Originally Posted by
sparksals
Yes, but flying domestically in the US is supposedly a piece of cake right now when you would think security would be tightened following Xmas Day. After all, the 9/11 terrorists were all on domestic flights.
They clamped down on all international flights into the US because the underwear bomber was on an international flight into the US. The truth is that this applied to ALL international flights into the US, not just the ones from Canada. You're right, of course, that a
logical reaction would have included domestic flights, but (with all due respect to your husband), it wasn't a logical reaction, it was a kneejerk reaction. And it was a reaction specifically to the underwear bomber of Christmas 2009, not a kneejerk reaction to 9/11.
My guess is that someone at TSA thought briefly about applying the restrictions to domestic US flights, weighed it against the huge public-relations disaster that would ensue, and decided against it.
Originally Posted by
sparksals
As I stated earlier, it was my husband's opinion. He works for Dept of Homeland Security. What is important is the quick reaction and that in his experience, he surmised there is a reason for it. Not everything is publicized. It's not that Canada is a threat, because we aren't. What he thought is there were possibly links between Christmas Day Terrorist and someone in Canada, not the country itself.
Kneejerk reactions are always quick. If you go
here (original rules) and
here (revised rules) , you'll see that this was a TSA response to the underwear bomber that applied to EVERY flight into the US, not just to Canada, starting on Christmas day, so there's no deep dark conspiracy about Canada or about the speed of the response.
Originally Posted by
sparksals
Think about it, though. They did have intelligence and he thinks that some of it pointed to having an accomplice or link in Canada. If the public is not well aware, DHS certainly is that Detroit is viewed as an easy access point to Canada and vice versa.
I did think about it. Quite a lot. The fact that ALL countries had to implement these policies is hard to reconcile with "an accomplice or link in Canada." While DHS had "intelligence", it came from the underwear bomber's father and they failed to act on it. You are assuming that Canada is the only country involved, which is just not true, and then extrapolating a reason involving a Canadian link.
All flights out of Canada have these restrictions. All flights out of the UK, Germany, Australia, and EVERY OTHER COUNTRY also had these restrictions. The only differences are that a lot of Canadian international flights go to the US, whereas only a smaller proportion of UK, German, Australian, etc, flights go to the US, so Canadian airports had to deal with extra screening for a much higher proportion of passengers. And other countries have since backed off on the 100% secondary screening, which Canada hasn't, because of their national policy.