Posted on 08/15/2006 6:51:59 AM PDT by Rutles4Ever
Long article, but the first line sums it up. Might I ask, "WTF?"
they need to train more dogs and buy more chemical sniffers.
Just the media trying to downplay the seriousness of the plot to blow up British airliners. This report didn't come out 5 months ago, nor did it come out 5 years ago.
The gist of the article:
Grow up. You are going to have to accept a tiny risk of harm if you fly.
"Might I ask, "WTF?"
The "TF" of the situation is that the writer dosen't know of what she speaks and is writing to scare people.
X-Rays obviously cannot tell the chemical makeup of what it sees or we would have no need for medical biopsies.
The X-Rays detect that something is different then a normal shoe, leading to further investigation.
>You win the Cigar! The press is just dumber than a box of rocks.
Nah, the gist of the article is to play on the emotions of those people who have felt "inconvenienced" since 9/11.
Exactly. What's the alternative to putting shoes through x-ray? NOT putting them through x-ray?
Yeah! That'll do it!
No matter what is done, it's either too much ('...takes too much time! Lines are too long! My civil liberty hurts mommy!') or it's too little ('....seee! G. W. Bush is not protecting us enough. I'm going to vote for Hillary! and teach the GOP a lesson!')
Fristrating!!! (typo?)
Conservatives OUGHT to be demanding that government/TSA get OUT of the airline security business and simply indemnify airlines such that they are allowed to refuse service to anyone without fear of a discrimination lawsuit.
You go up to the counter, check in, bag screen, and if American Airlines rejects you as a security risk, or even thinks you look funny, then you ride Continental. Fail them, you ride Southwest. If all the airlines think you're a risky looking swarthy guy, you don't fly and the Congress backs them up.
Such a full measure never happen, you say? Then quit bitching about your half-assed security instead.
"The shoe scans have been optional for several years."
Not where I have flown. I was told it was "strongly advisable" to remove my shoes for scanning at each and every security gate I tried to cross.
That doesn't mean "optional" as in "no biggie, do it or not".
Scanning shoes would detect if they were tampered with or had the heels hollowed out , contained metals, stuff like that, even if they did not get the actual explosives.
Sure, that has always been my experience. Everyone taking their shoes off, running them through the x-ray machine, and then putting them back on makes the screening process much more efficient and eliminates a bunch of confusion.
If I felt any safer because of the "inconvenience" I wouldn't mind.
To this point it's only been fluff and show.
If you want security, copy Israel's security. PROFILE!!!!
Xrays can detect the absence of materials that make up the interior of a normal heel. If they find shoes with out the material that makes up the normal heel, they do a physical examination.
The alternative is to make fly barefoot and buy new shoes at your destination.
If you want to know how the media can fool the people look in the Mirror.
Technically the article is correct. A blasting cap filled with explosives may x-ray the same as a blasting cap filled with yogurt.
So what is the poor screener to do when the outlines of a blasting cap appear on the screen?
We are domed.
Of course it doesn't show the explosives but it shows any abnormal hollowed out portions of the shoes that can contain explosives and then if that's detected they can do further screening.
We have had TWO airline disasters since 9/11. How many did we have in the five years prior to that?
Security screening works.
If a terrorist manages to shove a bomb up his ass to blow up a plane, at least he's earned it.
There is no end to the objects and substances that Muslim terrorists can bring on board an airplane and kill the passengers or wreck the thing. Our methods for screening for dangerous objects include only honesty (law-abiding, non-terrorists voluntarily give up certain items or substances for no good reason), X-rays for some checked baggage and all carry-ons (detects only SOME dangerous objects), metal detectors for passengers (detects only metal objects - does not detect ceramic blades, for instance), and very expensive explosives sniffer devices (detects only some specific types of explosive substances). NONE of those methods and NONE of the current methods would stop a Muslim terrorist from carrying out a slightly modified version of the most recent liquid/gel plot.
The only sane screening method is to target the population demographic that is responsible for 99.99% of terrorist acts. The only sane thing we're doing is deploying armed Air Marshals on some flights. But the policies under which Air Marshals must operate have reduced their effectiveness considerably.
Screen YMMs, not Gatorade and nail clippers.
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