Here's a way to get around all this uproar about flying.
Posted on 08/10/2006 4:27:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Beginning Friday, airline passengers will go through double screening to make sure they're not carrying liquids onto planes, the head of the airline industry's largest trade group said.
Passengers and their carry-on luggage will be checked not only at the main security checkpoint, but also a second time at the boarding gate. The stepped-up screening in response to a new terrorist threat began Thursday at 25 airports where planes leave for Britain.
"It's going to spread across the whole system tomorrow," James May, president of the Air Transport Association, said Thursday.
The response to the terrorist threat produced long lines at airports Thursday as security officials scrambled to put new measures in place and passengers faced perplexing new restrictions — including the ban on carrying liquids onto aircraft.
Intelligence had indicated the terror plot unfolding in Britain involved using benign liquids that could be mixed inside an airplane cabin to make an explosive.
While plots to blow up airliners using liquid explosives are nothing new — such an attempt was foiled more than a decade ago — the government has been slow to upgrade its security equipment at airport checkpoints so that it can detect explosives on passengers.
Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said the need to tighten security came as a surprise and the changes were difficult to implement.
"It normally takes us about four weeks to roll out a change at a security checkpoint, and this one came about in a little bit more than four hours in the middle of last night," Hawley said.
Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said the government was overreacting. "They paralyzed the system with the hassle factor again," Woerth said.
During the first few hours of the alert, the TSA was taking toiletries away from flight crews, he said. "Then they said, 'This is stupid. We're taking toothpaste away from the guy who's going to fly the plane.' It didn't take them long to back down."
But Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said it makes sense to insert "uncertainty and randomness into the system so we can't let the adversary game the system."
Still, he said, coordination among agencies and the industry remains a problem.
Denis Breslin, spokesman for the American Airlines pilots union, faulted nagging communication shortcomings among intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security agencies.
"There's a whole lot of people making rules up right now, and until they get it all sorted out, every passenger is going to have to go through the nightmarish procedures that they're putting together right now," said Breslin.
David Mackett, a pilot who heads the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, said flight crews are treated as part of the problem.
"We're not happy that every time there's a threat we find out from the media, and that there's almost a complete vacuum of information when it comes to the air crews," Mackett said.
It was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that box cutters and other sharp objects were banned, bulletproof cockpit doors installed and air marshals rushed into service.
And it was after Richard Reid, the confessed shoe bomber, tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in December 2001 that security officials made passengers remove their shoes. Lighters were later banned from passenger cabins.
Members of Congress have for several years criticized the TSA for using 1970s-era X-ray technology to screen carry-on bags at security checkpoints.
Rafi Ron, former head of security at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport and now a security consultant in Washington, said part of the problem is that terrorists always try to exploit new vulnerabilities.
"Weapons and explosives are various and you can expect new types of weapons as well as tactics," Ron said.
Douglas Laird, an aviation security expert and former security chief for Northwest Airlines, said the plot described Thursday resembled a 1994-1995 attempt, codenamed "Bojinka," to blow up a dozen airliners simultaneously over the Pacific Ocean using liquid explosives smuggled onto planes in bottles of contact lens solution.
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On the Net:
Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov
True.
If everyone stopped flying in protest, the airline industry would quickly put pressure on Bush to change these insane rules and start profiling.
Next month I'm driving 750 miles each way on a business trip. Financially, it costs less to drive, without considering the travel hassles.
My wife has wondered for years about sports bottles and how easy it would be to do something like this. Turns out she was spot on.
I guess from now on when I haul my meal on board, since the airline won't feed me, I won't be able to bring on my own drink.
GerogiaDawg32 said:
"Ok, someone answer me this..what happens..what happens IF the next time they try to sneak something onto a plane and have it hidden in a body cavity?? it's not out of the realm of possibility considering these guys will go through any lengths to blow stuff up and need ways to get it onboard..
what happens to the travelling public then?"
I'be been wondering all day about the same thing. Even cavity searchs won't reveal anything if the a$$holes figure out how to insert the explosive surgically somewhere in the body. Surely, there is a passage in the "Koran" that justifies this. Maybe they'll get 73 virgins when they get to heaven, instead of the customary allotment for martyrs of 72.
Multiple Choice Test
Terry Nichols was:
1: A totally innocent 40 year-old white American.
2: A 40 year-old white American tool of Bill Clinton.
3: A 40 year-old white American tool of Karl Rove.
4: A 40 year-old white American wrongly linked to Abu Sayyaf and Operation Bojinka.
Here's a way to get around all this uproar about flying.
I used to travel a lot , I don't anymore. I am glad you have become as accustomed as the rest of those doing it daily.
If having double the delays involved is OK with you and others, great.
I think it's just a damn shame that our gubamint is so clueless or unwilling to go after the real high percentage potential perps and instead just nets the whole damn lot and spoil journies and inflame folks unnecessarily.
Oh good. Now the airlines will have an excuse to charge you for a glass of water. How perfect for them.
A keeper. Thanks
Do "black" American-Muslims fit the same profile as those from the Middle East?
I'm half Italian and half Irish, but am olive-skinned and dark-eyed. I say, profile away! (And, in fact, I always seem to get yanked out of security checkpoints in airport terminals. Maybe the screeners are "profiling" in their own, random, subconscious way. I'm all for it...
In my case, I'd rather prove mines Jello by sampling some of it personally. You are on your own with your "collection" there Howard Hughes... ;-)
A young white Muslim convert and a teenager were among 24 terrorist suspects being questioned last night about an alleged plot to detonate suicide bombs on five US-bound aircraft, The Times has learnt.
LOL
Your name matches your question well.
Is there a perfect system short of what we see being applied today and again?
No.
Is there a reasonable approach that could be taken rather than lumping everyone into one mass group of suspects until cleared?
We have had 5 years to come up with one.
I can't watch any more of the news. It makes my brain boil!
You wanna stop planes blowing up?
You START by not allowing Muslims on them. At all. Ever. For any reason Age 1-100 years- Muslims don't fly, period.If they can't get there by camel, they can't get there at all.
THEN you do widespread searches like this IF there is reason to believe that non-Muslims are being recruited.
Its Bass-Ackwards.
Hello....George? World??
Countries without Muslims are not worried about internal terrorism. They can't hit you if they aren't here/aboard planes/working near planes.
Worldwide Islam should be punished until it stops producing barbarians. Maybe if enough 'good' Muslims( lol ) can't travel they'll get mad enough at the 'bad' Muslims to deal with those giving their sweet, innocent 'religion' a bad name.
Gotta stop - can't laugh hysterically and type.
I was nervous before, because of the 8-22 speculations, now this...
It sucks, as I normally LOVE flying. If I ever meet one of these idiot Jihadi's in person I'm gonna kick 'em right in the nuts.
Same here - later this month we're driving from Oregon to Southern California to visit the grandkids. If we were flying, it'd cost us about $300 each for RT tix, plus renting a car in SoCal, PLUS parking our vehicle at PDX for 10 days.
Even with the price of gas, it still works out cheaper, even if we stop halfway (Stockton, CA) for the night. Not to mention, we love the drive through the Siskiyou Mountains.
Ya think you'll still want to eat that tuna sammwich after 3 or 4 TSA folks have stuck their noses into it?
I'm going to guess that - if for no other reason than the economy of the airport concessions - passengers will be able to purchase "cleared" sodas, waters, toiletries, etc. once past the first tier of security.
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