flyerORD

Do you have access to any of this classified information or do you just wish you were that powerful?

jpetekYXMD80

Don't worry. The market will dictate the intel. Or they could get the federal government to just hand it over carte blanche to the lowest bidder security contractor and set an awful precedent in the process.

Spiff

Not relevant. Screen using WTMD, ETP/ETD, x-ray of baggage.

Visits to Yemen should not constitute probable cause of any kind: airline or otherwise.

Airlines contract out what they can to the lowest qualified bidder, not lowest bidder. I support airline maintenance being the responsibility of the airlines with criminal penalties for failure to the individuals who dictate or perform poor maintenance - no hiding behind a corporation.

jpetekYXMD80

So you want to undermine intelligence too. I thought one thing everyone could agree upon is smarter, focused intelligence dictating security screenings instead of feeling up Granny from Sarasota. But no, you just want to make it less effective, more convenient pageantry while making it far stupider. Brilliant.

flyerORD

So you don't support FAR? It's a yes or no question.

jpetekYXMD80

Let the market dictate how safe you want the airplane to be.

Spiff

I'll answer the question any way I please. And I've done so.

Sorry, the principles upon which this nation was founded should not disappear at the airport.

jpetekYXMD80

We may not even be talking about a US citizen! Where does your line that 'the principles upon this nation was founded' become violated along the road from your dumbed down airline security screening to an intelligence driven risk assessment for secondary screening? Actually, where is that line from your airline security to what we have now? Just because the government is involved? Pat downs?

Isn't a major critique of the whole TSA program spending the same amount of time on no risk passengers as is done on higher risk passengers? That a guise of impartiality clouded common sense? You're taking those faults and doubling down on them.

flyerORD

No, you evaded the question. That actually answers it for me. You have an overall hatred of anything government related. Unfortunately, you've proven that your opinions offer little value in the safety and security of airline passengers. It's all about you, not what may work at keeping people alive. FARs are fundamental in keeping airlines honest. Allowing airlines to control safety is a deadly proposition.

flyerORD

Are you aware that airlines frequently "borrow" parts from each other. Now, for a moment imagine airline x borrows a part from airline z. No FARS exist and airline z uses a different type of screw than airline x, but they don't know that because there's no regulation. The part gets screwed in on the ground, and it seems to fit. At altitude, pressure and vibration cause the wrong screws to dislodge, resulting in the part failing.

Your attitude is what causes the above scenario to occur. FARs exist to protect us from your attitude.

jpetekYXMD80

Don't worry, just throw the guy who unknowingly screwed in the wrong part in jail. Or burn him at the stake or something. Whatever. Problem solved.

bocastephen

I think you need to spend some time today thinking about what it means to be a true American, as I believe you're coming up far short.

First, we believe in liberty and freedom. We do not cower in fear from phantom bogeymen. We do not respect a government or leaders who do not respect us.

Your entire view of aviation security is completely flawed, but I am more surprised after all these years to encounter someone still grasping at the last breath of 9/11, still worried about phantoms under the bed (or seated across the aisle with the wrong color skin) ready to detonate a bomb.

So on this day of our independence from tyranny, I suggest you read and understand these words from one of the greatest patriots in our history:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

If you are carrying a US passport, then he is speaking to you, and I suggest you listen.

sbrower

What aspect of 9/11 are you referring to when you say "at the direction of the federal government"?

Do you mean the policy of flight crews (which I assume, but don't know, to have been consolidated in airline policies) to surrender the cockpit to hijackers? While 9/11 showed that the practice needed to change, it was based on years of experience, but I am not aware of any government directive. In fact, a representative of the airline pilot's union "security committee" testified in Congress, just a couple of weeks before 9/11, that better cockpit doors were not necessary because if someone put a noose around the neck of his flight attendant he would open the door. (For those who don't understand, history (up to that time) showed that hijackers would mostly go where they want and then release the passengers and crew unharmed).

GUWonder

Are you seriously claiming that the underwear bomber -- whom I mentioned in this thread earlier (as is obvious to anyone who has properly read this thread and whose memory practice is not putting up signs of Alzheimer's regardless of age) -- had a bomb that involved no metal?

I'm no scientists -- although I did have very high grades in the subject through the various class levels -- but even I don't need to go back to school to avoid making an incorrect answer on this matter.

petaluma1

Nor do you.