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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?

#161

Post by mywittyname »

Bud wrote: post #97
iso1210 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TK1476 in 2006. Flying from an EU country to Turkey on a major airline. "Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato reported that the hijacker slipped into the cockpit with a package which could have been a bomb when flight attendants opened the cockpit door, and the pilots acted according to the international rules in the matter and did what the hijacker wanted."

Great, so you found 1 case in the last 20 years where some idiot opened the cockpit door. Congratulations. This changes nothing.

Point is more that this system isn't as secure in practice as it is could be. Humans are the weak link here.

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

#162

Post by ww_wpg »

COGlory wrote: post #105
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.

Perhaps people are less truly radicalized, and substantially more negotiable, than we've been lead to believe. It certainly benefits both the media and politicians to sell us a story that there are an extreme number of radicalized people out there. I've certainly never met any neo-Nazis. Not to say they don't exist, but if they are truly as common as I've been told, I think I'd have encountered some.

How many people do you encounter? In which parts of the country? How much do you know about their political views? How do you know whether someone is a Nazi if they don't announce it?

You could have met plenty and not known it. Or your sample size of acquaintances doesn't include people who frequent 4chan.

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

#163

Post by davemtl »

MattGaiser wrote: post #10
reidjs wrote: post #6

Get TSA precheck

Cheapest way is with a Nexus card I believe. Great program.

I have Nexus, since getting it no more need to take my shoes off or take my laptop/tablet out of my carry-on. You practically get waved through security. Also, at the border in Canada & US, you effectively skip the line and use the Nexus machines allowing you faster entry into the country.

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

#164

Post by bedhead »

aww_dang wrote: post #122
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.

I agree the parallels are clear. Both narratives rely on fear and mass hysteria. Putting aside the hot potato of 9/11, we can hopefully discuss the issue of Iraqi WMDs in a less inflammatory way. The mainstream presses never had a reckoning for their role in issuing false rationales for the war in Iraq. Those who believed the propaganda shouted down dissent as "conspiracy nuttery" and anti-Americanism. After the fact…

One of the more interesting parallels I see is how injecting morality into the matter poisoned everything and ensured terrible policy decisions. How many people and politicians got effectively bullied into going along with the idiotic Iraq war because people on the right accused them of not caring about 9/11 victims?

9/11 victims, granny-killer, same side of a different coin.

Hysteria, paranoia, morality, a plan to keep people "safe" - beware of this dangerous pattern.

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

#165

Post by voxl »

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.

You act as if Afghanistan and Iraq are very happy to have been invaded and considered it a mission-accomplished. If the objective of terror is enrage your adversary then by all means, but the U.S. will only be more and more heartless and effective at those attacks continue.

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

#166

Post by baktubi »

jkestner wrote: post #106
pharmakom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldnt that also equip many attackers with better skills?

Already there. The Oklahoma City bombing is only the most notable, but domestic terrorists coming from the military is growing. https://www.csis.org/analysis/military-police-and-rise-terro...

“ Most investigations apparently involved veterans, some of whom had unfavorable discharge records.3”

Honestly, you’re going to have bad apples no matter what. But what about the rest of the citizens? How can they respond to disaster scenarios without training?

Domestic terrorism is the same thing as abroad terrorism, except one uses patriotism as an ideology, the other uses religion.

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

#167

Post by oarsinsync »

the_snooze wrote: post #22
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…

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 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.

Or school shootings. That seem to result in no change except additional loss of innocent lives.

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

#168

Post by refurb »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #50
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.

It's all incompetent theatre. I remember around 2006 or 2007 snaking through a terribly managed security line in ATL taking off my shoes, doing all the questions and scanning and pat downs and irradiation and getting through and then some random person shouted "did someone drop their passport?" and realizing it was mine and my passport had fallen out of my bag. So I call back "yep, I did" and it gets handed to me by…

Haha… nope.

I had a friend bring 1L containers of liquid through security in Europe and no one said a word. The limit was 100mL. Nobody was looking at the scanner.

Don’t fool yourself.

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

#169

Post by mgoetzke »

moreira wrote: post #84
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…

For the United States specifically, another good argument for this training to be in place is the importance given to the second amendment, the rationale of which is to have “a well regulated militia”. One would assume that everyone being well trained is part of that.

Isn't the national guard serving that role ? Normal citizens with regular training under well controlled regulations.

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

#170

Post by [deleted] »

wycy wrote: post #89
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 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.

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