Originally Posted by
LessO2
Baloney. Manpower would be needed. A LOT more, plus they would have to be skilled in a whole different way than what the TSA does right now.
Take away the profiling angle for a moment, look at the numbers. 11 million transited Ben Gurion in 2009. TSA says two million pass through checkpoints per DAY. That's 730 million annually.
How would the interviews be accomplished, and at what length? How do you get the manpower? Where would you be able to conduct those interviews?
I'm frightened and appalled at how some TSAers behave on this board, and they are the "last line of defense" as DHS/TSA folks like to say in front of microphones. They severely question my faith in them finding a true threat to aviation as the setup is right now, let alone the ability to properly execute Israeli-style security.
I agree with you that the TSA, as it is currently set up, is incapable of doing this. And I am not advocating that we could immediately implement such a system.
I agree that there is a different scale involved as well. But we need to consider how many people are employed by the TSA and how much money is being spent on security. We need to see the cost per passenger. If we handle 60 or 70 times the people at 200 times the cost, we are not getting much for our money.
The one thing I wanted to bring up is that the Israeli system in not based on any sort of profiling. It is based on observing and monitoring behavior of passengers.
We need a well designed system, executed by trained professionals. Unfortunately, IMHO, we do not have one now.