Centerfield

"Clearly heightened levels of pilferage"? Got any actual stats on that, Jon, or just personal experience?

As for the suggestion that the searches "improve counter-terror risk so little", says who? That's certainly the conventional wisdom, held by a whole bunch of people whose only experience with airline security is as passengers. That it's not perfect does not mean that it doesn't help, that it doesn't cut down substantially on the risk.

Have we had any hijackings in the U.S. since 9/11? Nope. So I think the burden is on you to demonstrate your assertion.

And how much "liberty" do you want at the airport? Do you want them to take out the metal detectors, allowing the risk of someone bringing a gun onto the plane? Really big hunting knives? Maybe no "checkpoint" at all, so any crazy man can just waltz onto the airplane with a bomb?

Airplanes are a known target of terrorists. They've been using them as targets for decades, and just last month were preparing to hijack those British planes. Give me a solid decade without any terrorist attacks on airplanes, and maybe I'll start to agree with your desire to reduce your inconvenience at the airport. Until then, I don't want to fly on any airplane that doesn't follow the current security procedures.

Have you thanked the Gore Commission for it all, Jon?

The common perception is that 9/11 was responsible for all the heightened airport security. Most of it was already in the works, although they were still thinking more of bombs and biologicals at the time.

My bags had no problem being pilfered long before 9/11. Especially in Miami and Atlanta. Another reason I despise flying commercial, and prefer to drive myself when time allows.

Sorry, Jon, but I'm with the group on this one. Given recent events, here and abroad, it would be illogical to relax security at airports. The recent arrests in London prove that terrorists continue to target airplanes.

We tend to look at history through rose-colored glasses, long for "the good ol' days" when in fact they were never that good. For all our talk about liberties being curtailed, the fact is that we have much greater freedom today than we did 50 years ago, or 100 years ago.

Part of that is governmental -- greater access to information and documents, more scrutiny by the media and watchdog groups. Part of it is cultural -- a society that is more tolerant of conflicting views.

Yes, I know that last one seems suspicious given the hard-core partisanship so commonplace today. But the vast majority of Americans are more tolerant today of people of different races, religions and viewpoints than they were in the good ol' days.

In addition to actual al Qaeda terrorists, TSA must also be vigilant against copy cats and random psychos. Big events like 9/11 give crazy people ideas, ideas they may actually try to carry out. All our other counter-terrorism operations aren't going to catch those guys.

Also, the most recent stringent procedures, against the shampoos and other gels, are in place because of a threat which occurred just last month. We still can't be sure of the "real scope of the problem and real number of attacks" possible under that scenario. We don't know how many people are out there with the capability to use these new tools. We don't know how big the risk is at this point.

I'm not crazy about flying anyway and I feel somewhat better with tight security even going through the inconvenience. Part of the problem, I think, is that they can't really target specific danger zones becaause of the issue of profiling. There obviously are particular origan and destination points that are more vulnerable to terrorist attack, but you can't really treat those flights differently. It might be more efficient to vary the levels of security based on such criteria (without revealing that ahead of tiem, of course) but I can't really argue with the procedures at present. And, frankly, some of the inconvenience I find comes from the practices of the airlines as much as the security procedures; for example, it's a pain in the ass (but cheaper) to fly on Southwest with no reserved seats.

Not that TSA's policies haven't been extremely silly and thoroughly idiotic and annoying in many respects. They have been. The major effect of the increased scrutiny is not so much actual prevention as deterrence. The annoyances also remind passengers of the reason for them--the numerous occasions of passengers "policing their own" in flight are relevant examples.

I agree with what Tully said in his last post, and with most of what everyone else says. It's a matter of balance, isn't it?

I want good security just like everyone else, I just don't want entirely inflexible and unnecessarily stringent security.

Sadly, ingenuity is not limited to our side. So we may have to tolerate things like bans on liquids if we really want to constrain our enemies' opportunities. If it turns out such things must be tolerated for the sake of security, I'd like to see us also do something about the profiteering that may spring up. So, for example, maybe we'd want to also install at all airports some sort of security mitigation shop where you could be guaranteed the ability to buy banned items at low or fair cost upon reaching your destination. Maybe there could be a rule that water can't cost more than 50 or 75 cents pe 6 oz bottle at the airport. Maybe we could sell non-allergenic scent-free BASIC toiletry packs at a fair cost under the auspices of some organization that would not profit, or if they did, channeled the profits to some good end, like security education or whatever. Beyond the basic toiletry liquids, there'd be the opportunity for people to measure vanity (expensive colognes, hair gels and frizz controller) against convenience (carry-on luggage). Note that such items could even be sold pretty easily in vending machines...

I want us to do all the sensible things that we need to do to deter terrorists from using planes as weapons. But I don't think it's too much to ask that we do this without making us go thirsty or get ripped off.

Remember, freedom isn't always an unalloyed good in the abstract. I was very recently reminded of this when I was in a rollover accident last week, one in which I foolishly neglected to buckle up. Thankfully, this freedom didn't cost me my life, just a painful injury I expect to bounce back from, although it hurts like hell to sit right now. L3 compression fracture. Good prognosis.

Rest assured that in the aftermath of my shame at my foolish arrogance, I feel fortunate to be able to swear my lifetime membership in the buckle-up club. Better late than never. It's a blow to the ego to think I valued what was in essence my right to float freely in the cab of my truck as it spun around 360 degrees at highway speed and then flipped a full revolution when we hit the side of the road and the tires blew. My seatbelted passenger has not a scratch on him. Some people are more stupid than others, and in this case I was on the low end of the curve. But I've collected all the data I need, and thankfully the cost of collection was far lower than it could have been!

By the way, I watched President Bush's speak last night. It was the best Bush speech I've ever seen, and framed things in precisely the way I've been complaining he hasn't. Thjis is the drum I've wanted him to bang, and I hope he keeps banging it, loudly and frequently.

Gotta lie down now.

Ouch. My sympathies.

Brian, very glad you're ok. I only occasionally wore my seatbelt until I had a car wreck in high school (by the grace of the gods I had chosen to wear the seatbelt that day). Since then, I haven't moved the car without having myself and all my passengers buckled up.

And I agree with your suggestions about low cost toiletries, etc. I carry one of those small swiss army knives in my pocket all the time, and I hate having to leave it behind when I fly; I feel almost naked without it at my destination. If I could purchase one at the other end of every flight, I would certainly do so.

I'd also like to see them grant a concession to the USPS or UPS or somebody right near the security gates. If you forget to leave your heirloom pocket knife at home, just duck in to the shop, pay $5 or $10 and mail it home. They'd have small boxes and mailing pouches ready to go, just add address.

> I don't want to fly on any airplane that doesn't follow the current
> security procedures.

If you really mean that, then you'd better walk to the airport, since driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than the terrorism. Maybe we should just ban that nasty driving stuff.

You know, we hear more about the terrorists, and what they did in 9/11, than we do about other causes of death and injury. And, to keep eyeballs, newspapers, the media mostly prefers to neglect to talk about real risk levels on any issue. And, let's face it, blog posts that say, well, you're pretty safe, are pretty boring.

But that doesn't keep terrorism from being one of the smallest threats most Americans face. That's the boring reality. Now, things certainly would be worse if some actions weren't taken. But, how much of that is due to TSA restrictions?

The famous recent mixing thing was caught by the police, not TSA (for the second time).

If just today's boarding restrictions, and none of the other things, were in place, 9/11 could have gone off with 15 minutes thought to replace boxcutters with another nonclassical weapon (really, the same 15 minutes they spent deciding on boxcutters instead of knives or guns).

On 9/11, they already faced ID checks. Even cavity searches would've made no difference, given said adaptation of boxcutters to today's rules.

9/11 was successful because al'Qaeda was still globalized, unevenly watched, and could build up and bring together the necessary expertise, and provide operational supervision. Other aspects of the WoT are removing those more important al'Qaeda advantages.

Here's a post on that:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/more_than_10_wa.html

Tully noted:
> The common perception is that 9/11 was responsible for all the
> heightened airport security. Most of it was already in the works,

Yes. For example, during the Clinton Administration, the ID requirement appeared after some thought a flight was brought down by terrorism. NTSB later decided it'd been a mechanical problem, but the ID requirement didn't go away. How did that make sense?

I'm not just grumbling about Republicans. Plenty of Democrats are also front and center (both Clintons, Lieberman, etc) on this issue. I'm sure Kerry would've been as bad.

This blog post is intended to be nonpartisan.

> Do you want them to take out the metal detectors,

Metal detectors, tuned moderately, seem like a reasonable moderate measure, at least until effective plastic knives and guns get cheap and easy to find.

I'm for well-considered, effective solutions that have low impacts on liberties. I'm against the two questions about bag packing.

BTW, I missed the first eight minutes, but what I saw of Bush' speech I also liked.

"If you really mean that, then you'd better walk to the airport, since driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than the terrorism. Maybe we should just ban that nasty driving stuff."

I continually hear people make that analogy, and it irritates me to no end. Statistically speaking, yes, your chances of dying in a car accident are much greater than dying in a terrorist attack.

However, your death in a car accident does not kill 3000 people in one fell swoop - on national TV in a most horrifyingly violent manner.

Your death in a car accident isn't a declaration of war on the US.

Your death in a car accident does not result in the Stock Market being closed for a week.

Your death in a car accident does not result in the bankruptcy of major airlines - which are one of the main backbones of our economy – not to mention the ensuing taxpayer bailout.

Your death in a car accident does not result in a major economic center of the US being crippled for months.

Your death in a car accident does not cost the taxpayers of this country hundreds of billions of dollars.

Your death in a car accident does not result in US troops being sent half way around the world to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And I’m sorry to say, that while your death in car accident would be horrible for your family and friends, it doesn’t cause fear, turmoil and panic among the other 299,999,999 Americans.

I could go on – but I think I’ve made my point.

The security measures they take to prevent another terrorist attack are a minor inconveniences compared to the chaos that would result if they let down their guard because some people feel inconvenienced at the airport.

For me, I am more than happy to wait a little longer in the security lines, I am more than happy to follow their rules and do without water bottles, make-up, laptops, etc.

However, I do agree with Brian above in regards to addressing profiteering and post-security access to minor necessities and I love Pat’s idea about easy access to USPS to ship home any items that you might have accidentally forgotten to remove from carry on.

What Ssabrina said.

Jon, the security procedures in place now are much more than just prohibitions on what you can bring on. The extra inspections have a much better chance of catching any sort of non-traditional weapon, not just the box cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers. Also, the interaction between the passenger and the security personnel conducting the searches provides an opportunity to catch people who appear nervous or suspicious.

I'm more sympathetic to your point about IDs. I'm not a big fan of ID checks, as I think those are far more invasive of our privacy than a bag search. ID checks mean a permament record of every place we travel, visit, whatever.

P.S. I certainly didn't take your post as a political one. In rereading, I see that my initial reply was a little testy, which it shouldn't have been. It's good to raise the issues you raise. I just disagree with you on most of them.

Sure, you can pick holes in any one of the procedures or rules. But it's the sum total of those procedures and rules which add to the protection.

Just imagine what would happen if TSA suddenly announced that it would no longer ban knives, or at least that it wouldn't search for them. For now, that's not a world I would be willing to fly in. I have some (not complete, but some) control over my risk of death while driving, or getting out of my bathtub. I don't have any control over whether psychopaths decide to hijack the airplane I'm on.

Pat thought:
> The extra inspections have a much better chance of catching any sort
> of non-traditional weapon,

I hope you'll excuse me for not going into specifics on a blog, but whole classes of weapons are allowed. The packing list I've used since 9/11 includes three weapons, one of which is actually an item that can be turned into an edge in the bathroom. Any would've sufficed to hijack planes before 9/11.

No, what prevents more 9/11s are the facts that you'd get beaten up trying (like the shoe bomber), cockpit door reinforcements, but especially the difficulties of coordinating high-impact operations under deglobalized conditions in which the democracies are paying attention.

Sabrina noted:
> However, your death in a car accident does not kill 3000 people in
> one fell swoop - on national TV in a most horrifyingly violent manner.

As I just explained, boarding restrictions do little about this.

The last attack with big results that we saw was March 11, 2004, in Spain, that resulted in a change of government. The last attack with big results via a plane was, well, 9/11.

Since then it's been small-time stuff like attacks on public transit and crowds.

Tully said:
> ... The annoyances also remind passengers of the reason for them--the
> numerous occasions of passengers "policing their own" in flight are
> relevant examples. ...

Serious displays of distrust are likelier to disincline people to be helpful. I know each time after I go through, I completely distrust TSA. I realize plenty of people don't mind so much, but plenty of people are like me, too. You get a wider positive reaction to trust.

Wouldn't we do better, say, to replace the useless two questions that we lie about automatically with a reminder or suggestion about "policing our own?"

Serious displays of distrust are likelier to disincline people to be helpful. I know each time after I go through, I completely distrust TSA.

It's not a matter of trusting TSA at all, Jon. It's a matter of things like this. And this. And this. And, of course, this.

Of course, if your annoyance with and distrust of TSA means you won't help save your own hide, there will still likely be enough people with active self-preservation instincts on board to make up for your reluctance to bestir yourself.

Jay,
Right now, it is a question of balance. Inspection of the cargo, anti-missile systems for ground based attacks, screening for private aviation, increased patrolling of critical airspace, better biometric identity databases and intelligence sharing, effective non lethal weapons on more sky marshals would all be lovely. This aviation security however, competes for funds also needed to keep Long Beach free of wmd. Right now, the Elizabeth, N.J. Port and coastal area would be a prime target for both airliner attacks as well as a future stealth strikes from land and sea based missiles or even special ops. Perhaps not tomorrow, but one can certainly see such possibilities in the near future. There is little regulation of fertilizer, poor coast guard resources and porous borders. The volume of traffic entering Elizabeth, N.J.’s vital energy production area is enormous. What is in all those 16 wheelers? The Left say we are not safer, but the lack of attacks are because terrorism is overblown. Sound contradictory to me. Take that Jon Stewart.

One idea to safeguard against kamikaze terrorists is to make serious deviation from course an automatic alarm bell triggering a protocol that if not followed by the pilot would transfer command of aircraft to automatic and land based control aided by cameras and ground based or satellite based access to on board telemetry. Soon landing and taking off could be automated in an emergency and any takeover and altered flight plan would be foiled (though passengers could still die). We can land on Mars with rovers and we can thwart terrorists. It is a question of balance and resources despite many people wishing to down play the terrorist threat. Until terrorists can make their deals with third parties and recruit other nationalities, it is harder for Islamic terrorists to strike. Intelligence experts believe that is changing, fueled by a scapegoat of the US and its "hawkish war on terrorism" which leads to inflated anger against “evil America”. Actually France is bracing for a major terrorist attack. This is fueled by AQ's needing to keep up with the Jones-Hizb"Allahs who have taken the first pole spot at the Jihadist 500. I think it is disingenuous for Carter to describe Bush's warning about Jihadists as "grossly exaggerated". Hey, Bin Laden’s his baby. Carter laughs and says terrorists can't defeat us. A dirty bomb in NYC could cost a trillion dollars in economic impact if there is a major evacuation and clean-up. A trillion again if a sophisticated and organized attack on refinery alley in NJ succeeds in igniting fire and toxic clouds over the tri-state area. One wmd at Long Beach could result in a freeze in international shipping and cost the world trillions too. Add to this the increased technical abilities of states that support terrorists with the help of Russia and China and one must be on drugs to imagine the approaching storm as just serious, but not a lethal threat on our way of life.

Already there is protest over the “pirate hype” and accusations from the Left that piracy is only a front for the US to rule the seas. I suggest we avoid the partisanship and worry less about giving piracy a bad name. Just consider the ease and disruptive effect a targeted attack on shipping would cause. Would it spur others who can’t manage a few thousand more troops to save Afghanistan to act? I doubt it. I don't mean to digress but much of the tenor here depends on the threat one thinks there is and some personal interpretation of what constitutes an unreasonable infringement on liberty and the right to speedy transit. I think there is and it will continue to be a rising threat. I regard survivability, an essential component to rapid transit. Therefore, my only concern is the efficiency and sufficiency of security on airliners, ports, national assets/resources and centers of mass populations. Bush may not be getting good grades, but after the slice Democrats would redistribute from revenues, I doubt there would much left for the promises they make. And of course disrupting them “over there” is better than disrupting them “over here”. We can argue the tactics, but to ignore the scouting report leads to defeat, home or away. I say give everyone boarding over twenty one a gun and line the interior of planes with Kevlar. Just kidding…….

Tully said:
> It's a matter of things like this (several good tales of passengers stopping airborne terrorists and troublemakers):

Lemme make this clearer: I think terrorist-stopping passenger performance would likely be even better with more displayed trust. People generally work best that way.

Maxtrue suggested:
> One idea to safeguard against kamikaze terrorists is to make serious
> deviation from course an automatic alarm bell triggering a protocol
> that if not followed by the pilot would transfer command of aircraft
> to automatic and land based control aided by cameras and ground based
> or satellite based access to on board telemetry.

That could also help with ill/unconscious pilots.

> I say give everyone boarding over twenty one a gun and line the
> interior of planes with Kevlar. Just kidding…….

Oooh, I like that one!