Passengers can expect double screening (Sticking it to everyone equally in the name of security)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/10/06 | Leslie Miller - ap

[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

[NormsRevenge]

Nice try but I'm not sold. That only speaks to another deeper side of this whole terror thing, the recruitment of infidels to the "faith" and subsequent use as fodder in the war to derail and destroy westen civilization.


Besides, is it likely 1 or 2 could do as much damage as a group or be as energized to go thru with such activities, not to diminish the fact that any damage is too much?

[Integrityrocks]

"Then they said, 'This is stupid. We're taking toothpaste away from the guy who's going to fly the plane..."

Something odd here. I'm thinking the guy who flies the plane should be the MOST screened. Am I missing something?

[dawn53]

You might want to read this...one of those arrested in UK was a "white" guy...a convert to Islam.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1681508/posts

[My2Cents]

Mrs. My2Cents and I are flying on Saturday morning. Southwest advises to get to the airport two hours early, which means a very early wake-up Saturday morning.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks, that speaks to a deeper issue in general of allowing a "religion" of hate and intolerance to even be allowed to exist, imo. (Of course I will be accused of being intolerant by saying that, but , what else is new?)

[taildragger]

Saved,

Take Two Aspirin and one of these....

Dire Straights forgive me "I want my, I want my VLJ"

www.eclipseaviation.com

[dawn53]

My husband and son are flying to Canada next Wednesday. Hopefully, by then, the word will have gotten out about leaving toiletries out of carry-ons.

My "guys" usually only take carry-ons, so I told them they'll just have to buy their shampoo and toothpaste when they get to their destination.

Today, part of the madness was people being totally caught off guard about the new regulations.

[Alberta's Child]

Don't just take my word for it . . .

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."

Anyone with an understanding of security measures related to personal safety and protection of infrastructure will tell you that establishing predictable patterns in a security operation is one of the worst things you can do.

[Argus]

I appreciate your attitude. If fat Irish Catholics with white beards were blowing up airplanes, I wouldn't object to being strip-searched myself since I fit that profile. And I wouldn't demand that old Black women get the same treatment just to make it "fair".

PC will be the end of us.

[NormsRevenge]

We either adapt to our times or we perish, is that factored in as well?

You cnan drag experts into this all you want, I am not sold. Thanks.

PS .. I do have a bit of experience in the security arena as well, of which I am not free to divulge.

[Smartaleck]

"Is there a reasonable approach that could be taken rather than lumping everyone into one mass group of suspects until cleared? "

"Reasonable" depends on which side of the equation one is and is opinion not fact based.

Much has been made of the proverbial "80 yr old woman in a wheelchair" being frisked. Is it not "reasonable" to presume that as soon as they are given a free pass, TERRORIST would exploit it? Think.......we use civilians as human shields, we don't mind killing kids!

[TopDog2]

You wanna stop planes blowing up?

You START by not allowing Muslims on them. At all. Ever.

Muslim pilots = NO
Muslim passengers = NO
Mosques = NO
islam = NO

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for the comments , btw, I am not trying to batter anyone into submission in order to win the arguments at hand, only to get folks to be a bit more critical in their thinking on both sides of the issue, if you will.

I would pose a question, If FDR or Lincoln (or Jefferson or Teddy R, for that matter)were presented with the same situation, what would they have done or how would they proceed? Do we not face threats that if unaddressed, would eventually imperil all of us.

One of my beliefs is we have been to insulated from the real threats posed and already countered for the most part tho some have been revealed, others not.

I realize the times are supposedly different, but are they really?

[Alberta's Child]

Just look at what happened in this case. Airport security personnel -- who were well aware of the risks posed by liquid explosives since a similar plot was uncovered back in the 1990s -- thought they had taken care of that problem by having passengers drink out of any bottles, cans, etc. during the screening process.

These guys made note of this pattern in the screening process and figured out a way to circumvent it (by storing the liquid explosives in a hidden compartment built into an ordinary-looking soft drink container).

I am quite certain of one thing, too . . . if airport security personnel profiled certain types of airline passengers, and a major terrorist attack in this country was carried out by someone as white as a bottle of Elmer's glue -- you can be damn sure that many of the same folks on this forum who are now calling for profiling measures would be on here ten seconds later condemning the TSA for its failure to anticipate such a scenario.

[Dead Corpse]

I've got a 5PM flight and tomorrow off. Not so bad.

Good luck though...

[NormsRevenge]

I learned a long time ago that you can't please everybody, so there's no need to even waste effort trying, and that goes for FR as well.

To discount the pattern already in evidence doesn't seem very intelligent either, regardless of what experts say or opine.

[lightman]

Each new layer of screenings, banned items, restrictions, etc, in the name of "security" is just another incremental victory for AQ. They would like out society to be as restrictive and oppressive as their sharia-law enclaves of the 8th century; and we are handing it to them piece by piece.

Ben Franklin correctly said "those who would sacrifice liberty in order to gain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".

[Two-Bits]

My daughter came up with a great idea. No one can board a plane until they eat a slice of bacon. Once eaten they can board.

[LWalk18]

I believe that they do look at Muslims or those who appear to be Muslim more closely than others. But it would be foolish to exclude a certain group of persons from ever being searched, because the terrorists would use it to their advantage.

[Alberta's Child]

There's nothing wrong with focusing your behind-the-scenes efforts on certain racial/religious/ethnic groups when the need arises. But it's also very important not to announce those efforts in public because doing so makes them less effective.