Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

xs-sniper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 170 posts

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#121

Post by ctdonath »

nhstanley wrote: post #101
Canada wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't fly if I don't have to. The cost of flights has nothing to do with it. The way things are now, I feel threatened in an airport. Especially a US airport, though Canadian ones aren't much better. I feel a heightened possibility that my valuables be stolen from me. That it's done under the color of law makes it even worse than being in a rough neighborhood. Some may say this is unreasonable, but I kn…

Do you know they were stolen from by the TSA, or by baggage handlers? Getting rid of the TSA wouldn't solve the latter problem.

As a matter of TSA policy. They're directed & empowered to take things which are harmless (save for absurdly extraordinary efforts with minute operational payoff), under the threat of "give this up or lose your paid ticket".

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#122

Post by ctdonath »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #98
glenra wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do suggest we scrap it all and go back to the 1950s. Let people walk right out to the gate to meet arrivals. Let people run through the airport right to the gate without having to stand in a line at all. Even the level of security we had before 9/11 was misguided and caused more deaths than it saved. Here's all we should do: leave security policy up to the airlines themselves. Then there won't be the sort of single…

> I do suggest we scrap it all and go back to the 1950s. Let people walk right out to the gate to meet arrivals. You could do this in the 90s. It still boggles my mind that someone thought it should be stamped out.

Methinks he was referring to not what we think of now as the "gate" (the extended building reaching to the plane), but in fact walking right out on the tarmac.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#123

Post by ctdonath »

scintill76 wrote: post #18
gsnedders wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if someone just drove a bomb into an airport. Which is exactly what the 2007 attack on Glasgow airport was.[1] All major airports in the UK now have limited access to the front of the terminal building (typically, buses and taxis only). Most now have a drop-off zone in the car park. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Glasgow_International_Air...

Does moving the "attack zone" make any sense? What if someone bombs the car park -- will the airport stop allowing personal cars into it? I know I'm not the first to say this sort of thing, and maybe it's cliche, but really, what is there to protect at the front of the terminal, that is not just as vulnerable now in the car park? (Edit: I recognize the poster I'm responding to hasn't necessarily endorsed the authorit…

Shortly after 9/11, vehicles entering the airport car park were searched. Methinks it ended as formally extending the "security zone" to there proved untenable.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#124

Post by ctdonath »

sib wrote: post #70
chimeracoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that will not happen, because the people who enable and profit from these checkpoints aren't subjected to them at all. Don't worry - you can pay ~$100 to have the privilege of being "randomly" selected for "reduced" screening (ie, pre-9/11, with a metal detector). Of course, this is certainly not random at all. I don't have a random sample, but based on what I can see, it's very unlikely that they actually sele…

I applied to - and was granted - the TSA Precheck clearance. Let's face it; it's $100 for five years. And the interview took well under an hour including waiting time. Works out to be an almost negligible increase in cost compared to the cost of the travel it covers. The fingerprinting is a different issue.

Can that be used to avoid the "pat-down" for those who cannot go thru the metal detector for medical reasons (metallic implants)?

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#125

Post by corford »

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc.

As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so unbelievably overblown it doesn't warrant even thinking about when it comes to evaluating personal safety. I mean, how can it not be, given how easy it would be for a terrorist to just stroll in to an airport departures hall with a jacket bomb and detonate himself yet the closest we've seen to this is one lunatic failing to ignite some powder in his shoes and another idiot burning his crotch.

I think the real answer is that you can probably count the number of truly dangerous terrorists in the world on two hands. The rest of the current crop are nothing more than brainwashed amateurs who spend their time wreaking havoc and misery in isolated parts of the world that no normal person would ever have occasion to set foot in. This article from the FT makes a similar point: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ee2a8412-2923-11e4-9d5d-00144...

If I was a black man in the US I'd be much more afraid of looking at a cop the wrong way than being caught up in a terrorist outrage.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#126

Post by basseq »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118
cushychicken wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBP does not ALWAYS search outbound people, but retains the right to do so (at least in the US).

Where would they do it? At boarding? Most US airports have no wall between domestic and international flights.

I have seen them set up in the jetway after you show your ticket to the airline attendant.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#127

Post by mcdougle »

msandford wrote: post #61
nfoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with you more before this post. Let's consider the advantages of centralization: (1) A single agency can have within its mandate, expertise, and budget the security apparatus, which requires full-stack authority: airport design and administration, customs officials, airlines, planes, luggage, etc. The airlines can focus on the task they actually want to perform and are qualified to perform, whereas the one a…

> It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I'm not sure that I agree. Prior to metal detectors and airport security here in the US plenty of guns were carried on planes and very few bad outcomes were the result. I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. I wish that instead of just stating this as a fact that you…

A pretty common argument around the pro-gun community is that removing guns from a specific area (schools, movie theaters, airlines) makes those places a prime target for mass shootings/terrorism -- the attacker knows that the area is gun-free and that, if he can get his own weapons into the area, he can't be (easily) challenged.

I'm not entirely sure if this is true or not, but it seems accurate -- have there been mass shootings in areas before they declared "gun-free zones?" Anyways, my point wasn't to argue for or against this, just that it seemed relevant to your comment -- you say that there were no issues when we used to let people just walk on planes with their guns, but once we started banning them, we started having things like 9/11.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#128

Post by granos »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #117
granos wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do get searched by TSA if you are coming from outside the country. In recent years I've flown in from Mexico, Spain, India and the Dominican Republic. For each flight, the boarding gate was blocked from general access and the only way to get in was to go through a TSA search. They only had metal detectors, but my bags were still searched. Had I been carrying a large sum of cash (or anything else that needs to be…

That is not the TSA doing the checks though. In Beijing, there is gate screening just as you described, but it is done by locals who don't speak English, and they definitely aren't looking for cash.

All of the people who screened my flights in these situations were wearing TSA uniforms.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#129

Post by averill »

blantonl wrote: post #25

"Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security" - This article's title. Wow. Almost all airport security is a theater... The TSA are simply the actors...

Pulling the curtain on "ticketed passengers only" as the crown jewel of this airport security theatre. Or as I call it the "TSA smoke and miroros/window dressing security" show.

There is one security policy, which everyone should be aware of for the farce it is and represents. It is the taking away of YOUR freedom of movement at your airport. This useless waste of time and manpower of only allowing persons with tickets past the security screening areas, known as "ticketed passengers only". Don't be fooled, "ticketed passengers only" is NOT a security measure. The following is only a partial list as to why this is a waste of time. I know, I worked as a supervisor at a security checkpoint for five years, and for the last 10 years have worked for a major airline.

There's the question of how our nations deal with the critical question of preserving both a reasonable measure of safety with individual rights in general. Striking a balance between feeling safe as opposed to being safe, and being free at the same time, is the most tenuous security concern of all. Averill Hecht Cheltenham, Pa. All comments are welcome. adhecht@comcast.net Please speak-up,

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#130

Post by clarkmoody »

corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

I completely agree with your first two paragraphs, but you lost me on the second half of your comment.

The TSA's response to attempted attacks has been to clamp down on the rest of us after the fact: shoes off, no liquids. This tells us that the intelligence gathering effort was not reflected in the airport security measures. They lock down those attack vectors to prevent "me too" attacks, but there haven't been any. Yet, the security gymnastics routine has not gotten lighter for the average traveler.

Where I disagree:

> no normal person would ever have occasion to set foot in

You just dismissed a chunk of humanity as non-"normal" along with their homeland. Yes, Westerners have rare occasion to visit some of the places where terrorists breed and train. But the world contains more than Westerners, doesn't it?

> If I was a black man in the US I'd be much more afraid of looking at a cop the wrong way than being caught up in a terrorist outrage.

You are making the same mistake we're talking about with airport security: you are blowing a few highly-publicized events way out of proportion.

Here[1] is some 2011 data from the FBI highlighting homicide victim/offender race & sex. Compare that to this report[2] from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing arrest-related deaths from 2003-2009. (I know different years, etc, sorry) From that data, it looks like blacks kill way more blacks (and whites kill more whites) than cops killing either race.

[1]: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/c...

[2]: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ard0309st.pdf

Post reply on HN