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

Post by woofie11 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #150

murgindrag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

I have never heard of any life-threatening allergic reaction to any drug or bomb sniffing dog. Has that actually happened? If so...how, when, and where?

Post by lm28469 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

baktubi wrote: post #45

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…

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…

Post by anoonmoose » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

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.

Post by Scoundreller » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

jh0486 wrote: post #182

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…

Putting the fate of our airline safety to the collective bravery of humanity seems like a bad idea to me. If I'm getting on a plane, I have no problems taking my shoes off and being scanned to have a better chance of a bad scenario not happening.

Post by gruturo » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

stoolpigeon wrote: post #18

The US is the only place I think I've had to remove shoes for flight security in years. But in Europe taking off a belt is often required while in the US it is not. In Budapest they stopped having us remove laptops from bags a bit ago. My biggest challenge over the years was remembering what to do in each place as the security people at the airports had a tendency to get upset if you didn't do it their preferred way.