<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, hence my continuing concern. In the past eight weeks, I’ve flown roundtrip four times Miami to Washington (Reagan). Signs everywhere at MIA “no lighters beyond this point” and bins to discard lighters. </p>
<p>But I’ve carried a lighter in my purse, and it’s been through screening 4 x 2 = 8. I didn’t intend to - we were at a friend’s house; lost lighters were a joke, and so someone decided to steal friend’s lighter and put it in my purse, knowing the friend would never suspect me. </p>
<p>Now, my purse isn’t very big - it’s quite small, and it contains exactly these things: checkbook, ID, insurance card, one credit card, one debit card, lipstick (gasp!!!), small blush, small tube of “make wrinkles under the eyes not quite so apparent” (whatever that is called), two or three pens, business cards, pass for the metro in D.C., gum, cash, lose change, and my keys. Oh, also small tube of lotion. I don’t even own a traditional wallet - haven’t owned one since high school. My point is I don’t have one of these purses stuffed full of all sorts of junk. </p>
<p>But the lighter - in my purse - has sailed through the x-ray machine every time. I discovered it when I went shopping this weekend and bought a new purse, and moved everything out of my old purse. </p>
<p>I cannot figure out why Reagan doesn’t have any “no lighter” signs, etc., but Miami certainly does.</p>
I think what happened is that the UK agents realized from an intercepted communication that the plane-bombing plot was imminent, and they went to round up their suspects but couldn’t find everyone, and weren’t even sure as to the number of suspects. So even though they said they had prevented the attack via the arrests, they weren’t sure they had everyone in custody, and so they thought it possible that some loose bad guys would go ahead and try something nefarious. They didn’t have time to come up with rules or give everything a lot of thought, so they just decided to ban all carry on luggage out of Heathrow. As draconian as that seemed, it was also the fastest/ most effective way to deal with a situation when they didn’t really know quite what they were looking for. Not only because it ensures that no one is carrying anything hidden onto the plane, but its a heck of a deterrent – once word got out that security was so intense at Heathrow, no wannabe terrorist would have risked an attempt.</p>
<p>It’s not a book or magazine or lipstick that’s dangerous, it’s what may be hidden within a book or magazine or hollowed out lipstick container. My guess is that the officials were about 70% sure that there was going to be some kind of attempt to use a liquid explosive, and 30% worried that they didn’t really have a clue, but something was up and imminent. </p>
<p>Long term, it is silly because if the policy is no-liquids, the terrorists will come up with a different plan. If the policy is no carry-on, they’ll try to plant an explosive of some sort in checked luggage – or they will just come up with better ways to sneak things on, such as secreted somewhere on their body. But short term, it wreaked a very useful havoc on airline boarding procedures, wrecking any possible plans to carry out the planned attack. </p>
<p>The 9/11 commission report contained an account of a planned hijacking in (I think) December 99 that was foiled simply because when Clinton was informed of the intelligence, he ordered a full scale alert at major airports & heightened security; and when the would-be hijackers saw the changes, they abandoned their plans. (The commission report suggested that if the Bush administration had the same ‘hair on fire’ response to the “Bin Laden determined to attack” memo in August of 2001, it is likely that upon observing increased security, the 9/11 hijackers would have been similarly deterred). </p>
<p>So while there is no way to be 100% safe, it is not entirely stupid to create a huge fanfare over security issues, and go way overboard in terms of security, just to scare would-be terrorists off. Obviously that can’t be sustained forever – but at least it disrupts things for awhile.</p>
<p>Some people look at the loss of personal rights as the price they have to pay for safety and security. Call me a pessimist (it wouldn’t be the first time!), but are we <em>really</em> safer? I’d say absolutely not.</p>
<p>Of much greater danger than that posed by an airplane hijacker or terrorist, is the one posed to our unprotected natural gas sites, for example (it actually wouldn’t be as hard as all that to blow up the LNG tanker right near me in Boston, and the potential damage would make 9/11 look like a picnic in the park). And what about mass transit?</p>
<p>All this fuss about a book or a lipstick or mascara doesn’t make us any safer, and it is an illusion to those who believe it does.</p>
<p>We as a country have this “thing” about planes. The idea that anyone would hijack a plane, blow up a plane, etc. really drives americans nuts. They don’t stop to think about what a train bombing (like london) or bombing of the trans alaskan pipeline would do for us- mostly because an attack on a plane is easier to envision and fear, since we all know what it looks like. Incidents like Lockerbie have given us something to fixate on as a nation as what we see to be our biggest threat- the airways.</p>
<p>rediculous, but there’s societal psychology for you. Plane bombings are on a small enough scale that we can envision them happening, but a large enough scale to cause society to rally over it. So, we all end up focusing on planes and airports and the TSA.</p>
<p>Amen Lauren, it is the same type of thinking that has people terrified to fly, when statistically and realistically driving is much more dangerous - there is just something about falling out of the sky.</p>
<p>I truly think we need to take a page out of the Israelis’ book and do some profiling. BUT, as Dadguy astutely pointed out, pure ethnic profiling will not work. At least two of the British would-be hijackers were British born, Anglo-Saxon converts, our greatest danger is from home grown terrorists. Also overlooked in the profiling discussion is the notion that it is behavioral rather than racial profiling that is effective.</p>
<p>"here’s my question- I understand that you can’t reasonably prohibit bringing baby formula on a plane, but how is it any less likely that baby formula could be an explosive? I mean, many of the chemicals needed to form a bomb are a white liquid or clear and would be invisible in something like milk. "</p>
<p>That’s my question, too. Especially since the couple in London had a baby and some news reports said that the baby bottle was planned to be their weapon. Sacrificing the child, of course.</p>
<p>You knew it had to happen…
…the terrorists have finally cut into the fashion industry! </p>
<p>I realize the cave-dwellers may find it difficult to match eye and skin-tone with a flash of lip-gloss and a splash of eye-shadow while all tucked away in their dank and dumb quarters smelling like donkeys; and that there is not much point to letting a few of the young cute guys get all dolled-up in bodice and heels on a Saturday night–just to tease out the frustrations of their hard-up hard-liners…but what about us real women hitting the high fashion circuit in Manhattan, London, Berlin and Little Rock?! </p>
<p>"here’s my question- I understand that you can’t reasonably prohibit bringing baby formula on a plane, but how is it any less likely that baby formula could be an explosive? I mean, many of the chemicals needed to form a bomb are a white liquid or clear and would be invisible in something like milk. "</p>
<p>In the same vein, you could swallow explosives in a package that takes n hours to degrade under stomach acidity and then reacts explosively. Since it would be a suicide flight anyways, I don’t think any terrorists would have qualms about this. The only way to absolutely ensure that this doesn’t happen is, well, to ban passengers, cargo, and pilots.</p>
<p>Iloveagoodbrew first suggested racial profiling, then profiling against Muslims. Tell me then, how would one protect against a Caucasian who joined AQ, retained a last name Smith, and came to the airport dressed as a Christian pastor, a Jewish rabbi, or a Buddhist monk?</p>
<p>my brother in law is Irish, but has the darker complexion, the mustache, thick hair, he is pulled over and searched 90% of the time he flies, because of how he looks</p>
<p>and if we racially profile, it isn’t that difficult, if determined enough, to dye hair, shave mustache, shave head, change appearance superficially enough to “blend” in, so profiling is mute</p>
<p>I can understnad the security, but i could do more damage with a stilleto or a pair of eyeglasses than my 65 year old mom could do with those dangerous tweezers</p>
<p>My good friend (man in his middle 20s) from his home in Pakistan by way of London. Needless to say, he was questioned for hours in London and in New YOrk. He had a great attitude about it, saying that it was necessary since so many of his countrymen actually are terrorists.</p>
<p>Look at least stop wasting resources on stupid stuff like searching old ladies (or war veterans…you know, like the 80 year old WW II vet whose Medal of Honor caused him to ber tied up…what a shame). To date, no terrorist has dressed up as the Dalai Lama and then proceeded to hijack a plane. Guys, please get rid of your Hollywood imagination when it comer to serious stuff like this.</p>
<p>There is no 100 percent foolproof way of stopping any terrorist act. The best that we can do is reduce the probablity to a tolerable level (whatever that is). Hence, any amount of time that you spend searching a low-probablity target such as an 80 year-old man/woman or a 7 year-old child, you don’t have to search a high-probability target such as a 20 year-old middle-eastern looking person. It wouldn’t take a genius to come up with a rather simple profiling scheme that would easily cut the probability of a hijacker getting through in half. The argument that since you can’t eliminate all possibilitities so don’t even attempt any profiling is nonsense.</p>
<p>There is nothing that says that going through an additional security screening has to be a bad thing for an individual. I would say that all people who are called out for special screening (including the occasional 25 year old red head with a clerical collar) would be issued a special bording pass such that when it is time for bording the plane that they are offered priority bording right along with the first class passengers.</p>
<p>Flying from very west to very east next week to take D2 to college. If they take my knitting needles (very small for knitting socks) away I will not be happy.</p>
<p>Dadguy wrote this on the other thread but probably intended it for this one:
</p>
<p>Actually, it would be quite difficult to put something into an elderly lady’s carry-on. Have you ever tried to slip a bottle of chemicals onto an elderly lady’s carry-on? I’m not saying it would be impossible, but certainly not something that an elaborate plan which is the hallmark of an al Qaeda attack would count on. Think of it, attacks involve a team of people. For it to be successful each team member would have to be able to slip something into an elderly person’s bag. That’s just one plane - to get the kind of scale that al Qaeda wants they would have to assume that they could replicate this highly unlikely scenario across multiple planes. The odds of succesfully carrying this off are incredibly low; if we can reduce them to this this level, I think we would have achieved our goal of dramatically reducing the overall odds of an attack.</p>
<p>The more I think about your scenario the more impossibly remote it becomes. To get an elderly person to act as your mule through security you would have to get access to her bag before she went through security. You would also need to make sure that you had a ticket on the same flight that she was on. In order for this to happen, you would have to get in line at the ticket purchase counter behind an elderly person. Then, after eves-dropping on where she was buying her ticket to, you would have to quickly buy your ticket to the same destination and then try to catch up with her before she went through security to make the swap. If she walks right to the security point without stopping and leaving her bag unattended, you are out of luck. Also, since you would likely be part of a team, you would have to hope that your team members can happen upon similar mules going on the same flight. If you and your partners fail at any of this before the mules go through security you are out of luck and you have just purchased a ticket for nothing. </p>
<p>You are an actuary - on which sets of rules would you place your money: the current situation where little old ladies are searched with the same frequency as middle-eastern men or the one where the terrorists have to have a series of extremely low odds to take place before their plan can be successful?</p>
<p>Has anyone followed the “Terror in the Skies” series from Annie Jacobson of Women’s Wall Street Journal? Political correctness has led to frightening flying conditions. We’re heading overseas on Thursday. Not looking forward to the hassles. Wonder if my d will be required to give another impromptu concert at the x-ray screening?</p>
<p>There is a report that 20,000 pieces of luggage are missing in the UK, and it will be days before they can be reunited with their owners. I always bring a toothbrush and a change of underwear in my bag when I travel. But I assume it’s still not okay to bring bags on board in the uK. </p>
<p>The “drop something in some old lady’s carry-on” is just one scenario. Another is the recruitment of non-Arabs or mixed race individuals or fairer skinned-Arabs.</p>
<p>I am not necessarily agianst more strigent screening of certain groups of people. I am certainly against less strigent screening (than exists now) of everybody else. When peopel bring up profiling, I think they are especially focused on the idea that non-Arabs will be lighlty screened.</p>
<p>I do think it would be easier to beat a profiling set-up for a single-plane takeover than it would for a multi-plane conspiracy. I still think profiling gives terrorists an opportunity that might otherwise not exist.</p>
<p>A friend of mine is retired government exec from one of the intelligence services, and he set himself up as a consultant, as many do after public service - anyway, he flies all over the world to consult with various port authorities, governments, etc. He was telling me that he has some sort of designation - cannot remember what he called it, or if it’s connected to his passport, or what, but anyway, he’s on some sort of “good guy” list. I seem to remember that he said this designation is only available to international travelers. </p>
<p>But anyway, his solution is - instead of trying to isolate the newest crop of terrorists or trying to determine what commercial product is going to be the next weapon, there should be a “good guy” list for domestic and foreign flights, with specific criteria to be listed. Then, he reasoned, the people who cannot qualify to be on the “good guy” list will be the ones watched. </p>
<p>It sounds dramatic, but it’s been working in banking all over the world.</p>
<p>LONDON, England – Despite a high level of alert at British airports, a 12-year-old boy managed to board a plane at Gatwick without a passport, ticket or boarding pass. </p>
<p>Tuesday’s incident has raised concerns over security procedures in the wake of an alleged plot to blow up planes on trans-Atlantic flight.</p>
<p>The boy was detected by member of the Monarch Airlines cabin crew only after he was seated and had been given a drink and a snack.</p>