring them of everybody, or anybody really, is wrong.

i should not have to have something not proven safe done to my body to make you safer.

[boppers]

72. Sunlight has also not been proven to be safe. Same with bananas.

Both are known radiation sources that potentially cause cancer.

Of course, nobody is actually required to go into sunlight, eat a banana, or fly on a commercial flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

edit: s/be/been/

[CreekDog]

76. Can sunlight show your bones? Castscope shows bones

are you an expert on radiation?

[boppers]

77. Castscope is approximately 10 microRem/10 µrem per scan.

A medical X-Ray is 10,000 to 100,000 microRem/µrem.

Are you moving around, breathing air, eating food? Congratulations, you've been irradiated!

Nope, not an "expert", just somebody who had a decent education, where radiation exposure, and dosages, and basic atomic physics, was part of the standard junior-high curricula.

I do get the feeling a lot of people didn't have atomic physics as part of their basic education, though... do you know what your daily radiation dosages are? Here's a map:



Castscan is equivalent to spending 4 hours in Florida, or spending a tad over an hour in Vegas.

[CreekDog]

78. It's not sunlight, it's a machine that does show your bones

and physicists and radiology researchers (one from UCSF) have said they are not proven safe.

UCSF has been warning their cancer patients to avoid these machines.

[boppers]

79. Cancer patients should avoid as much radiation as possible, especially while in treatment.

That includes sunlight, medical X-rays, and flying on planes. Except, of course, the doses of radiation administered to cure/treat their cancer.

As far as proving any radiation "safe", that's not going to happen. What is possible is comparing levels of risk.

[ibegurpard]

43. we CAN'T prevent someone hellbent on it

what we CAN do is recognize that life is full of risks and stop surrendering our freedom to try to avoid them.

[golfguru]

44. There are common threads between all airline bombers

1. They are muslims or married to a muslim
2. They have spent time in either Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
3. They are between the ages of 16 & 50.
4. They attend a mosque or are closely associated with someone who attends.

That covers 99.99% of all airline terrorists.

[boppers]

45. Those are the ones being waved around in US media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerom%C3%A9xico_Flight_576
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CanJet_Flight_918

[golfguru]

47. None of those flights were US associated

and 2 of them were not suicide bombers. Not sure what the 3rd was.

I am talking about flights originating in US which are causing
the biggest headache to US passengers.

If you are familiar with rantings of Osama Bin Laden, United States is the
BIG SATAN. His organization, Al Qaeda, is mainly responsible for suicide
attacks on American airliners in recent years.

So profiling that category of passengers is the most effective way of guarding
against terror on US originating or US bound aircraft.

[boppers]

50. Ok, "flights originating in US", with bombs detonated on board, by passengers?

That's your specific criteria?

Okay, here's an exhaustive list of *all* the times that's happened:
1. 25 July 1957; Western Airlines CV-240; Flight 39
http://www.airsafe.com/plane-crash/western-airlines-flight-39-1957.pdf
Elderly man, Suicide.

2. 6 January 1960; National Airlines DC6; Flight 2511
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_2511
http://www.airsafe.com/plane-crash/national-airlines-flight-2511-1960.pdf
Murder/Suicide, life insurance.

3. 22 May 1962; Continental Airlines 707; Flight 11
http://www.airsafe.com/plane-crash/continental-airlines-flight-11-1962.pdf
Suicide for Life Insurance

4. ...


There is no number 4. That's the whole list, as far as I can tell. You might want to revise the criteria.

[golfguru]

54. I though this thread is about terrorists

not suicide.

[boppers]

69. Well, your criteria was fairly narrow.

There aren't a whole lot of terror attacks in the US, coming from the US, involving bombers who stay on the planes.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

73. ... so none since 1962. I'm not sure that helps your case. n/t

[boppers]

75. Well, I was looking at the stereotyping model of "attacks from middle eastern bombers"

Turns out that while that flame gets fanned a lot, it really isn't 99.99% of attacks.

[sally cat]

51. I keep hearing that as a nation we would rather play security theater than go there.

[athena]

56. Profiling is neither easy not accurate.

How can you tell someone is Muslim or married to a Muslim? Not all Muslims have Muslim-sounding names. Furthermore, there are people with Muslim-sounding names who are not Muslim. Are you suggesting that the TSA ask people what their religion is and whether they are married to a Muslim? What makes you think the terrorists would answer truthfully?

How do you suggest that the TSA determine whether someone attends a mosque? Should mosques be required to keep a record of the names of the people who attend, and hand over the list to the government? How would the mosques know that the people were providing their true identities? And how is the government supposed to know whether someone is associated to someone who attends a mosque? Are you suggesting that the government keep a record of everybody's friends and acquantances?

I suspect that you pulled the 99.99% figure out of the air. Even assuming that the figure is correct and that the TSA can somehow tell whether someone is a Muslim who attends a mosqu, one out of 10,000 terrorists would not fit the profile.

The reason the TSA is not profiling is that with the numbers of passengers in the U.S., and the large fraction of minorities, profiling would be both extremely difficult and extremely unreliable.

[slackmaster]

66. The right question to start with, I think, is to ask who is NOT going to take down a plane

Granny, Uncle Jim with a cane, Peacetrain, a six-year-old boy, a three-year-old girl, and Tom Sawyer of Romulus, Michigan (the urostomy guy) are obvious starters.



At its simplest, profiling would entail leaving those people alone and subjecting everyone else to stricter screening.

Frisking children, anyone over about 50, and most women is really a waste of time.

[treestar]

62. So far. I dunno if being so confident on that is a good idea.

But you're OK with every person fitting that description being groped, etc? That is not fair to the nonterrorists among them.

[slackmaster]

65. And 100% of them are willing to die

Which is not something that most Americans would ever be.

[golfguru]

48. United States is the Biggest Satan --- Osama Bin Laden

Aircraft offers the biggest bomb of destruction for the price of a couple of
pounds of explosives. Biggest bang for the buck as they say.

More than that, the Billions of dollars wasted in airport security is exactly
what Al Qaeda wants.

[ZombieHorde]

49. Use bomb sniffing dogs, x-ray bags, and have people walk through metal detectors. nt

[polichick]

57. I like the Israeli method of interviews and undercover people scoping out airports...

...and airplanes.

[slackmaster]

64. So do I, but that may be too expensive to be practical in the US

El Al moves about 6 million passengers per year. Delta Airlines moves more than 150 million.

[slackmaster]

63. Since nobody resembling Granny or Uncle Jim with a cane has ever done a terrorist attack,

What's the point in searching them? Or you for that matter? I'll stick my neck out here and suggest that perhaps you are willing to allow yourself to be screened just so the process appears fair and unbiased. You might inadvertently leave a knife or gun or some flammable material in your carry-on bag, and you should go through the X-ray and metal detector scan to check for that. Otherwise, the screeners know full well that you are not a threat.

Screening you and Granny and Uncle Jim with a cane is really a charade.

...you will find us going down a very slippery slope of profiling.

What's wrong with profiling if it's done intelligently?

Edit to add.. you will also see younger people being targeted and those with lots of tattoos..etc... just remember, our home grown terrorists are pretty damn blonde and blue eyed

I think you are overlooking one key trait of people who try to take down airplanes, Peacetrain: They're all willing, even eager to die for whatever cause they think they are serving. That's not something our homegrown terrorists do. Most of them probably know they will get caught, but most of them at least go through the motions of making a getaway. Our culture doesn't teach people that they will be rewarded in an afterlife for the wholesale killing non-believers. That provides an important clue as to at least some classes of people who might warrant extra scrutiny when boarding aircraft.

[Bluenorthwest]

71. You know, one guy tried Underwear bombing. Not 'people' one

guy. And you know what? His own father had reported him to our authorities, his highly respected father had warned us, and we did nothing but let him and his Underoos get on planes to and in the US. What about that? How do we stop them? The one guy? His Dad called us on the phone. Perhaps acting on the intelligence, coupled with no hysterical padding of one pre-reported individual into 'people hiding bombs in their underwear' might help. One guy and his daddy called the FBI. The failure was an intelligence failure, that guy should not have been in this country at all. How about that?

[SaveOurDemocracy]

74. Is this still the USA? Land of the free, home of the brave?

[LisaL]

81. Whatever you do, something tells me you aren't going to find

them by patting down 3 year old kids.

[proteus_lives]

86. Profiling works.

Ask Israel.