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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?

#21
post #5

I thought the removal of shoes was a response to the Shoe Bomber plot, not 9/11? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid

It wasn't related to the Shoe Bomber plot, there was planning around something larger scale.

To be honest I don't feel comfortable even linking to this stuff but it's Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot

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

#22
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 that paralyzed an entire metro region for nearly a month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks

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

#23
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.

> 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.

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

#24
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…

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.

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

#26
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 makes no sense anyways.

If it's alleged el qaeda, and their "billions of dollars in funding" they would've just raised an army, and razed the place.

If someone needs on a principle to have the plane shot out of the sky, there are way dumber, and more sure ways to do that than trying to get a bomber on board.

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

#27
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.

And yet what you’re describing has never happened to the best of my knowledge (at least in the west).

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

#28
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.

How would they convince pilots to open the door to let them hijack plane?

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

#29
post #3
post #2

I already don’t. Turns out the solution is to give up some privacy and pay some money.

This is one reason why it will be hard to get rid of the silly requirement to take shoes off. DHS has a financial interest in keeping the theater going.

Not just financial interest, but also getting a free pass to make people do what authorities want without having to convince them, and to crack down on anyone they don't like for any reason.

Rules like this that don't really have a point and are applied unevenly (like drug laws, many traffic laws, public intoxication...) are just a lazy way to make sure authorities can make anyone or any group they want "fall in line" while not actually preventing favored individuals or groups from doing what they want. It's the most unfair and unequal kind of regulation, and in general people cant6get enough of it, precisely because they know it will be used mostly against groups they don't like, but they dont have to explicitly identify those groups or otherwise acknowledge their prejudice.

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