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20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

ocregister.com

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Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#31

Post by kiba »

antihero wrote: post #12
tyingq wrote: post #8

The interesting part to me is that the mode of attack for 9/11 can't easily be repeated. It depended on passengers assuming the plane was being hijacked, and that they would eventually be released. That stopped working on the 3rd (edit: 4th) plane. I don't see how it would work again. Passengers now default to assuming there's no path to live other than fighting back. Meaning many of the measures we still take aren't…

Any attempt at this, the terrorists will have a game plan of how to convince people on the flight to chill out, that they have no mal-intent towards the passengers, etc etc. I mean it might not work, but I reckon they'd put on a really good act and manipulate people heavily into making it feel like they are actually quite safe and it would be a poor decision to try and overrun them.

So any future attempt requires higher level of competence to pull it off, which means it's probably very unlikely that such an attack will ever happen again.

If we want to prevent hijacking of planes for terrorism purpose, then we'll need to go deeper and fix the root cause of extremism which required tons of focused effort, probably tackling seemly intractable problems. Not spend billions upon billions more on likely ineffectual screening procedure and tools to satisfy the surveillance state.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#32

Post by Cthulhu_ »

I wonder what the angle for this article is. They interview a member of the Heritage Foundation, a 'think tank' heavily funded by conservatives and the oil industry whose more controversial efforts are climate change denial, vote fraud claims and opposition of critical race theory.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#33

Post by tyingq »

antihero wrote: post #12
tyingq wrote: post #8

The interesting part to me is that the mode of attack for 9/11 can't easily be repeated. It depended on passengers assuming the plane was being hijacked, and that they would eventually be released. That stopped working on the 3rd (edit: 4th) plane. I don't see how it would work again. Passengers now default to assuming there's no path to live other than fighting back. Meaning many of the measures we still take aren't…

Any attempt at this, the terrorists will have a game plan of how to convince people on the flight to chill out, that they have no mal-intent towards the passengers, etc etc. I mean it might not work, but I reckon they'd put on a really good act and manipulate people heavily into making it feel like they are actually quite safe and it would be a poor decision to try and overrun them.

I don't see any situation where that works. The only variation I can think of that might work is enough hijackers to control the passengers, which seems unlikely outside of a lightly booked flight or small plane.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#34

Post by ansible »

BoHerfIIIJrEsq wrote: post #23
antihero wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any attempt at this, the terrorists will have a game plan of how to convince people on the flight to chill out, that they have no mal-intent towards the passengers, etc etc. I mean it might not work, but I reckon they'd put on a really good act and manipulate people heavily into making it feel like they are actually quite safe and it would be a poor decision to try and overrun them.

> how to convince people on the flight to chill out My sense is that there is nothing they could say. Hijack a plane, a bunch of men are going to attack you. That's it.

Yes, I'd be someone who jumps up to rush the hijackers. Because I'd have nothing to lose. And if all I do is soak up some damage and die, it may give others behind me a chance.

I'm not especially brave or fearless or anything. But if you back me into a corner with no way to survive, then I'll fight back like a caged, starving rat.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#35

Post by p_l »

yalogin wrote: post #30

The TSA is just a huge scam to siphon money and they need to show they are providing value. Taking shoes off is that value, so yeah it’s never going away. We could get out of Afghanistan but will never get rid of the TSA.

TSA continued existence means lower insurance premiums for airlines, iirc.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#36

Post by murgindrag »

alexfromapex wrote: post #14

I try not to fly and this is one of the major reasons I find flying so annoying. I've been through airports where they just use bomb sniffing dogs, why can't that be the norm?

Allergies.

You end up with a large segment of the population who sneezes a little bit, which is sort of annoying but sort of okay.

You end up with a small segment of the population with asthma attacks, anaphylaxis, and other life-threatening conditions.

Universal use of dogs would mean that there would be people who simple cannot travel, ever, anywhere beyond driving distance.

There's a small war between extremist dog-owners (the ones who believe dogs are people too, and sneak them into all sorts of places dogs aren't allowed as "activism") and people with severe allergies.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#37

Post by isodev »

Isn’t this one of the main aspects of “terrorism” - while tragic, the act itself is merely trigger to induce fear and impact society in more subtle (and long lasting) ways.

e.g we get screened, we fear people who look “suspicious” (even when they are just normal people) etc.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#38

Post by k__ »

tyingq wrote: post #8

The interesting part to me is that the mode of attack for 9/11 can't easily be repeated. It depended on passengers assuming the plane was being hijacked, and that they would eventually be released. That stopped working on the 3rd (edit: 4th) plane. I don't see how it would work again. Passengers now default to assuming there's no path to live other than fighting back. Meaning many of the measures we still take aren't…

To be fair, while not as big as flying a plane into the WTC, blowing one up would still be possible.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#39

Post by murgindrag »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #32

I wonder what the angle for this article is. They interview a member of the Heritage Foundation, a 'think tank' heavily funded by conservatives and the oil industry whose more controversial efforts are climate change denial, vote fraud claims and opposition of critical race theory.

Stereotype much?

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#40

Post by bedhead »

Things like this are why I'm so cynical about COVID stuff. We have an unconditional commitment to stupid reactive policies that elevate symbolism far above sensibility, and boy does it have a lot of inertia. The parallels between COVID and our post-9/11 reaction are eerie.
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