Who is the Terrorist? (The horror that air travel in the U.S. is becoming)

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ^ | July 1, 2003 | Mike Masterson

[MineralMan]

"A strong suggestion that I have not seen yet: We had the unfortunate experience of landing at DeGaulle Airport in frogland as a first stop, and I had some prescription medicine in my luggage - candidate for the Darwin award - yes I was!

The frog baggage handlers went on strike as in what else is new, and I had to sweat my medicines out for three days. SPLIT THEM UP AT LEAST. "

Oh yes! Always carry your prescription medications with you. Baggage gets lost. Further, if you take your prescriptions in one of those handy daily pill sorters, it's not a bad idea to have copies of your prescriptions with you, especially if you're taking a medication that is on the controlled substances list. It could save you a great deal of hassle.

[HardStarboard]

Quid, your absolutely right. However, he flunked 21st Century Air Travel 101 because he tried to buck the system - and wasn't very smart about it. Unfortunately, as perverse and stupid our anti-terrorism systems is, you have to "play along to get along"!

In Seattle where I live, they are talking about Homeland Security instituting car and passanger searches on the ferry system on Puget Sound. You want to see a manjor "cluster aaah....mess", this will be it!

As the head of security at El Al, the Israeli airline, said when asked what he thought of our airline security measures; " you don't have a security system, you have a system to piss travelers off"! Amen!

VIVA LA PROFILING!

[quidnunc]

Pan_Yans Wife wrote: Was the teenager who flew the plane into a building in Florida a devout Muslim, or a disgruntled, confused AMERICAN teenager?

He was a Muslim whose father was a Middle-Eastern Islamist and who left letters indicating he was going on a suicide mission in support of Osama bin Laden.

Pan_Yans Wife wrote: Prior to September 11th, the worst act of terrorism on American soil took place because of an angry red-headed American male. Did you call for keeping an eye on all American men with red hair after OKCity?

His hair color had nothing to do with it; his identification with the wacko, hard-right-wingnut mentality which motivates the 'suiperpatriot' milita movement had everything to do with it.

You are aware that elements of the militia movement have expressed solidarity with al Qaeda, aren't you?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

There are two distinct issues, though.

There is the TSA, and then there is profiling.

Is TSA working? I suspect that it is, so far. And, I truly doubt the terrorists would use planes as missles to fly into our landmarks.

The profiling aspect is a much sticker issue, because of civil rights afforded to all people.

And, is there any specific incidence where the militia members have successfully thwarted TSA?

The teenager could not have been thwarted by the TSA, because he used a small private plane. Was his father affiliated with al Qaeda? Or, was the teenager just acting out aggression and anger, on his own, not at his father's bidding?

[takenoprisoner]

TSA has a lot more to to with soccer moms than terrorism.

Actually TSA has more to do with imposing even more federal authority in airports. From here they go to Greyhound and Amtrak and from there to the local metro transits...and from there to our highways.

Get ready for a federal authority with a radar gun on the interstate "scanning for terrorists." For us in Atlanta that means in the corridor between the north 120 loop on I75 and I285 we will have Cobb county sheriff, Marietta City police, Georgia State patrol, and soon a federal agent on patrol all competing to issue citations.

All you snowbirds headed for Florida should take note of this corridor. It's a major income source for three agencies at present. And if my prediction of incremental progression is correct, soon to be four.

[Skywalk]

As officers of the federal government, how are these searches not violations of the 4th?

ANyone want to tell me where the probable cause is here? How long until Granny Smith sues for violation of her 4th Amendment by GOVERNMENT AGENTS?

I mean, that pesky thing is there for this type of circumstance, yes?

[TexasCowboy]

I traveled ONE time in my regular Western clothes - boots, hat and Western belt buckle.
Mistake!!
My boots came off at every check point along with my buckle, and my $1000. Silver Belly Stetson had so many grubby handprints on it that it was totally ruined!
I don't care if the airlines go completely broke.
I only fly when I absolutely have to, and then I go as naked as I can.

[Terp]

Mr. Masterson is obviously an idiot and shouldn't be entrusted with an airline ticket.

Not only an idiot but a crybaby too!

[PatrioticAmerican]

"searching for any way to justify their existence"

Give a guy with authority all the power of the sheeple and you have the makings of a bully.

I bet the executive status meetings go something like this.

"We've stopped 12,242 attempted assaults on the airlines and our fellow citizen passengers. We've confiscated 84,763 prohibited items, including fingernail clippers, lighters, and finger nail files. We have stopped 107,892 possible bombing attempts from unaccompanied luggage.

We are overworked and understaffed. We will need 14,779 new agents this year alone to keep up with the threats posed to our national security, what, with the level of prohibited items and actions encountered so far.

We also suggest an airline national color for threats: We request Purple."


"

[janette]

Today my daughter came from Frankfurt-Germany to Atlanta.
She wore flip flops, these plastic soles with a string through her toes! She had to take them off (secrurity in ATL) and walk a while barefoot through the security before she could put them on again!!
Emagine the hygiene-problems, not to mention how in the world can you hide explosives in plastik flip flops??!!

[takenoprisoner]

As another poster here suggested, the TSA is for "soccer moms." It's a pretend security blanket with absolutely no real security. But it makes the soccer moms feel secure. So, in that sense, yes, it is effective.

A major point of contention here is that while they are busy frisking grandma in her wheelchair, or harassing some golfer about a butane lighter, the real terrorists slip thru.

Bottomline, random searches are ineffective since that leaves a window of opportunity for those so inclined.

In order to be truly effective, all passengers should be searched and screened.

Meantime airline security provided by the TSA is a myth sanctioned only by the soccer moms and not shared by those who know better.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

But, I am working under the assumption that TSA is the newest federal program that is here to stay. I do not know how to get around it. Even Sen. Harkin recently blew through the checkpoints at the airport, because of his busy schedule. Yes, it isn't fair, and no, they shouldn't search Grandma. However, even as inept as the system is, isn't it conceivable that they have thwarted some future attacks? I think it might be... at least halting the "copy-cat" type cases... the shoe bomber, etc, not to mention removing the felons from airport security.

[takenoprisoner]

I mean, that pesky thing is there for this type of circumstance, yes?

Beats me. I don't understand how any of this is tolerated by real Americans. Most justify the process as a necessary evil to fight terrorism. What they don't get is that when they subject themselves to these unconstitutional intrusions, they have forfeited their freedom and their rights to terrorists...

Are the terrorists winning? Sure looks like they are at our airports.

[takenoprisoner]

Remember, the shoe bomber was already on the plane. The search did not prevent him. That's my point.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Do you think the terrorists have won... or at least grinned with the Patriot Act was signed? Don't the Islamic radicals hate America because of its freedoms, so anything that curtails these freedoms, makes them victorious?

As for Atta and Co, and the shoe-bomber. That is the beauty of their plans, the think outside of the box, and try to bring us to our knees. Atta and Co. didn't carry anything illegal onboard the planes, neither did the shoebomber.

So, how do we thwart future attacks? Wouldn't getting rid of TSA actually make us much more vulnerable? How about the Israeli security system at airports? They haven't had a highjacking in years.

[no-s]

You seem to enjoy posting a lot of "I never have any trouble" trolls on this thread, implying the complainers are just asking for it. You sound like a shill for the airlines or the TSA. Sorry, I'm not going to feel happy about the current situation by pretending everything is ok.

I traveled for years on airlines with (on my person) fingernail clippers, a multitool, and a survival knife designed to rip thru the skin of an airliner in the event of a survivable crash.

I never hijacked any airplanes with my tools. Furthermore I bet millions of other passengers did the same (at least for the first two), and they never did either. Who were all those US Citizens who hijacked planes and sent them into the WTC and the Pentagon???

In my experience flying since then I have been repeatedly selected for the triple whammy of searches (ticketing/checkpoint/gate), had a detector wand practically shoved up my anus, had a searcher take my handgun out of my checked baggage and wave it around for everyone to see, and experienced numerous other indignities which seemed to bear little relation to finding terrorists.

For example, I recently went to the airport to pick up my son, a 6' 1" 225# 14.9-year old who is perfectly able to change planes by himself and has been doing so since he was 12. The airline had retroactively determined he was too young to travel without "unaccompanied minor" escort which requires an extra $60 of documentation each way, and to collect him I had to pass through the security checkpoint (with the seeming mandatory and gratuitous search) in order to show identification and sign the "i've got it" document. Oh, BTW, since I wasn't traveling that day I had to get a special checkpoint pass. What was the purpose of all this? The airline's excuse? "Federal Rules" made them do it. They couldn't even identify the "Federal Rules" in question.

Lately I've just about given up on flying commercial, it's too much trouble. Unfortunately the feds continue to use our tax dollars to prop up the commercial airlines, so we can expect more of the same for some time to come, since with federal dollars comes more of this bureaucratic nonsense.

[no-s]

I remember this one. In December 1987 a Pacific Southwest Airlines employee who had just been or was about to be fired for arguing with a supervisor used his security card to bypass security and the gate, entering the aircraft from the ramp stairs. He brought a gun, and sat in a seat behind the supervisor he quarreled with. During the flight he murdered the supervisor, then went to the cockpit and murdered the flight crew, then dove the plane into the ground, killing all aboard. The forensics were established from recovered bone fragements, data recorder, notes made by the hijacker, etc.

If other passengers or flightcrew had been armed, do you think there would have been a possibility of a different outcome?

[takenoprisoner]

Of course they are ltao at our grandmothers and the rest of us being fondled.

A bonus of the TSA creation at airports is that it gives inner city folks a job and gets them off welfare. And from the looks of things at our airports, they are making good use of that time scrutinizing grandma in her wheelchair and soccer moms with their newborns.

[Rockpile]

I notice that those posters jabbering about the Masterson guy leaving his bag unattended and what an idiot he was never once brought up that he was on the other side of the security perimeter. Since he and everyone else on that side had already been processed aren't the tsa defenders basically saying that the screening procedure was absolutely ficking worthless?

PS, I'm glad these posters fly so that their asses aren't weaving around the highway in front of me.

[Rockpile]

Back in the long ago when I flew via airliner I wore leather hiking shoes, stout clothes and carried leather work gloves, a flashlight and one of the cheap dust masks stuffed in my pockets on the grounds of maybe helping my chances a little in case the plane bellied into a potentially survivable crash.

Wearing sandals, shorts etc. seems like a bad idea to me in case you have to scramble over hot, jagged metal.