DO YOU THINK THIS WOMAN DESERVED A PAT DOWN?

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Ok, so like it has already been said here, seal the cockpit.

The other portion of this is that passengers will no longer sit idly by and wait for rescue. I'll use my keys to stab, and my camera or laptop to bludgeon, anyone who tries to take control of the aircraft, because I know they don't want me for a hostage.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

I am still trying to figure out why the can of tuna and beans I had lying forgotten (an un-eaten work lunch) in the darkest depths of my handbag was gleefully detected and confiscated at Adelaide Airport on my way overseas!

No, it's because it improves their numbers. They just detected a potential threat! Their jobs are secure!

(I suppose, though, that in the enclosed confines of an airplane it might be justified to prevent someone from eating a can of tuna and beans....)

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Anything can potentially be used as a weapon, including your head (head butts), hands and feet, so what they're doing is totally ridiculous. How many times has someone tried to stab you with nail clippers? And you can take a lighter aboard, so you could light something or someone on fire. What about safety pins? Are they allowed? Gee, you could stab someone with those, too. Or strangle your seatmate with your shoelaces or belt.

They need to be more vigilant with their cargo inspections, obviously, since that's where they discovered that last bomb. They are completely over the top.

They can't prevent someone who is determined... look at all the driving infractions they can't prevent, the drinking laws which are continually broken, shoplifting which occurs, you name it. People are going to do what they want and all anyone can do is punish them afterwards. So once again, they are making millions of people pay/suffer for the actions of a few extremists. And it's not even effective.

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@Francis,

Quote:

I'd better take the risk to be killed in a terrorist plane crash than go through this imaginary safety controls.

Mr Pistole doesn't give an on-the-winger what risks you would rather run Francois. It's the risks he's running he cares about and that is best taken care of by having his underlings care about the risks they are running all the way down to the patters and feelers on the frontline whose unfortunate task is to deal with you lot in the fraught and nervous state you are all seemingly in.

Mr Pistole can soak up your whingings and whinings better than I can soak up beer. Casually and with aplomb. I saw him do it last night. That's why he got the job.

You don't think anything you say has not been thought of by his staff and thrown at him in rehearsals do you?

I was on a plane once when the engine fell off just before takeoff. We skidded sideways a bit. Just enough to get one wheel bogged down in the sand at the side of the tarmac. Two fighters took off side-by-side right past us.

I suppose if the engine had dropped out later I wouldn't be here to tell the tale. It took six weeks to get us airworthy again so we had a nice free holiday and I had plenty of time to appreciate the comforts of overseas postings.

But modern flying had enough humiliation in it for me to put up with before the recent variations came into play. Shifting bodies from place to place is all the same these days from sheep and cattle up to princes and peasants.

You're missing the point. If you choose to fly in the US you do it Mr Pistole's way. And Rebecca's experiences are nothing to go by because Mr Pistole's staff are trained to recognise at a glance that her appearance signifies a sweetness in her person which has nothing but goodwill for her fellow human beings.

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@Mame,

I bet you could take a suspender clasp and straighten it out and turn it into a deadly weapon Mame. Have some poison on the tip. You could break a corset stay in half and get two daggers.

Of course it's effective. It makes the terrorist look at other easier targets and you could end up with a plane being one of the safest places to be. The IRA have blown up a few pubs.

1 Reply

Quote:

You're missing the point. If you choose to fly in the US you do it Mr Pistole's way. And Rebecca's experiences are nothing to go by because Mr Pistole's staff are trained to recognise at a glance that her appearance signifies a sweetness in her person which has nothing but goodwill for her fellow human beings.

Ha-ha - yeah I'm sure that's it.
But seriously - I feel like I'm living a separate reality or something. It's not like these TSA people act like storm troopers or something bossing and pushing people around harshly. I've never seen any of these people initiate the rudeness and pushiness - if it happens, it's a response to a passenger being rude and belligerent toward them or another passenger.

And as far as my appearance goes, if someone does get pulled out to be searched separately, it used to be the joke in my family that it would definitely be me - so they could fulfill their quota of white, middle class looking non-threatening types and not be seen to be profiling.

Even

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@spendius,

There's nothing to stop them from looking at other targets anyway. Churches, trains (done), buses, schools, anywhere there's a crowd, basically.

I'm not afraid to fly and I'm not afraid to die. If there's a terrorist or other type of madman on the plane determined to bring it down, oh well. That's the day I die, then. I could die just as easily because of mechanical malfunctions.

It doesn't matter what measures you take, someone will find a way to do what they will. So putting all air travellers through this **** is completely wasteful of both time and money.

Our privacy is being invaded more and more and it bugs the hell out of me. Your bag gets searched at football games and concerts, video cameras are everywhere watching your every move, your call to practically any agency (bank, telephone company) 'may be recorded' for a variety of reasons, and now there are these trucks in the States which drive around searching inside your vehicle! When will it stop? I just see it escalating.

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@Mame,

Quote:

now there are these trucks in the States which drive around searching inside your vehicle!

Huh? Can someone explain what this is and why it may not be a part of the reality of any of my friends or family who live in the states?

1 Reply

@aidan,

Where did I see that? On the news or in a newspaper? I shall google it and try to find some info for you.

I know they are using that backscatter technology, I remember that. They had a picture of a truck and a vehicle (van) they'd found with boxes of dynamite (I think it was) in it.

Edit:
Here it is:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0929/Feds-radiating-Americans-Mobile-X-ray-vans-hit-US-streets

if you google 'US Trucks backscatter' you will see more listings about it.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

Jesus, you can be superficial JTT.

Speaking of superficial, Spendi. Dumb and superficial.

"The isolationist position. Cease trading with them. No fly zones. Island America. Exporters and importers shot on sight."

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@aidan,

Quote:

They got my mom to stand up and frisked her as gently and politely as I've ever seen it done. I don't have a bad word to say about any of them.

They frisked your mom. And how old is your mom, Aidan?

Jesus, talk about dumb.

1 Reply

@Mame,

Thank you Mame.

The article said most of those bought were allocated to be used in war zones- fortunately, I can say with some confidence that the majority of the streets in the US aren't war zones yet.
But this makes me wonder why the US government is going to such lengths and taking such measures to confront terrorism.
You know - do they know something we don't know?
Because I'm walking around feeling pretty much perfectly safe most of the time I'm in the US - in airports, malls, on the street, whatever...so who's feeling threatened by terrorists?
Are they collecting information that we don't know about or something?

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@Mame,

Quote:

Our privacy is being invaded more and more and it bugs the hell out of me. Your bag gets searched at football games and concerts, video cameras are everywhere watching your every move, your call to practically any agency (bank, telephone company) 'may be recorded' for a variety of reasons, and now there are these trucks in the States which drive around searching inside your vehicle! When will it stop? I just see it escalating.

I suspect that a whole lot of people in a whole lot of countries where the US heaped a whole lot of misery upon a whole lot of innocents are enjoying this small bit of schadenfreude.

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@JTT,

I'm sure it's happening in Europe and elsewhere, too. We just don't trust anymore.

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@JTT,

My mother is 78 JTT and she has bad knees, so she was sitting in a wheelchair. They asked her to get up, I said, 'Really, does she HAVE to stand up to go through the metal detector?'
They said, 'Sorry miss, but yes, she does,' and they very gently helped her up to stand so they could make sure she wasn't sitting on some sort of weapon or something.
You know, at first I thought 'How ridiculous.' But then I thought, 'Yeah - what a perfect place for some fanatical person to hide a weapon or drugs, contraband, whatever- have their sweet little innocent mother sit on it.'

It's a mad, mad world we live in. People can be crazy.
I can relate to these people being thorough about their job - it's not only to protect us - it's to protect them.
If I give a guy a piece of tape to use, I have to measure what I give him and note what he used it for.
If he uses it for something he's not supposed to and it comes out that I gave it to him without doing that- I can lose my job.
If a little old lady goes through security and it turns out her daughter
was having her sit on something she wasn't supposed to bring on the plane - that person will lose their job.

2 Replies

@aidan,

aidan wrote:

If I give a guy a piece of tape to use, I have to measure what I give him and note what he used it for.
If he uses it for something he's not supposed to and it comes out that I gave it to him without doing that- I can lose my job.

Who in the world do you work for???

1 Reply

@Mame,

I teach in a prison. Maybe this whole thing doesn't bother me because I can get searched any day/ any time.
If I walk in chewing a piece of gum - I can get reprimanded - gum (chewed) can be used to gum up the keyholes so a door can't be locked.
We can't have glue sticks - they can be used along with cotton balls to make some sort of explosive gas.
We have to punch holes in our empty soda bottles, so they can't be used to store hooch.
You know - a length of masking tape (doubled or tripled) or duct tape can be used to strangle someone...it's been a real education ....these security people have to think of EVERYTHING!

1 Reply

@aidan,

Do you enjoy working in that environment?

1 Reply

@aidan,

You fly through a prison too, Aidan, without even thinking for a moment, "This is just ******* nuts".

Quote:

The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

...

So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive, so un-Israelified?

Working hard to dampen his outrage, Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves.

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

And rather than fear, he suggests that outrage would be a far more powerful spur to provoking that change.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

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Quote:

Fliers in U.S. urged to opt out of airport security en masse

As public grousing about intrusive airport-security procedures continues to grow louder in the U.S., an online group is calling on passengers to opt out of “enhanced” scanning and force security staff to use rigorous new pat-down procedures on them.

So called National Opt-Out Day is set for Nov. 24, the day before American Thanksgiving and one of the busiest air travel days in the U.S.

“The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change,” the movement’s leader, Brian Nordegren, writes. “We have a right to privacy, and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent.”

Airport-security procedures have leapt to the front of the American news cycle this week thanks to a viral video recorded on a cellphone.

Thirty-one-year-old software programmer John Tyner recorded what happened after he refused to go through a full-body scanner that projects a ghostly, nude image. Tyner also refused the alternative: an “enhanced” pat-down.

“If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested,” Tyner told the security officer, creating a now widely used catchphrase.

Tyner was surrounded by security and police, escorted from the security area and then, in a Kafkaesque twist, threatened with huge fines because he’d left the security area.

He now faces a U.S. Transportation Security Administration investigation and a possible $11,000 (U.S.) penalty.

A small-scale revolt – first taken up by airline pilots – has now begun against the scanners. On top of the privacy concerns, some are now wondering if the scans are dangerous.

That, added to a new pat-down procedure that applies open palms to the groins and chests of many travellers, including children, has tapped in to a growing anger about the hassles of air travel.

The growing unease prompted Washington’s Homeland Security czar, Janet Napolitano, to write an op-ed urging patience.

A CBS poll published this week showed that the overwhelming majority of Americans approve of the scanners – but it’s not clear how many of them will be flying next Wednesday.

However, if even a significant minority of travellers decides to act on National Opt-Out Day, all of those flying in or through the U.S. next Wednesday will want to come to airports armed with a surplus of patience.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/892031--fliers-urged-to-opt-out-of-airport-security-en-masse

1 Reply

DO YOU THINK THIS WOMAN DESERVED A PAT DOWN?

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