Posted on 12/31/2009 11:39:34 AM PST by goldstategop
I don’t want to be profiled at the airport. It has happened before, and I hate it. Volunteering for more isn’t what I feel like doing right now, but our airport security system is so half-baked and dysfunctional it may as well not even exist, and flying is about to become more miserable anyway. So rather than doubling down on grandma and micromanaging everyone on the plane, we might want to pay as much attention to people as to their luggage, especially military-aged males who make unusual and suspicious-looking travel arrangements. That’s what the Israelis do, and that’s why security agents take me into a room and interrogate me every time I pass through Ben-Gurion International Airport.
Israeli airport security is the most thorough and strict in the world, as one might expect in one of the most terrorized countries. No plane leaving Ben-Gurion has ever been hijacked or otherwise attacked by a terrorist. The system works, yet you don’t have to take off your shoes in the security line, no one cares if you pack perfume from the duty-free in your carry-on, you can listen to your iPod 55 minutes before landing, and you don’t have to stand in front of invasive and expensive body-scanning machines.
The Israelis look for weapons, of course. You aren’t at all likely to sneak one on board. Just as important, though, the Israelis are on the look-out for terrorists. Who would you rather sit next to? A woman carrying shampoo and tweezers, or 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta, even if he’s not carrying anything?
Israeli security agents interview everyone, and they subject travelers who fit certain profiles to additional scrutiny. I don’t know exactly what their criteria are, but I do know they aren’t just taking Arabs and Muslims aside. They take me aside, too, partly because of my gender and age but mostly because a huge percentage of my passport stamps are from countries with serious terrorist problems.
“Does anyone in Lebanon know you’re here?” they usually ask me. They’ve also asked if I’ve ever met with anyone in Hezbollah. I am not going to lie during an airport security interview, especially not when the answer can be easily found using Google. They know I’ve met with Hezbollah. That’s why my luggage gets hand-searched one sock at a time while elderly tourists from Florida skate through. I can’t say I enjoy this procedure, but I don’t take it personally, and it makes a lot more sense than letting me skate through while grandma’s luggage is hand-searched instead.
The United States need not and should not import the Israeli system. It’s labor intensive, slow, and at times incredibly aggravating. Americans wouldn’t put up with it, and it wouldn’t scale well. The one thing we can and should learn from the Israelis, though, is that we need to pay as much attention to who gets on airplanes as to what they’re bringing on board.
I don’t like being profiled, but the Israelis aren’t wrong for looking more closely at me than at, say, an 80-year-old black woman from Kansas or a 12-year-old kid from Japan. When I get on a plane in the United States, though, I often breeze past women decades older than me while they’re being frisked. Almost every single person in line knows it’s ridiculous. We don’t say anything, partly so we don’t want to get in trouble, and partly because it feels vaguely “fair.”
Maybe it is, but it’s no way to catch terrorists. And it’s not as if the only alternative is a separate policy for Arabs and Muslims. Racial and religious profiling won’t even work. Shoe bomber Richard Reid wouldn’t have been caught that way, and it’s probably safe to let a 90 year-old woman from Dubai through with minimal hassle.
Right now there appears to be no effort whatsoever to discriminate among passengers using any criteria, let alone racist criteria. “Pants bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not have a passport, did not have any luggage, and bought a one-way ticket with cash. His name is in a database of possible terrorists. Any Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, or all-American white boys from Iowa who fit that description should be stopped. Abdulmutallab wasn’t stopped. In 2004, though, Senator Ted Kennedy found himself with his name on the no-fly list.
The TSA’s whole mindset is wrong. Its agents confiscate things, even harmless things, and they apply additional scrutiny to things carried by people selected at random. If they were also tasked with looking for dangerous people, they would rightly ease up on grandmothers and senators, and they’d have a competently compiled list in the computer of those who are known to be dangerous. And if some kind of broad profiling means I’ll have to suffer the indignity of being frisked while the nun in line behind me does not, it’s no worse, really, than the embarrassment and contempt I’ll feel if the nun gets frisked instead.
Security agents will never find everything or everyone. It’s impossible. Abdulmutallab sewed a bomb into his underwear. Not even the most draconian new rules imaginable will allow agents to search inside anyone’s underwear. Patting down grandpa below the mid-thigh won’t do any good. Patting down Abdulmutallab below the mid-thigh wouldn’t have done any good either — all the more reason to start paying as much attention to people as to what they carry.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Wasn’t Al Gore the originator of our current Airport Screening System?
No, the Algore invented the internet and global warming.
Not a security issue but equally absurd ... I'm a seasoned citizen, there's no mistaking me for a 19 year old. Yet when I buy a beer from a vendor in a NFL stadium I'm asked for ID. Why, I asked ... and was told that carding only those that might not be of age was deemed discriminatory. Therefore anyone purchasing an adult beverage at a NFL game must show proof of age. Utterly absurd, but this is the prevailing mindset in America today. Common sense is in very short supply ...
Hmm, as someone who fits an Israeli security profile, my transit through Israeli security can take me 2 to 3 hours. BUT I know that and feel safer for them doing it. They’ve taken everything out of my suitcases & carry-on, taken apart my asthma inhalers & all my pens, made me take photos with my camera of a chair—all for my safety as well as the other passengers. Israelis know their lives depend on their thoroughness and accuracy. I wish America would wake up to her danger.
Oh, and the profile I fit? A single, non-Jewish woman traveling by herself who speaks a little Hebrew. In the ‘70’s the Palestinian terrorists were targeting single women, convincing them to carry on packages to mail when they returned to the US (or Europe). One woman was pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby when he asked her to take a radio on board for him, to mail to his cousin in the US. The radio had a bomb in it.
Originator, cause, what's the difference?
I’m with you on that, a small cadre of superbly trained specialists who only find it necessary to minutely screen a relatively small number of passengers are probably much cheaper overall and less obstructive to the flow of passengers than our current 500,000-strong army of dunces who make life miserable for everybody flying.
While Japan is a low crime area in a lot of ways, one way it is not is bicycle theft — which is rampant. And, a lot of the bicycles are stolen by foreigners who find an unlocked bike near a station, ride it most of the way home and ditch it.
Because of this, I am sometimes stopped at random by cops who check my registration and ID card to make sure it’s my bike and let me go.
Am I upset about this. Hell no! I spent over 1,000 dollars on that bicycle and plan to keep it for many years to come. I want them to check and make sure the person riding it is the owner (or has the permission of the owner) and if more foreigners than Japanese get checked, so be it.
On Wednesday, Dec. 30, I flew home with my family (wife & 3 kids) from London. We were in the U.K. over Christmas, so we were all a bit nervous after the “underwear bomber” made the news.
The first thing we heard on the news was the prohibition against: getting up an hour before arrival; taking stuff out of the overhead luggage bins and/or using laptops during that time; and having a blanket over oneself during the last hour of the flight. We all thought this a bit silly (what if someone wants to blow up the plane 2 hours before landing?), but we were heartened by the news that there would be an additional level of security for U.S.-bound flights, i.e., at the departure gates, there would be body searches (”frisking” they used to call it) and hand-inspection of all carry-on luggage.
When we got to our gate, however (and this is Heathrow Airport we’re talking about), we found the searches and luggage-inspection to be a bit cursory. There was no curtained section or cordoned-off area for the searches, so everyone could see what everyone else was going through - and it did not seem thorough. It was all quite disconcerting.
Oh- during the flight, none of the above restrictions regarding what you can(’t) do during the last hour of the flight were mentioned, much less enforced. Go figure.
Zero common sense in the guise of zero tolerance and the application of political correctness is....easier...than using your brain. That’s why libs love it...
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Most of the cruise line have Israeli security. Last year I was on Royal Cribbean and was really impressed with how the Israelis worked security on and off the ship.
Very Professional.
I flew El Al years ago. The Security Officer asked me a number of strange questions which I answered truthfully and then I was on my way.
No Problem.
A lot of lives get saved that way.
They have been doing the right thing for 30 years at least!
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