So anyone know whats the disposition of these "dangerous" items? Do the security folks get to keep what they want? Are the items donated to charity? Are they just ending up in a landfill?

Curious minds want to know.

Security personnel keep the nail clippers to fight the terrorists should a battle break out in the terminal.

I thought you could buy em back on ebay.

Christmas gifts for the families of ITS employees.

When security confiscated my husband's nail clippers at DIA, they said he could go back out of the secured area and mail them to himself--after waiting nearly 2 hours to get to the check-point in the first place.

He told the security agent she could keep them, and she replied, "Oh, we don't keep them. They will be destroyed."

Bin Laden continues to get the last laugh. Watching our foolishness. Meanwhile, he buys stock in the nail clipper companies.

Throwing them away... don't they know there are people in third world countries with hang nails?

Throwing them away... why not issue them to the National Guard to protect us?

Where do they get the right to destroy private property? Why isn't it just bagged and put in the hold for collection at your destination as happens in every other country that I'm aware of?

Given the litigious nature of the US, it just amazes me that nobody's started a class action to get compensation for personal items stolen by airport security.

Pondering about my past travels, when I was traveling from BKK on, security in BKK told me that my letter openers couldn't be taken on-board. (They spotted them through the x-ray machine.) What did they do? They just had me fill out some forms to have it "checked in" inside the aircraft luggage compartment.

Another time in NRT, I was carrying a golf club on my shoulder and security in NRT, told me I couldn't carry it, so they just had me fill out some forms and have it, yet again, "checked in" inside the aircraft luggage compartment.

Much better service, and . . . much more common sense . . . from security.

Airport security does NOT equal common sense.

Not in the US, at any rate.

What it does equal is National Guardsmen chatting up airport employees looking for a date. All this while one guy strolls through security with 7 knives, a stun gun, and mace and another guy bolts down the up escalators.

Nobody takes it seriously because the system holds itself up to ridicule. WHY is it impossible to have a couple of runners who (just like the duty free shops) deliver all the "forbidden items" in a locked container to the aircraft. This box is then unlocked at the destination jetway? Poof, problem solved.

This is NOT brain surgery. As a functional matter we should NOT be doing random searches. It is reasonable to sort people by risk. White Anglo Saxon people travelling in family groups are VERY low on the terrorist risk scale. We just shouldn't be bothering with them.

The Risk group is foreign nationals or people with heavy foreign accents, especially those from Muslim dominated nations. Not 19year old Japaneese college coeds. Let's stop beating around the bush and be honest about it. I have no issue with securing the airports but STOP BEING IDEALISTICALLY STUPID ABOUT IT!!! Making sure we randomly search 13yr old boy scouts or the Middleview HS marching band is stupid, dammit.

Do what's functional.

Money motivates people. Use that.

Post a 15000 dollar reward for any gun found and a 1000 dollar reward for any knife over 4 inches found. Give the security screeners a FINANCIAL INCENTIVE TO DO THEIR JOB THOROUGHLY!!! Post a 10000 dollar reward for any ground crew who sees someone do something funky. I may like you but 10G's is some serious cash. For 10G's I will watch you like a hawk. Which is the point.

Clear communications are critical.

EVERY security supervisor and checkpoint should have a radio. Period. The Atlanta cluster.... could've been completely avoided by Motorola. The fact that they don't is ridiculous and inexcusable. At least one of every two Nat Guards men or police should have one of these radios as well.

Keep track of patrons.

If it's important to track people then either give them a stamp on their hand at the counter or some sort of wristband when they clear security. ANYONE seen without a wristband is subject to being escorted by armed guard back through security to get searched again and get another one. Be very plain about it. You take off the wristband, you're screwed. They change color randomly every day. Cut the wristband off on the jetway as they board the plane. The wristband can be coded to their ticket which obviously matches their Id. (Basically just like your checked baggage gets).

Once you have motivated people in place and focus on realistic (not theoretical) threats then you can begin to actually address the problem. The current system is to randomly search people 9 times. That's just plain stupid.

And on a note, all that ID matching isn't working. I flew from ORF to PIT last week.. on my flight (before we left) was a guy who went through all the security and ID checks and was allowed to board and take his seat. ON THE WRONG AIRPLANE!

The system is only as strong as the weakest point. Right now we have a lot of flash solutions but no real defense in depth.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

>
> Post a 15000 dollar reward for any gun
> found and a 1000 dollar reward for any
> knife over 4 inches found. Give the
> security screeners a FINANCIAL INCENTIVE
> TO DO THEIR JOB THOROUGHLY!!! Post a
> 10000 dollar reward for any ground crew
> who sees someone do something funky. I
> may like you but 10G's is some serious
>

Nice rhetoric, but short on reality.

Are you familiar with The Law of Unintended
Consequences? Your suggestion creates a huge
motivation for minimum wage, minimum skill
employees to conspire with others to plant
prohibited items in the bags of unsuspecting
passengers. This would be a very bad thing.

Many airport security firms promise bonuses
to screeners for each FAA Approved Test
Object that they find. I believe that it's
$50 for faux knives/guns and $250 for faux
bombs.

A former colleague, now retired, worked as a
security screener. [Said he needed something
to do.] Apparently; the security firms
routinely fail/forget/deny the earned bonus.
It is a source of deep resentment among the
screeners.

-doug

Castigate the concept as rhetoric and dismiss it? Slick answer, but not thought out completely Doug.

Only three simple improvements that I'd need to add are:

1) "There must be an indictment before reward is awarded."
2) "Whistleblowers must pass polygraph exam on veracity of statement."
3) This is a Federal Reward, not a reward from the Security companies.

I just addressed all your concerns.

Are you REALLY going to enter into a conspiracy to both lose your job AND pull a federal indictment in order for your buddy to gain 10-15000 dollars? (I would imagine sneaking weapons onto aircraft is probably a federal offense, as would be going into a sterile zone with one).

Of course there would be fine tuning and some attempts at fraud. I wasn't attempting to describe the implemented policy but rather the concept. I didn't go into the tax status of the award either or the method of it being doled out.

The point was, and is, to motivate relatively low paid workers to do a better job. Run contests; the person with the most "catches" gets a trip for two to someplace. The team with the most catches gets an extra dollar an hour for the next month. Make it so in order to go up in rank and pay you have to catch people or supervise those who do at least part of the time as opposed to wandering around a concourse for a year or two. Make the nasty security lines the *fast-track* to promotion and better pay so people will want to pull those shifts or stay a little longer to help out before clocking out.

*MOTIVATE* the people to go above and beyond and they will. Because that's how you create real security. It's the above and beyond that gives the edge. The guards have to be willing to take the extra minute to walk down a gate or two and rattle that doorknob one more time, just to be sure. Thing is, you don't get that extra effort without motivation of some sort.

Money, is simply the fastest, most efficient motivator there is. It gets most of us up for work at least five days a week. Pretending otherwise is simply ignoring the obvious. The actual structure of the payout scale is a fairly minor part of this discussion.

I'm not making this up or why I feel proper motivation is *key* to good security, especially in crowd control / access control situations. True story by way of example. Get some hot cocoa.

As the name suggests I used to be a Bouncer at a series of nightclubs in Virginia. One of them was a large capacity (for the area) meet market hip hop dance club. About 1,600 patrons and fully packed every saturday.

Like all such clubs we were having problems with kids trying to use fake ID's and sometimes bring knives or even guns in (hey, it's the "don't diss me" thing). The actual Doormen/Wanders are paid what the inside floor crew is. People were getting through though, we even caught a teenage with a pistol once (And very firmly removed him and handed him over to the police). So a simple, but very effective system was put in place:

1) Two to six off-duty police are outside working the exterior of the building and parking lots. One of whom is always with the doorguys.

2) For every suspicious ID, turn it over to the police officer right there. Don't argue, don't even discuss. Hand it off to the guy with the badge AND gun and let him deal with it.

3) For every fake ID found the doormen found they got 50 bucks. For every real knife (not a penknife) or gun they got more. At first there was a flurry of payouts, and then the fake ID's dropped to pretty much zero as did the weapons.

Because people from as far as 100 miles away had heard "don't even *try it*. They *knew* the doormen would check, thoroughly. Because they had financual motivation to do so with extra care. I have seen some amazing ones in my time. The best I ever personally caught was a kid who used a needle with bleach in it. He would poke through the license card lamination. He then individually dyed the individual inkjet dots on the date white. Turning 1978 ...into 1975. (This was in 98' and I've always remembered it).

The point is, I was motivated to look a little harder. I felt the roughness on the front of the card (where the punctures where), started looking (more out of curiousity than anything else) and voila, had myself an extra 50 bucks on top of my pay for the night. Do you think I checked other cards just as carefully from then on? Yer **** right I did.

And that IS the point. From personal experience as a wander/doorman and later eventually as the head of security with 6 cops and 18 floor/door personel under me I can tell you it DOES work to do this.

Of course a larger organization has to fine tune it to their needs. I'm not saying you hire bouncers to work airports either. What I'm saying is that getting people to perform a menial task for menial pay ISN'T going to work UNLESS you offer some secondary motivator to give them a reason to go beyond.

And that, is the bottom line. The 10000 dollar gun reward or the 10000 "whistleblower" reward may save a plane load of people and a 100 million dollar aircraft. It's absolutely positively justified from an investment/return perspective.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

[This message has been edited by Bouncer (edited 11-18-2001).]

Well, sometimes they are stolen! Friends coming out of Aruba report camera and telephone batteries and an electric shaver taken in a bold face theft with security as an excuse. The screeners laughed in their faces!

So called security workers at DFW have been accused of 'shopping' in passengers property and confiscating what they want for themselves or their SUPERVISORS! Containers of confiscated items are taken to private areas where they are sorted through for anything of value. Destroyed hell!

One thing to do is report missing items to your insurance company. Perhaps large insurance companies can put pressure to improve this system.

Perhaps I should apply for a NEA or Canada Council grant to create a series of giant "Peace through Vigilence" sculptures at the major American and Canadian airports, forged from these various confiscated items. I recall some sculptor in Canada got a Millennium grant to create a giant sculpture from guns that had been seized by police forces around the country. It was a ode to peace!

Great idea, Shareholder. When will these Americans learn that they can learn a lot from you Canadians...?

(putting on my flame retarding suit)

[This message has been edited by Gaucho100K (edited 11-19-2001).]

my wife still carries her passport, which has her maiden name, but has been endorsed on the back page to show her new last name. ticket counter personnel knows about 50% of the time, to look at the back page before questioning about why the name doesn't match. the personnel at the gate looks at the passport picture page, sees that it matches my wifes face, but nobody questions why the name on the boarding pass matches? i'm always temptied to inform them of their faliure to catch a simple mismatch on name vs. i.d., but i haven't had the courage yet...