Airport checking and frisking kids and babies

[Eagledad]

I'm sure there are some passengers that make us all look bad, but I've not seen it. The problem passengers I've seen are the ones who have not traveled before and don't know the restrictions or prceedures. The was the very nicely dressed southern woman with enough Jewry to anchor a small ship. She also didn't understand the ID and boarding ticket process. Then there was the whole family that never travel on an airplane trying to bring a small suitcase of fruit drinks through security. The father who finally did read the restrictions couldn't save grandma and grandpa a head of him, but manage to whisper something to a TSA agent and was escorted to a closed room. That family had taken the attention of 6 or 8 TSA agents for about 30 minutes, but I remember they were patient and courteous the whole time.

 

I think most travelers dread the security process enough that they don't try rock the boat and just want to get though it. As a pilot and aeronautical engineer, I used to never get tired of flying. That changed with 9-11. I still try to get a window seat near the wing however.

 

I am a DOT employee and it's pretty much agreed that we are not treated well by the TSA. So we are instructed to hide our IDs in our bags. But sometimes a DOT employee has to show there ID and generally a new story is created.

 

I'm glad members of the DOD are treated well.

 

I can say that general demeanor of TSA agents is local to the airport. Some airports are better than others. Kind of like boy scout troops, the demeanor of the scouts is usually a reflection of the SM.

 

Barry

[acco40]

Have quite a few post 9/11 flights under my belt - business, family, Scouts, etc.

 

Worst treatment by security, by far, was Jambo 2005. What does a Scoutmaster tell a 13 year old scout who asks him innocently, "Mr. Scoutmaster, why do they think we would try to kill the president?"

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Its a watershead moment Acco, at that point its time to take a deep breath and tell the scout that everyone is not always who they seem to be.

 

Yes, you just may have ended the innocence of childhood, but a scout is brave

[CalicoPenn]

""..paranoia of people like scoutfish is that it causes an unnecessary panic among the people."

 

Except one thing: It happens all the time. You ever read a story about a guy who runs into the airport and everybody sees the big bomb wrapped around his chest? Nope, you sure don't!""

 

 

So I had to put that "it happens all the time" to the test and see if there truly was anything to justify the conversion of an entire private industry to a government program, other than the media-induced fear and paranoia of a small percentage of our population (and I admit I'm basing the percentage on anecdotal evidence and not polling data - I have a serious problem with the polls taken on this subject since there are no polls taken to compare general survey polls of the entire population, which will include people who have never flown in their life, with those that fly perhaps one time per year (or 5), with those that fly all the time. This is one of those cases where the folks that fly all the time should have a greater say that Cousin Bill who lives in grandmas basement and has never even seen an airport, much less been in one.

 

I looked at hijackings in the US. The greatest number of hijackings in the US occurred during the 1960's and 1970's. Makes sense since the first use of metal detectors in airports was in 1974. Metal detectors were installed, run by private contractors under contract with the airlines, and hijackings went down.

 

I could find only 2 recorded instances of hijackings of planes taking off from US airports in the 1980's, both going to Cuba, despite there being far more passenger trips in the 80's than in the 70's and 60's. Seems that private security was working.

 

In the 1990's, I found one instance - and it wasn't a passenger plane, it was a Fed-Ex cargo plane and was hijacked by a former disgruntled employee.

 

The last hijacking of planes that took off from the US was in 2001 - and we all know the date. For over 20 years, private security screening contracted by the airlines was more than sufficient to keep our airspaces safe. There is absolutely no reason to believe that it still couldn't keep us safe without these ridiculously stupid rules and regulations.

 

I just don't see the "all the time" in any of this. We never read stories about people running into airports with bombs strapped to their chests in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's either.

 

"As a wise man once said, just because you're paranoid, doesn't meant they aren't really out to get you."

 

To paraphrase another wise man, "Sometimes paranoia is just paranoia."

 

[JoeBob]

Calico - I agree with you.

 

I think that ten different private companies using ten different intelligent approaches to security would keep us a lot safer in a much saner way.

 

TSA should be a 50 person organization that runs periodic tests and checks on the private companies screening passengers. Not the $8.1 billion haven for unionized thugs that it has become. (Broad-brush criticism accepted.)

[NJCubScouter]

Eagledad says:

 

The was the very nicely dressed southern woman with enough Jewry to anchor a small ship.

 

Barry, I am going to assume that you posted that using a device that has what I call "aggressive spellcheck" such as an iPad, you tried to type "jewelry" but maybe left out one of the middle letters, and it "helpfully" changed it for you to the closest word it had in its tiny dictionary. It even capitalized the "J" for you. And you didn't even notice. I have had this happen as well, sometimes with startling results. I once wrote an email and typoed a word starting with "r", probably "report," and my iPad changed it to "rapist." True story. I wrote the whole rest of the email and just before hitting send, happened to scan what I had already written, and noticed it. I'm glad I did!

 

Of course, you may have meant that the southern woman had several of "my people" with her on the plane.

[Eagledad]

>>Of course, you may have meant that the southern woman had several of "my people" with her on the plane.

[NJCubScouter]

Barry, according to the online dictionaries I checked, it basically means "the Jewish people collectively." I think it would somewhat correspond to the word "Christendom" although the latter probably has both a geographic and "people" aspect to it, while the former is basically just "people."

[packsaddle]

OK, so how many Jewry does it take to anchor a ship?

[Scoutfish]

Jewry is a southern word designating decoration of the body.

 

Some jewry is bodacious, some is is downright purty lookin, and some are so hi falutin that you might just have to slap your granma right aside the head!

 

But some is just so ugly, you wouldn't let a dead opossum wear it...bless his heart!

 

[Scoutfish]

Back to the paranoia thing:

 

Prevention is a great thing! The fact that a hijacking- which did happen occasionally here, and does still continuously happen elsewhere - hasn't happened in a while is a testament to that preventative measure.

 

Same as having police step up patrols of certain high crime areas. While it does not stop all crime, it deters alot. But to say police are no longer needed because nobody has broken into a building lately is flawed logic. AS SOON AS TRHE POLICE GO AWAY..THE BREAKINS START BACK UP.

 

As soon as screeners are given the pink slip, things will happen again.

 

Luckily, most are caught before boarding: The fella with the shank in his shoe, the fella with the bomb in his shoe.

 

Then you have the kids again, Juyst read a story today - as a matter of fact - about a tenn who was used to carry a bomb. The teen wasn't even aware of it.

 

But to add to that..imagine if I spent years telling my son that God wanted us to fight the evil tyranbts who are running our country into the ground. Suppose I tell him that anybody using airplkane are evil people doing the devils work.

 

I could be any nutjob who has a religious issue, or a anti government militia type who runs a compound of para militray anti government freedom soldiers who are ready for the next Oklahoma type incident. Maybe I am thinking of starting at an airport wich flys a bunch of government employees. No not militray, just your IRS, Dept of Interior, CDC, etc...

 

Maybe I spend the majority of my son's life spewing all kinds of tin hat logic.

 

And he eats it all up! He may not see anything wrong about blowing upm a plane or airport. He may see it as a duty to his beliefe.

 

You never really know what kids soak up from mom and dad.

 

Or whe your Timmothy McVeighs ( sp?) or Unabombers decide to go for a bigger score.

 

And don't forget the American Extreme Muslim fanatics who sided with the Taliban and AlQueda after 9-11.

 

THoser are the guys we are looking to PREVENt from doing stuff.

 

What is that old saying: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"?

 

But I do agree that there could be some overhauling of policy, procedures and hiring practices that could be put into place.

[JoeBob]

I'm familiar with the term "Fish Jew'ry", used to describe all the shiny baubles with hooks that I carry around in my tackle box. Designed to catch a fisherman, but scary to a fish...

[Beavah]

What is that old saying: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"?

 

Yah, but what we have is about a hundred thousand tons of prevention, eh?

 

Bin Laden was smart, I have to give him that. Put one nitwit on a plane with a bomb in his shoe that he doesn't even know how to set off and yeh get Americans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and subject 95 year old cancer patients to strip searches. That's a heck of an investment, eh? Few ounces of explosive without detonator, $50. Plane ticket, $500. Ability to make the "Home of the Brave" run around in abject terror for an entire decade? Priceless.

 

Yeh can imagine "any nutjob who has a religious issue, or a anti government militia type" doin' all kinds of things. Blowing up schools, buying a gasoline truck and driving around neighborhoods at night settin' fire to hundreds of homes, tossin' grenades around a public swimming pool on a hot 4th of July. That's what's great about imagination, eh? It can dream up all kinds of things. So pretty soon we have strip searches of kids at every school door, every neighborhood gated with armed guards and truck barriers, and a dozen armed SWAT officers stationed at every public pool "inspecting" teenage girls' chests for grenades.

 

Oooh! Oooh! The fact that nothin' has happened since we started strip searching kindergarteners at the school every morning is PROOF that the security is working! Never mind that nothing much happened before that security was put in place either.

 

Beavah

 

[CalicoPenn]

JoeBob,

 

I was about to take issue with your characterization of TSA employees as "union thugs" but have learned that TSA employees have gotten limited rights of collective bargaining and have just chosen their first union to represent them so it appears that the TSA employees have been "union thugs" for a bit less than a week now.

 

I'm surprised that you didn't use the term "jack-booted union thugs".

 

As a side, it used to be that when folks got something others didn't, we would fight to make sure everyone got it. For instance, if union members got 2 weeks of vacation and non-members got 1 week of vacation, we would fight to get non-union members 2 weeks of vacation.

 

Now, we try to take things away from others. Today, if union members got 2 weeks of vacation and non-union members got 1 week of vacation, we would be insisting that union members give up a week of vacation.

 

We see it all the time now with the pension wars. Instead of demanding that we get pensions too, we're demanding that government take away union workers pensions.

 

What a sad commentary on our collective intelligence. So many people have surrendered their own interests for the interests of corporate America that it's become the socially accepted norm to do so.

[jrush]

I don't get the ire, either.

 

If you don't want yourself or your family frisked, don't fly commercial. Period. Take the bus. Or the train. Or drive. Or walk. Bike. Horseback. Job requires you to fly? Get a new job. Heck, get your pilot license and fly yourself. But noooo, people are too lazy for any option except the most convenient, and then they are sorry enough to complain about the manner in which that option is provided.

 

I'd just as soon hear someone on welfare complain about the size of their plasma TV.