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Portugal rejects sky marshal call
BBC NEWS ^ | 1/06/04

Posted on 01/06/2004 3:14:43 AM PST by kattracks

Portugal has joined Denmark and Sweden in rejecting US calls to post armed guards on international flights.

The country's civil aviation authority said that putting loaded guns aboard an aircraft could endanger it.

A better course would be to cancel any flight against which there was a credible terrorist threat, it argued.

The decision means that plans to have armed guards, known as sky marshals, on board US-bound planes have now been rejected by three countries.

While the US has introduced new checks at home, its efforts to tighten security on flights to the US as well have met with strong opposition.

The director of Portugal's National Civil Aviation Institute, Joaquim Carvalho, told the AFP news agency: "We will not authorise loaded guns on Portuguese planes, therefore we will not allow armed guards."

He added: "If there is specific information about a particular flight which justifies having armed guards on board, what we would consider is cancelling the flight."

Pilots hostile

Elsewhere, the UK Government's announcement that it would put armed marshals on some flights "where appropriate" has drawn a hostile response from airlines and pilots.

British Airways has expressed concerns about having armed guards on board aircraft, while the holiday airline Thomas Cook has said it will ground any flights on which sky marshals are placed.

The British pilots' union, Balpa, says that if the security risk to a flight is great enough to warrant an armed guard, it should not fly at all.

Balpa is calling for an emergency world summit of airline pilots to consider the US demand for sky marshals.

In the meantime, the union is to have talks with the UK Government on Tuesday to discuss the issue.

Brazil has begun fingerprinting and photographing US citizens flying into its airports, apparently in retaliation for new security measures at US airports.

The Brazilian move came as the stringent new US regulations, affecting most tourists, were introduced.

Everyone entering the United States with a visa will now have fingerprints and photographs taken and scrutinised.

People on the visa waiver scheme - such as tourists from much of Europe, Japan and Australia - are not yet affected, but those on work visas are.




TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: airlinesecurity; armedmarshals; bang; orangealert4; portugal
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To: kattracks
Tell them to stay in Europe then.
21 posted on 01/06/2004 8:14:40 AM PST by cynicom
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To: kattracks
Do not fly with these people. They are too stupid to understand the fundamental of safe flight, i.e. calculated risk. And they are too stupid about guns to realize that sacrifices of enemies and risks must be taken with guns to save the innocent.... of course it is easier to send aborted babies and WTC victims to terrorist Baal
22 posted on 01/06/2004 8:47:57 AM PST by JudgemAll
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To: CasearianDaoist
The childishness of socialists - everything to them is an abstraction; everything in this would is merely fuel for their pissant and vainglorious moral vanity.

Exactly, they could care less about hard evidence and science, what they only want is to go with the imagined suspicion of danger of the gun. They take other forms of security for granted and they provide stupid alibis for justifying inaction and going on strike.

23 posted on 01/06/2004 8:51:33 AM PST by JudgemAll
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To: sd-joe
The problem is - Do you trust the intel services to KNOW which flight is really at risk? The Intel services, as needed as they are, do not have a good record of really being on top of things. Sky marshals are needed on ALL flights, if they are going to be effective.

Yep, I trust the NCO in Iraq to tell me the truth, not the UN diplomats or desk drivers at the intel service of Spain and all.

24 posted on 01/06/2004 8:53:51 AM PST by JudgemAll
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To: JudgemAll
Yes, tactical intelligence is good. Military intelligence is good. It is at the CIA and International level that intelligence stinks (in large part because it was messed up by Clinton and other Demonrats over the years). And for the most part, it is not tactical military intelligence that is trying to figure out who is getting on a flight in Paris or London.
25 posted on 01/06/2004 9:38:19 AM PST by sd-joe
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To: civil discourse
I agree with what you are saying, but I think we need a stronger solution to the problem.

>> "If there is a credible threat to a flight, cancel the flight." <<

What if the "intelligence" about the flight is wrong. What if the "intelligence" says flight 93 is threatened, but it is really flight 96 that is the target.

Flight 93 gets cancelled, and flight 96 goes boom.
26 posted on 01/06/2004 9:43:20 AM PST by sd-joe
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Comment #27 Removed by Moderator

To: civil discourse
Oh please - Iraq a diversion.

Iraq was a very very smart strategic move.

There was a lot of expense in the area before the actual war. Maintaining the no-fly zones was costing billions. Maintaining troops in SA was costing a great deal. And there was no end in sight - ever.
28 posted on 01/06/2004 11:54:50 AM PST by sd-joe
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To: kattracks
"A better course would be to cancel any flight against which there was a credible terrorist threat, it argued."

Done, Mateuse notwithstanding...

30 posted on 01/06/2004 2:12:45 PM PST by tracer
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To: civil discourse
We could have waited a year and put all the Iraq war money into getting rid of Bin Laden and his crowd.

What are you smoking? If we had waited a year, it never would have happened. With all the opposition from the French and Germans, and the fifth column media in the U.S., the political pressure to assume that we had "won the war" and put our heads in the sand would have been overwhelming. Bush and his administration were brilliant to push the war when they did. It was the only realistic strategic and political choice.

Terrorism comes from the middle east, specifically Saudi Arabia and Iran. Taking Iraq into our camp alters the situation from a gradually deteriorating one for us to one with a strong chance of improvement over time.

31 posted on 01/09/2004 6:39:17 AM PST by marktwain
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Comment #32 Removed by Moderator


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