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

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

#111

Post by fma »

noetic_techy wrote: post #47

I'll take it a step further. We need a total paradigm redesign of airports. Imagine and airport designed to the point where you can literally drive up (or be dropped by an autonomous vehicle) 10 minutes before your flight, Throw your luggage onto a belt where a robot auto tags it based on your a facial recognition algorithm, and walk through an unobtrusive security point that's totally AI driven, and walk direct to y…

This would really only apply for fights where I'm checking in luggage...international flights, for example.

I wouldn't mind a feature where I can drop off my luggage somewhere near my house the day before my flight and it gets tagged, bulked transferred and inspected at the airport.

This would allow me to straight to the gate and not need to check in large luggage or fumble with luggage while rushing for a flight.

This also forces me to pack early and now the night of the flight and be sleep deprived.

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

#112

Post by anaganisk »

GDC7 wrote: post #60

And of course everybody ignores trains, they don't even look at you...like the 300 souls aboard a train don't matter. Also the 10000+ souls at the departing and arrival train station also don't matter. Not to mention the 4000 souls aboard cruise ships. It ain't about safety from ill-intentioned people...it's about protecting the POTUS from having to give the order to open fire on an hijacked civilian plane. That's th…

Duh, all u have to do is increase the speed of the train, and derail of the dead end. /s

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

#113

Post by Godel_unicode »

Bud wrote: post #87
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…

It also depended on unlocked cockpit doors, which are no longer a thing. The shoe bomber FAILED because it's pretty fucking obvious if someone is trying to light a shoe on fire. We don't need the security theater of taking our shoes off. It needs to stop.

Until that person goes into the bathroom...?

This kind of argument is honestly a big part of why the theater is still in place. People keep making poorly thought through arguments about why we don't need it. Those arguments are inevitably shot down, and everyone remembers that rather than thinking about it for themselves.

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

#114

Post by ceejayoz »

arkh wrote: post #103
wycy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real threat is lone wolf random attacks on the general public like the DC sniper. That's a very low-cost high-impact attack that paralyzed an entire metro region for nearly a month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks Considering how many crazy, extremely radicalized people are out there, I'm surprised attacks like this aren't much more common.

> Considering how many crazy, extremely radicalized people are out there, I'm surprised attacks like this aren't much more common. Maybe because your base assumption is wrong: there are not many of them.

Go to a local school board meeting on masks and be disabused of this notion fairly quickly.

edit: Votes on this one have been a wild ride.

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

#115

Post by benlumen »

bambax wrote: post #42
adriancr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cockpits are now locked by default, so there's no terrorist getting in there anymore, they can threaten anything, all it would do is divert to closest landing spot.

Yes, and this is why crazy pilots suffering from depression can bury their planes in the ground and nobody can do anything about it. 200 people lost their life in the crash of Germanwings 9525 on March 24, 2015, but this is not classified as a terrorist attack so it doesn't really count for anything. However, it is the direct consequence of the so-called security procedures implemented the world over; those 200 peopl…

I don't remember the details, but remember reading that attack wouldn't have worked under US aviation rules, that it took advantage of some EU protocol oversight which was subsequently rectified. Don't quote me on it though.

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

#117

Post by cloche »

trident5000 wrote: post #70
baktubi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the nation should make military training/civil service mandatory. The reality is that random attacks will happen in random places and everyone needs to be equipped to handle accordingly. Basic combat training and paramedic abilities, disaster recovery and such associated procedures. This would create a tighter bond between citizens and improve communities ability to look after one-another. If everyone handles…

Im in favor of people concealed carrying for this exact reason...distributed security works better than slow centralized security and a vulnerable public. Obviously this doesnt work for a plane though. Fully expect to get downvoted for this on HN...because its HN.

In a suddenly chaotic situation how does the distributed security communicate and know they're on the same side and not treat each other as the enemy?

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

#118

Post by atatatat »

marcosdumay wrote: post #86
the_snooze wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It's not a 9/11-style attack we need to be worried about. No one will let a plane get commandeered ever again. The 9/11 terrorists took advantage of the "comply with the hijackers" policy in place at the time. That opportunity ended the moment the second plane hit the towers. The real threat is lone wolf random attacks on the general public like the DC sniper. That's a very low-cost high-impact attack tha…

The annoying thing is that, ok there are easier targets elsewhere, but if for some reason one of those lone wolfs decide to attack planes in particular the long lines created by those useless security measures are the obvious target.

Long lines for you, not for the policymakers!

Keep voting.

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

#119

Post by germinalphrase »

jkestner wrote: post #83
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…

9/11 was such a singular event for Americans that future terrorists don’t have to kill people to be successful, if the goal is to create enmity and get the US to waste billions of dollars. Just an occasional scare will set us off again.

Billions? We’ve been spending billions per month for twenty years.

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

#120

Post by dmarcos »

bedhead wrote: post #40

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.

It’s not cynical when looking at the incentives. Once a rule is in place for “safety” reasons the political cost to remove is really high (what if something bad happens?). Politicians won’t touch it. That’s why I think exceptional measures should expire automatically (on a date or when a hard condition is met)
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