<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Spiff:
I believe it is a breach of my Constitutional Rights but the Supreme Court will likely disagree with me, should the case ever be brought before them. I also think it's a disgusting violation of my person and belongings without probable cause.
I could care less if people bring knives on board. Or bats. Or box cutters. Or pool cues. I trust the x-ray machines and the magnetometers to keep out the real weapons, namely guns and bombs.
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I figure a knife is a weapon and after 911 I'm sure boxcutters are considered so in the US. Football hooligans over here have used them for years as weapons.
Red eye, dark cabin, terrorist/madman with a knife, people asleep. Rather you than me, doesn't take long to slit a few throats.
Don't know about in the US but in the UK security ( including random searches ) are a way of deterring an attempt in the first instance not just stopping one that's planned.
What about my earlier post Spiff ? About being photographed at security and then the picture being viewed at the gate. Also my thoughts that the picture is compared with known suspects on a central database, Would that be a breach of rights ?
One more thing while I'm here < G >. In the case of people that don't agree with the security as it is, whether it's unconstitutional or they just don't like it what would you put in its place ?
Oh and bear this in mind, 10% of the Female prison population in the UK consists of Jamaican drug smugglers. They are paid/threatened/ their families threatened until they agree to smuggle into the UK. They are also told that the UK authorities will just deport them back to Jamaica ( wrong ).
Most of the drugs are swallowed but some is hidden in fruit, tourist trinkets, strapped to the body or just packed in a suitcase hoping not to get pulled at UK customs. Now, what if one is given a bomb instead of drugs ? they're hardly going to unwrap it and check first particularly if it's strapped onto the body.
Nigel