Posted on 08/21/2006 9:39:58 AM PDT by knighthawk
In July 2001, Richard Reid tried to board an El Al flight to Israel. The 28-year-old Briton, who later became known as the "shoe bomber" for trying to ignite explosives in his sneakers on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, was stopped before he could get on the Israeli plane. His answers to routine questions from El Al security officials made them suspicious. He was detained and searched because they determined his behavior was erratic. He fit the profile of a would-be terrorist.
Americans who cherish their civil liberties are reluctant to allow the type of psychological profiling used by the Israelis to be employed at U.S. airports; they are nervous about the balance between personal freedom and public safety. So a security rule has to apply equally. "Here at an airport, my 2-year-old son has to take his shoes off before screening," says Andy David, deputy consul general at the Israeli Consulate in Chicago. "In Israel, he doesn't have to do that. Here there is a huge amount of energy invested in screening populations which pose no threat. A child or an old woman traveling with her husband should be differently screened from everyone else."
David is right. The latest incident of potential airline disaster, the alleged bomb plot in Britain using liquid explosives, necessitates a rethinking of airport security. Searching bags for hair gel and X-raying shoes and handbags don't go far enough. Israeli security has managed to make the airport at Tel Aviv and El Al airline safe by asking passengers simple questions.
"Israeli security agents try to understand who is standing in front of them," says David. Earlier this year, the Transportation Security Administration said it would use more psychological means to uncover terrorists -- but little has been done so far. At Dulles Airport in Washington a few years ago, security agents began to ask passengers questions to determine if they seemed tense or evasive. And those who acted suspiciously were pulled aside. But it didn't always work well. In one case, the national coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's Campaign Against Racial Profiling was pulled aside. He is now suing. This doesn't mean, however, the method was flawed; it just means the security agents needed better training. We can't, as David says, treat everyone the same. Grandma isn't the problem.
And simply checking bags isn't good enough anymore. Nor is scanning faces to determine strange behavior. Simple questions -- like "What did you think of the Sox game?" or "How was your trip to the airport?" -- would suffice. Anything to tip off security personnel that the traveler is nervous or has something to hide and should be further investigated. Sometimes civil liberties have to be balanced with the interests of protecting lives.
ping
Sounds like "living document" hogwash to me, not original intent.
Well, that disqualifies all observant Jews, and all observant Orthodox Christians for months out of the year and all observant Catholics on certain days.
I guess I would, since I have flown on El Al. I even got a little extra scrunity and screening based on my answer to one of their questions, but the world didn't come to an end.
BS, the RIGHT to drive is inherent in our constitution, along with the right to do anything else that insures our happiness and ability to work. If you can't see that, TS, you are just blind to what freedoms our consitition bestows on us.
It has nothing to do with "living document" hogwash as you put it. Your interpretation, and the governments, of driving and flying being a priviledge is the real hogwash and intended to dupe citizens of the US into thinking the government has more control over us then they actually do. Sooner or later people will confront the "priviledge" of driving headon and win. In the mean time slaves of the government, such as yourself, will continue to parrot the government mantra! I suppose everything invented after the constitution was written falls under priviledge in your opinion and idiotic interpretation of the constitution.
I'll reiterate that there is no "right" to drive on someone else's property, no "right" to drive an uninsured vehicle, no "right" to vehicle insurance, no "right" to fly on a plane someone else owns - you presume a large number of imaginary rights.
The only thing you said which rational individuals would recognize as a poor semblance of a child's argument is that we have a right to have our happiness "insured" by which I presume you meant to write "ensured" (and that you weren't actually referring to some mystical insurance contract on happiness).
The Framers were not so unintelligent as to believe that their job was to "ensure" or "insure" happiness.
Perhaps that's why they neglected to mention happiness, fuzzy kittens or warm chocolate cupcakes in the Constitution.
As for your misapprehending comment about technology, the Framers did not argue for an inherent right to drive a coach and six or an inherent right to sail, either. They wisely left such matters to the states to regulate as they saw fit - if they weren't focused on providing special rights for the transportation technology of their day, they certainly weren't contemplating special rights for transportation technologies of the future either, somehow writing in imaginary protections for motorists that they did not write in for horsemen.
> Well, that disqualifies all observant Jews, and all observant Orthodox Christians for months out of the year and all observant Catholics on certain days.
And all vegans and vegetarians.
I think you all have an odd idea of rights.
If the airline doesn't want you to fly, the government can't, and shouldn't make them.
To protect the rest of us, regulations can and should be put into place to prevent homicidal individuals from putting passengers at risk.
If you don't earn a driver's license the state can and should deny you the opportunity to drive.
That's why any airline or government agency in the Western world which is seriously interested in maximizing flight security should be studying Israeli procedures carefully and implementing them when at all feasible.
I know you are trying to be funny, but your first ssuggestion has some real merit to it. Native Arabic speakers represent a high risk group that should be given special attention. Nothing wrong with "ethnic profiling" that concentrates time, attention, and resources in the prospective passenger populations statistically most likely to cause the most trouble.
It's a myth that Americans are not willing to undergo questions and waits given the safety risks. The media are the only ones you ever hear saying that the public will not put up with it. They're looking for a story and some controversy where there is none.
Americans are willing to put up with effective security screening by well-trained, high quality, decently paid security personnel a la El Al. What they are not willing to put up with is bogus, incompetent, and pointless "screening" by unmotivated, low quality, not-so-well paid airport personnel.
"I think you all have an odd idea of rights. If the airline doesn't want you to fly, the government can't, and shouldn't make them."
Well, I don't think my ideas are that odd. And you seem to have something reversed. I never suggested that the government (at any level of government) should force airlines to do business with me. What we were talking about was the government, specifically the TSA, PREVENTING the normal conduct of business.
Since just as many seem to be flying as ever, you're probably right.
It comes under the heading of national defense.
Very few, if any, Chicagoans (for instance) would be happy to have an enemy controlled missle going splat onto Chicago.
Since making airplanes go splat is one of the enemy techiques, the Federal governmant has the Costitutional right and responsibility to prevent it.
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.