Newsstand - Ari Bornstein Goes To Jail (Air Marshals Are Idiots)

http://www.msnbc.com/local/wnbc/a1595716.asp?vts=42920030304

Man Charged With Carrying Knife On Newark-Bound Flight


NEWARK, N.J., 8:04 p.m. EDT April 28, 2003 - Federal officials are investigating a disturbing security breach aboard a Continental Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Newark on Saturday.



The trouble on flight 91 started after the jumbo jet was flying more than 10 hours and was less than one hour from Newark. A flight attendant observed a passenger handling a knife.
That passenger was requested to surrender the knife. And, through a series of events that included alerting the federal air marshals, the passenger was arrested.

Ari Bronstein, 54, is charged with carrying a prohibited weapon aboard a flight.

Bronstein is a duel U.S.-Israeli citizen and told investigators he was just using his two-and-half inch pocket knife to slice a pear.

Bronstein has no criminal record but he could face up to ten years in prison.

He was released on $50,000 dollars bond.

No comment from Continental Airlines.

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I'm about to snap. What kind of world do we live in where a pear knife is a "disturbing" breach of secutity and warrants 10 years in prison???

[This message has been edited by Psychocadet (edited 04-29-2003).]

It just goes to show what a nation of idiotic jackasses we have become. Up yours, James Loy.

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

The problem is not just James Loy. The problem is George Bush and all the Democons and Republicrats in both Houses of Congress who voted for of this.

The knife got through Israeli security??????

I believe the Isreali security forces are trying to identify hijackers, not sharp pointy objects.

I am surprised the authorities didn't include charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to harm a pear.

Welcome to the new America, folks.

To answer the valid point on Israeli security and the knife, they place more emphasis on assesing the risk of the person, not assessing the risk of which pointy objects are in their luggage.

A pointy object is only a threatening weapon in the hands of someone who has the intent to use it as such, which makes the act of taking old Grandma Jones' nailclipper away, a demonstration of how absolutely ridiculous our security procedures have become...when in reality they are nothing but smoke and mirrors, and do nothing to provide real security.

I cant wait to see how this plays out in arraignment court.

Last year a fellow slipped a handgun past the famed Israeli airport security on a flight to New York.

They tend to concentrate on the non Jewish passengers, so if you were a Jew you would have a better chance of smuggling something thru.

The Israeli model of security is totally different than the US model and wouldn't work here. (Start with the fact that they have 1 international airport so they are able to staff it with real intelligence people.)

But, as the previous posts mention, another reason it works (I suspect - this is opinion) is because they concentrate their security efforts on people who they think are a risk. Now, if you were writing a mission statement for security, and you wrote "We will spend time and money investigating people who we professionally believe are the biggest risks" would that be controversial?

Well, as anyone reading this board knows, that is not only controversial, but generally not the way things are done in the US with airline security. We don't allow real security professionals to evaluate the risk - we filter those ideas through legislators and public opinion.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sbrower:
Well, as anyone reading this board knows, that is not only controversial, but generally not the way things are done in the US with airline security. We don't allow real security professionals to evaluate the risk - we filter those ideas through legislators and public opinion. </font>

Good! I don't want some "security official" writing policy. I want the legislators, via public opinion, to write policy.

Having been involved in the process from time to time, I am concerned whenever legislators write policy. But, as I originally stated, that's one of the many reasons why we can't use the Israeli security model.

Everybody talks about how their system works. Lets put it in perspective.

They have one airport. They have had situations.

The US has way more airports and they are used like bus stations (or they once were). With the exception on one day when we ALLOWED people to take over airplanes, even our OLD system worked.

Statisticly (sp?) the US system has worked very well. And it has NOTHING to do with the 46000 people the TSA has hired.