The question is, do YOU know who they were? Al Qaeda was a strong, well organized and dangerous operation before 9/11. They carried out multiple attacks against various targets around the world long before 9/11.

What are they now? Nothing. A crippled, loose-knit, gang of thugs barely able to launch a major attack given their funding has been cut off, their hosts in Afghanistan are no longer in charge, their backers in Saudi Arabia have likely been put on notice by the US gov't to knock off the double-face nonsense and their key leadership is either dead, in prison or in hiding.

I suggest you do a little more research before grabbing the pompoms and rushing out to cheer the FAMs and add more scare tactics.

If you want something to be scared of, go ask the TSA why they still don't effectively screen air cargo or secure through-the-fence operations, or why their passenger screening initiatives are nothing by fluffy theater.

So the pax will just sit around while the terrorist tries to do something? As bocastephen posted, FAMs have never done anything to stop a terrorist.. They are an absolute waste of money, and I don't see why I should have to pay taxes for these guys to fly around in F :rolleyes:

What you just described shows the ignorance of the traveling public.........every law enforcement agency has to deal with these same issues. However, the marshals are the ones that are publicized? Interesting isn't it?? You don't think you hear about the marshals because they are an agency in its infancy? You don't think the FBI has agents that leave their weapons in innappropriate places or local police agencies don't accidently kill civilians that probably shouldn't have died.

Your joking right? I'm on candid camera right? You couldn't be serious in your assessment of this agency?????

MURDERING a mentally unstable person....hahahaha That was the best part in your whole fictionalized synopsis of this agency. Like I said, you don't read the whole story.... UR A FUNNY GUY THOUGH! :D;)

But it isn't terrorism that is affecting society, so much has the hysterical reaction to it.

September 11 happened, and yes, the U.S. changed as a result. But I think, and I believe there are many others who believe. that it changed far more than it needed to. In the end, there is no way we can eliminate the threat of terrorism completely.

At some point, we have to do a cost-benefit analysis and figure out - what are we willing to sacrifice to prevent terrorism. Forget about civil rights and the constitution for a moment (I know, heresy in this forum :D) and just think of the cost. Every cent we spend on anti-terrorism activities (FAMs, TSA, Public Service Announcements,etc.) is money that could be spent on other programs or be used to reduce the deficit. I want to be certain that we are getting the most value for money that we can, and I am convinced that the FAM program funds could be used in a more effective manner, even to stop terrorism.

I don't have anything against FAMs as people, and also don't have any particular interest in 'spotting' one, but if you really are concerned about the welfare of your loved ones, I am confident that the funding for this program could be used more effectively elsewhere.

Well, as they say.......you can lead a horse to water but you can't force him to drink. I could sit here all day and talk about this agency but I'm just killing time and I can see there is no selling you folks on the usefulness of an agency such as this.

So lets just cut this program and pay for 1/300th of the free health care bill we just passed in this country. I'd much rather pay for somebody's healthcare....:rolleyes:

It would help, though, if you were actually leading the horse to water. You acknowledged that there are a lot of flights where there are no FAMs. Nothing happened to those flights.

Unlike some others, here, I think that most FAMs are dedicated civil servants who are well-trained to do the job they are paid to do. I am just not convinced that the job is worth doing, especially now that the cockpit door is hardened and the protocols of dealing with hijackers have changed. If you are concerned about bombs, at most, you are simply shifting the target from a plane to an airport, a shopping mall, or Times Square. . .you are not eliminating the threat.

I don't want to take this into OMNI country so I won't discuss the health care bill specifically, but given our current health statistics which are lower than most other developed countries, spending the money on public health would probably be a better return on our investment.

No offense, but you can't use the panty bomber as an example as it was the passengers that took care of things just like they did with thank-you-for-requiring-that-shoes-must-now-be-removed Richard Ried.

I will agree with you that any LEO puts their life on the line the minute they raise their hand and no matter what area of law enforcement they are in, they deserve respect and thankfully they haven't had to "out themselves" for a real terrorist or otherwise person of "bad intent" on a plane. What you will find here on F/t is that there is an "annoyance" (for lack of a better word" that on most domestic flights, a pair of FAM's will both be sitting in first class (save the upper deck of a 747) and if the cabin only has 8 seats, you are now down to 6 for paying pax and imho, there is no reason for both FAM's to be riding up front as one should,in my humble and yes uneducated, opinion be riding in the back just like the do on int'l flights where there are anywhere from 4-8 scattered throughout all cabins.

Now as to your comment...

Yes, there are a lot of sheep out there who will believe anything they are told-just like the TSA saying "radiation is safe so please, go ahead and use the image scanner" ;) so keep in mind on that part of your your argument as it is a two way street and needs to be viewed as such.

Impossible. Airlines have absolutely no control over TSA policies. Just ask them.

I'm sure this is incorrect.

Bruce

What you & others here don't seem to get it is not the same thing . If a team of terrorist attempt(or do) take over a plane by firing shots or people have been cut & the blood & guts are flying how many of you people are going to step up & be next ? How many of you would have a clue what to do if stuff like this went down ? That's why I want a trained team of fams on board.

Google Fight!

Not that that really mean's anything conclusive, but in the year's since 9/11 i recall that every grave threat to pax safety has been met with pax resistance, not fear. Also, I, like most people now realize that the goal is not simply to hijack the aircraft as it was in the past, the point is to kill all on board, so the argument that the passengers would be reluctant to die is essentially null, as most are aware that that would be the result anyway. The fact that these men are armed is also a non issue to me, as in "undercover testing" most any pax can get a gun through security anyway... the real issue is if the pax remembers he has it ;) . Further, the fact that these men have seen any 'action' at all is an anomaly, as if a terrorist successfully brought a bomb on board and detonated without issue (how have we gotten lucky twice!?!), its just another life to add to the death toll.

Perhaps we should take their salaries and commit them to something useful, such as implementing EFFECTIVE screenings, or as Israelis calls it: Profiling.

Oops, I dug up a 4 week old thread without realizing it - sorry!

I agree with you on this. The results speak for themselves. Air Marshals have not done anything useful, just like the TSA has not done anything useful. FAMs and the TSA exist for two reasons: to give an appearance that the gubment is doing something useful, and to give the gubment more control over us. It is the 'way of the government' to never give back any control it gets, no matter how useless it actually is.

Sorry, but could you explain this? The only data I've managed to find which "supports" this common argument is the ten year old WHO report. Have you looked into the details of that report? I've never heard anyone use this argument who has actually looked at the details.

More than half (I think about 75%, don't recall the actual numbers) of the "criteria" which they used to rank the health care systems on are based entirely on socialized funding framework. Many of the categories' subcriteria literally would rank a country which had the absolute lowest quality of care (based on stats like survival rate of procedures, availability of modern medication and procedures and equipment, etc) as being well above the US system if the government simply paid for everything.

You might die from appendicitis while waiting to see the doctor in those countries, but don't worry - you don't have to pay for it (directly anyways).

They also used unqualified "healthiness" stats which are not recognized as being attributable to a health care system's effectiveness, but can easily be attributed to cultural and individual choice trends, like obesity and lack of exercise. They carefully obfuscate these facts by only showing the primary and categorical results, rather than showing all the subcategory results clearly, as well as using misleading names for their criteria.

Some smarter folk than I have reanalyzed the data in a way which is "less biased" and it can easily be shown to rank the US in the top 5 in the categories that matter, #1 in some.

-------- Sorry to get off topic, I just hate to see people mislead by that 10 year old socialism-biased report from the WHO.

Back on topic.... Let us have our airports back. I'm young enough and not a frequent enough flier to be quite certain about my memory of airports and flying before 2001, but didn't we used to be able to walk from the entry all the way to the gate back then without the extra security checks? Or maybe it was just that non-ticketed folks were then allowed to go all the way to the gates? I do recall it was much less stressful and less restrictive and required less time.

I will say I support the FAM program. At this point, I'll support any LEO who promises to keep his hands off our crotches as we go from point A to point B.

Is there ANY chance at all you'd be willing to bust a few pervs in the TSA for us?