Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Flying blind: Airport screeners treat everyone the same. They shouldn't
National Post - Canada ^ | Saturday, August 12, 2006 | David Frum

Posted on 08/12/2006 11:02:43 AM PDT by GMMAC

Flying blind:
Airport screeners treat everyone the same. They shouldn't

David Frum
National Post
Saturday, August 12, 2006


So now we're to ban lipsticks and hand sanitizers from airplanes? The success of British security services in stopping a terrorist plot has unleashed all the most perverse and unavailing instincts of transportation safety authorities.

They already banned nail scissors after 9/11. They require passengers to remove shoes in perpetual remembrance of Richard Reid's attempt to smuggle explosives on to a plane in his trainers. Now once again they will impose a massively costly new rule on all passengers in order to protect them from the violence of a few.

And make no mistake: If made permanent and universal, the rule will be massively costly. Four billion people travel by air every year. Four billion people go through passenger screening. If we conservatively assume that the average air passenger's time is worth $50 an hour, then every minute we add to the screening process costs passengers $3.35-billion per year. Ten extra minutes is $33.5-billion. Twenty minutes: $67-billion. The fact that the costs fall directly on the passenger rather than upon the industry or the public treasury does not make them any less real.

Compare, please, how we do airline security to the way in which the British authorities do real security. Did they kick open the door of every house in London to search for terrorists? Obviously not. Did they wiretap every British home, send agents into every church, synagogue, Christian Science reading room, and Quaker meeting house in the land? Again, no. They focused enforcement resources where they were most likely to get results, identified a threat -- and pounced.

It's possible to do something similar to protect airline safety. It's possible, for example, to take four or five basic pieces of information about somebody (such as name, address, phone number, date of birth) and match them against the commercial databases used by mortgage companies and credit card issuers to arrive at a surprisingly sophisticated terrorist risk profile of each passenger.

If, for example, you are a 38-year-old-woman, married and the mother of three, who has lived at the same address for nine years, has travelled to Barbados with her three children at Christmas for the past three years and is about to go again: Well, you present a fairly low risk. Airline security might still ask you to walk through a metal detector just to be on the safe side, but it should not waste too much time on you beyond that.

Another approach: Perhaps if you fly often from New York to London, you might be willing to volunteer a whole mass of information to British Airways in return for a "trusted traveller" card that will allow you to walk on the plane with minimal fuss. Your name might be Omar Abdullah, but if they know that you are 57 years old, director of the Middle East collection at the Metropolitan Museum, own an apartment in Manhattan and a brokerage account at Merrill Lynch, carry a Visa card with a $50,000 limit, fly to London six times a year with tickets paid for by the museum, and so on and so on ... well, they can pretty confidently let you on the plane with minimal formalities.

Please notice that neither program -- neither risk profiling nor trusted traveller -- would make any use of information about ethnicity or religion. They would not in any sense of the term be "racial profiling." Please note as well that both would use only information that the individual himself had voluntarily provided either directly to the airline or to other commercial entities -- no government coercion would be involved.

Yet both these approaches have been effectively banned in the United States; the first by the U.S. Congress, the second by informal pressures placed upon the airlines by the Transportation Safety Agency.

Why? Congress and the TSA have surrendered to pressure from advocacy groups who fear that if we concentrate enforcement resources where they will do the most good, we will end up concentrating them upon unattached young Muslim men. Very few Muslims are Islamic terrorists, but all Islamic terrorists are Muslim. Our prescreening process may be ethnically neutral, but the results will not be.

But isn't that precisely the way security is supposed to work?

The British police are excruciatingly fair-minded: At their press conference this week, they stressed that the suspects are "British Asians," strenuously avoiding mention of the words "Muslim" or "Islamic." Yet even they manage somehow to reconcile themselves to dealing with terrorism by narrowing their attention to the most likely potential terrorists. Why can't aviation security do likewise?

You will have plenty of time to ponder that question as you stand in the long, long, long lines that will stretch all through this travelling summer.

dfrum@aei.org

© National Post 2006


TOPICS: Canada; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: airlinesafety; airportsecurity; britain; canada; davidfrum; islamofascist; liberaltouchyfeely; muslim; politicalcorrectness; racialprofiling; screeners; screening; terrorists; tsa; uk; wot
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-79 last
To: Cobra64

"Most of this "security" is window dressing"

Ever notice how TSA workers all seem to have 40 percent body fat?

Don't you feel real safe knowing the TSA is looking out for us?


61 posted on 08/12/2006 9:18:48 PM PDT by garjog (Used to be liberals were just people to disagree with. Now they are a threat to our existence.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: rollin

I do that from time to time. ;-)

Thanks.


62 posted on 08/13/2006 5:04:32 AM PDT by Badray (CFR my ass. There's not too much money in politics. There's too much money in government hands.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
Political correctness and liberal touchy-feeliness will mean the death of civilization. We are forbidden to even acknowledge the identity of the enemy.

(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)

63 posted on 08/13/2006 5:16:12 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 3AngelaD

Banning Muslims from airplanes would not do the job. There is at least one example of a muslim male using his unwitting girl friend to smuggle a bomb on an airplane. The bomb exploded killing the girlfriend.


64 posted on 08/13/2006 5:22:49 AM PDT by DugwayDuke (Stupidity can be a self-correcting problem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: lilylangtree
Lipstick too? They've already banned my face moisturer, my contact conditioning solution and cleaner, my contact soaking solution, my hair gel, my hair spray, my shampoo, my hair conditioning lotion, my deodorant (and this is truly a necessity in a confined space with people who don't shower on a daily basis), and my bottled water. When is enough, enough!

Stop bringing all your crap on the plane! You probably have a large roller-board, laptop bag and huge purse that takes up three rows of overhead space.

Check your bags.

65 posted on 08/13/2006 5:25:39 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party will not exist in a few years....we are watching history unfold before us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Monti Cello
The fact that you have to pull an isolated incident out of your butt from 1987 proves the point against you.

No, it proves you cannot think past your nose, hence you should never be trusted with security.

66 posted on 08/13/2006 5:27:54 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party will not exist in a few years....we are watching history unfold before us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: garjog
TSA = "Thousands Standing Around"

The airports' concession areas are very secure, however, since that's where you're most likely to find them providing, ah, security.

67 posted on 08/13/2006 5:28:47 AM PDT by MarineDad (Whenever mosques and JDAM's meet, civilization benefits.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC

The liberal hand-wringers had no problem during the DC sniper incident with cops stopping every white guy driving a white truck, even though that turned out to be an erroneous profile. Whereas Muslim males have committed all the recent terrorism here and in Britain, but we can't profile them.


68 posted on 08/13/2006 5:30:06 AM PDT by dirtboy (Why does Israel take border security seriously but we do not, when Islamists wish us both harm?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sockmonkey
Since I know of no instance of eighty year old white men in wheelchairs blowing up planes, I have no idea why they continue to do this.

So, you propose to wait until a few planes are brought down by old white men in wheelchairs before we screen them?

69 posted on 08/13/2006 5:34:16 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party will not exist in a few years....we are watching history unfold before us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: DugwayDuke
There is at least one example of a muslim male using his unwitting girl friend to smuggle a bomb on an airplane. The bomb exploded killing the girlfriend.

Please don't cite inconvenient facts for those smart-asses around here that think they are security experts.

If all those advocating profiling alone were in charge, it would have resulted in thousands of additional deaths since 9/11.

70 posted on 08/13/2006 5:37:45 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party will not exist in a few years....we are watching history unfold before us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: sockmonkey
"Since I know of no instance of eighty year old white men in wheelchairs blowing up planes, I have no idea why they continue to do this." It's because this country has lost it's Balls since WWII and has become emasculated by the screeching feminists and their cohorts in the media. Thats why they have to pick on little old people in wheelchairs while Mohammad walks blithely past the checkpoint and takes his seat!d
71 posted on 08/13/2006 6:58:33 AM PDT by ABN 505
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
Please notice that neither program -- neither risk profiling nor trusted traveller -- would make any use of information about ethnicity or religion.

And why not, Mr. Frum?

72 posted on 08/13/2006 7:06:44 AM PDT by Jim Noble (I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Erik Latranyi
Please provide your source documentation for this assertion.

If all those advocating profiling alone were in charge, it would have resulted in thousands of additional deaths since 9/11.

73 posted on 08/13/2006 7:45:57 AM PDT by rollin (q)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: Names Ash Housewares

Actually I didn't think it was so bad. Of course I brought
a letter from the company I work for (in Hebrew) explaining
the reason for my presence in Israel (that was on departure back to the States, where the full security monte occurrs.).

Keep your passport handy and your hands in plain sight at
all times. Their "TSA" folks even manage to be civil unlike
many of ours.


74 posted on 08/13/2006 8:00:55 AM PDT by rahbert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Jim Noble
"And why not, Mr. Frum? "

Answered in the 4th from last paragraph of Frum's article above:
"Why? Congress and the TSA have surrendered to pressure from advocacy groups who fear that if we concentrate enforcement resources where they will do the most good, we will end up concentrating them upon unattached young Muslim men. Very few Muslims are Islamic terrorists, but all Islamic terrorists are Muslim. Our prescreening process may be ethnically neutral, but the results will not be."

To which I added in post #32 above:
"Liberals love inefficient, cost & time ineffective approaches to most of life's problems & attempt to justify same under the guise of 'fairness' & supposedly proper universality.

Why?
Aside from creating additional government jobs which they can then demand be meted out to their political constituents on the basis of gender & racial quotas, 'shot gun' approaches - by definition - are the antithesis of two concepts which liberals thoroughly reject: individual responsibility & personal accountability."

75 posted on 08/13/2006 10:10:02 AM PDT by GMMAC (Discover Canada governed by Conservatives: www.CanadianAlly.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Cobra64

I quit smoking for a while last spring and thought I had taken all lighters out of my purse. I later discovered I'd made it through security with three of them.


76 posted on 08/13/2006 10:22:16 AM PDT by Moiraine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: Erik Latranyi
Stop bringing all your crap on the plane! You probably have a large roller-board, laptop bag and huge purse that takes up three rows of overhead space.

Check your bags.

You must not fly much. I hardly ever check bags - not because it is too inconvenient to get them after we land, but because it is too inconvenient to get them when the airline LOSES them. I've only checked bags half a dozen times in the last couple of years and I've had my bags lost or delayed THREE TIMES.

And you are out of your mind if you think that I am checking anything of value. Notebook computers? Cameras? Ipods? If you want to see them again you had best carry them on... I had a package of unopened socks "confiscated" by one of the TSA goons that searched my checked luggage on my last trip. I can handle them stealing a $10 bag of socks, but I'm not going to give them the opportunity to go Christmas shopping through my luggage.

77 posted on 08/14/2006 2:43:13 PM PDT by TexRef
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: Moiraine
I quit smoking for a while last spring and thought I had taken all lighters out of my purse. I later discovered I'd made it through security with three of them.

I know of a similar situation in which a *ahem* friend of mine forgot to take two loaded magazines out of his briefcase. Sailed right through the metal detectors. This was pre-9/11, but still...

Everyone feel safer yet?

78 posted on 08/14/2006 2:45:04 PM PDT by TexRef
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 76 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
Our prescreening process may be ethnically neutral, but the results will not be.

Every FReeper should read Thomas Sowell's A Conflict of Visions to delve deeper into this phenomenon. He treats this subject with his typical, brilliant analysis.

79 posted on 08/14/2006 2:49:40 PM PDT by TChris (Banning DDT wasn't about birds. It was about power.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-79 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson