I am currently doing a research paper for one of my college classes, and have been directed to this forum as the best place to find links for information on aviation security. The focus of my paper is areas of aviation security that have NOT improved since 9-11, and why overall we are not safer then before. (I'm thinking of stories like TSA ppl falling asleep causing terminals to be evacuated, security people not being background-checked or properly trained, ppl with guns or knives etc slipping by security, and anything else).

I attempted a brief search of the forum to try to find some, but so far have not had much luck.

I'd appreciate any links to threads or articles online that you may know of that could help me in my assignment. If you preferr to email me, just email me through my profile.

Thanks

Chris

(Please note this is not a "TSA SUCKS" or "DO NOT FLY IN THE USA IT IS NOT SAFE" type report, but just pointing out areas that still ahve a LOT OF WORK to be done on).

Would you have any ideas as to where I can find links and information?

Chris

This is my favorite recent essay on the subject you are researching. It is written by Patrick Smith. Enjoy, and let it be known that I disagree with the above poster that this is the wrong place for you to ask your question - apparently they are just the wrong answer.

Terrorism, tweezers and terminal madness
By Patrick Smith

June 1, 2004 | On a Sunday morning I'm catching Malaysia Airlines flight MH091 from Newark to Dubai, and eventually onward to Kuala Lumpur. Newark, now cloyingly recast as Liberty International Airport, is forever the same old bowl of concrete and cars. In a cheerless restaurant in Terminal B I'm eating breakfast beneath framed pictures of sandwiches when the Malaysia crew comes promenading past, headed for their Boeing 777 at the end of the concourse -- the pilots in sharply cut, military-style suits, the stewards in green tuxedoes, the girls in sarong-style dresses of melon and teal.

At the surrounding tables are the rest of Flight 91's eventual occupants, and present company excluded it's a substantially... let's just say Eastern-looking lot -- A mix of Arab and Malay and Indian, with a liberal distribution of skullcaps and prayer beads, and a handful of women in full black burqa right down to the gloves. It's all very glammy and international here in decidedly working class Newark. I like it, even if it's probably a disconcerting sight for the throngs headed to Detroit and Charlotte, with enough dark skin and beards to keep many Americans away from airports forever and hunkered down in their xenophobic hidey-holes. And while I hate saying it, something tells me MH091 gives a thrice-weekly dose of the willies to the already edgy screeners down at security...

After standing in queue for fifteen minutes I approach the metal detectors, where a screener greets me good morning. She is wearing paramilitary-style uniform complete with shoulder braids, combat boots and a beret. Across her back it says SECURITY in heavy gold lettering. This is supposed to look and feel like the ordered confidence you'd encounter in Europe or Asia. But the too-sharp creases in the pantlegs, the snapping gum and the glossy lipstick, all expose the phoniness and desperation of the scene. These aren't even the trappings of a third world state -- something you'd see at the airport in Quito or Entebbe. They're a carnival imitation of those places, with uniforms straight from an old Monty Python wardrobe.

A fork, part of my normal carry-on inventory for years, is confiscated from my luggage. In a few days that fork, along with thousands of other expropriated bits of metal, will be hauled off in a sealed bin by the local fire department. Reminded that forks are still dispensed with inflight meals, the screener replies tersely, "That's what they want us to do."

Nearby a National Guardsman is flirting with a group of teenagers. Troopers are cracking jokes, bags are toppling from the belt. "Take your shoes off please." I'm ashamed and embarrassed. Is this the new world of flying?

- - - - - - - - - - - -


Our zero-tolerance policy toward the carriage of weapons -- perceived or real -- has turned the predeparture process into a pageant of humiliation. Airports have become scrap-metal repositories, while thousands of people are asked to remove their shoes because one man, on one occasion, had the idea of concealing explosives in his sneakers. At the risk of sounding flip, are strip-searches to follow? After all, even the stupidest terrorist will see that sneakers are out, and what more fiendish than a bomb in your underwear?

I've heard people recount, "I was not allowed to carry through my coffee without tasting it first. But what if I'd simply filled my shampoo bottle full of gasoline?" The ironies and examples are endless: A shattered wine bottle is just as sharp as a boxcutter; a shiv of snapped-off plastic no less lethal than a knife. And so forth.

The preoccupation with Weapons of Mass Distraction gets back to a stubborn fixation with the September 11th template, assuming any sequel is bound to unfurl around a do-it-yourself arsenal similar to that used by the original 19 skyjackers. Terrorists, the intercepted messages and payrolled tipsters inform us, are again targeting airliners. But while I don't know exactly what an al-Qaida operative might have in store, I'm skeptical of one thing, which is the likelihood of another suicide skyjacking. The skyjack model, it's critical to note, is forever changed, as never again will anybody believe a purloined plane is headed to Havana, Beirut, or anywhere but into the side of a building. I can't imagine anybody making it two steps up the aisle, to say nothing of into the cockpit, with less than a bucket of pinless grenades balanced on his head.

If anything, the ongoing nonsense underscores our vulnerability by flaunting our refusal to behave rationally. One is reminded of the movie "Brazil," Terry Gilliam's 1985 film about a totalitarian state under constant barrage of terrorist bombings, brought to the brink of collapse and hilarity by its own foolish, hyperextended authority. Just imagine a platoon of firefighters carting away a locked container of forks, tweezers and hobby knives.

In an atmosphere charged with trauma, we've come to view security as a phenomenon of pure cause-and-effect. We're like children in the school playground, who in recounting some lurid tale from the TV news or eavesdropping on some grievous grownup discussion, usually get the facts right but miss the point entirely, failing to scrutinize our opponents' wider intents and purposes. We construe every event, be it mundane or serious, as some glaring weakness in our already overstressed system, outrage erupting every time the next nail file, Popsicle stick, or rubber nose and sunglasses is found lurking in a seat pocket. Even the act of snapping a photograph from a concourse window might earn you a chat with a policeman, a policy that smacks of Iron Curtained Moscow or Bucharest. The cry is always to bolt more doors, deny more access and concoct more high-tech gadgetry.

I'm unsure which would be the better quotation to drop here, Franklin's famous bit about sacrificing liberty for safety, or maybe something more ornery from HL Mencken. Whichever old sage would be more appalled by the goings on, we're more than happy to empty our pockets, rat out our neighbors, pull down our pants. Enough of us, at least, to keep the beast fed and happy. This is what we want: if it equates to safer flying, or more accurately the perception of it, by all means, yes, x-ray my Nikes and take my nailclippers. The TV cameras and newspapers have quoted us time and time again, acquiescing with a sigh: "Well, it sucks, but if it makes flying safer I'm all for it."

But what if it doesn't?

Neither all the determination in the world, nor the most sweeping regulations we dare codify, will outsmart a cunning enough saboteur. Preferring a path of lesser resistance, terrorists will fight along a moveable and eternally porous front. Even our leaders admit this, yet over and over, even as we languish in security lines to have our luggage and dignity eviscerated, we give in to the notion that just about anything, no matter how illogical, inconvenient or unreasonable, is justified in the name of safety.

As airplane nuts in junior high school, my friends and I spent virtually every weekend roaming the terminals of Boston's Logan International Airport. I came to know that airport as one learns the way from bedroom to bathroom at 4 a.m. Being kids on the verge of our teens, much of our time there was spent engrossed in pranks and unauthorized snooping. Logan became an amusement park of dastardly challenges. We sauntered through metal detectors, rode carousels through baggage rooms, crawled through hatchways and sneaked into stairwells. At one point we knew the doorway codes to several secure areas.

Our most cherished activity, though, was gaining access to the airplanes themselves. We'd stake out the gate of an arriving flight, then ask an exiting agent or crewmember if we could take a peek at the cockpit. Cordial captains would give us tours, inside and out, of our favorite planes. On some occasions we were told to go ahead, unsupervised, often by the captain himself. "Just don't monkey around with anything." Or, more daringly, we'd simply stroll down the enclosure and step aboard.

Once, as seventh graders, two friends and I spent more than an hour in the cockpit of a Northwest DC-10, utterly unbeknownst to anyone besides ourselves. A mechanic came aboard for a check and found us in the pilots' chairs, seatbelts on, pretending to be airborne over the ocean somewhere. This was the late 1970s. The threat of terrorism, mind you, was not some nascent fear in the backs of people's minds.

Looking back at my forays at Logan, was security dysfunctional, begging for acts of sabotage? No, not really. In essence it's no different than today. Isn't flying safer than it used to be? Probably, but it was never particularly dangerous to begin with -- not thirty years ago, and not the day Mohammed Atta and his henchmen walked aboard with a stash of knives, boxcutters and mace. Antipodal as it may sound in the current climate, the true deadly weapon on Sept. 11 wasn't anything tactile. It was surprise. The tool of choice, had it been boxcutters, butter knives, or bare knuckles and a shod foot, was effectively unimportant. We needn't scapegoat airport workers, the FAA, or anybody who wears the uniform of an air carrier.

Lost in the outcry is the realization that incidents of terror are more the inevitable work of statistics and politics than examples of carelessness or incompetence. Just as the War on Drugs will not vanquish the supply of illicit narcotics, the War on Terror will not eliminate the supply of angry radicals. Unable to acknowledge this constructively, our stupor is unrelenting. We're asked to accept some "new reality" of air travel, one in which irritation and fear have become institutionalized, when in fact the risks aren't much different than they were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

In spite of these threats, and to a large extent in spite of ourselves, air travel remains safe. My self-interests aside, I'll assure you of the system's integrity. I'd like to say more than "get out there and fly," lest I echo some of the more infantile examples of leadership tossed our way -- as if there's nothing more noble or patriotic than to spend as much money as possible -- but truly my best advice is for the public to overcome its squeamishness.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson to be dug from the rubble of Manhattan is the one we're most afraid of: no system is, or ever will be, foolproof. Sobering, but we could use some cold water. What colder than conceding the more or less unstoppable, hit-em-where-they-ain't resourcefulness of terrorism? Sound, competent security greatly improves our chances, whether against the concoctions of a single deranged individual, or organized terror from the caves of Central Asia. But with the advent of every new technology or pledge of better safeguards, we correspondingly inspire the imaginations of those who wish to defeat us.

Hence it's time to address the terrorism issue systemically. Defusing the rage of angry radicals is a long-term anthropological mission for our leaders, not an excuse to barricade public spaces or subvert civil liberties. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of Semtex, and there's little to gain by bogging down resources in what amounts to a feel-good fantasy. At best, our implacable quest to protect ourselves makes our exceptionally safe skies that much safer. At worst, it's paranoid overkill undermining both security and freedom.


- - - - - - - - - - - -

Three well-documented incidents:

Richard Reid, who managed to get aboard with explosives in his shoe

A man who boarded a flight out of New Orleans in late 2001 and realized after the flight had taken off that he had boarded with a gun in his briefcase. (He owned it and had a permit; had forgotten to leave it at home.) "Security" never noticed.

The recent (within the last year) case of a student who got through "security" with various contraband and publicized it because he wanted to show that there were loopholes in our system. If he were my kid, I would have been proud of him.

Yeah, Stiffler, the kid was a college student from the NE somewhere who did all this on Southwest Airlines. Maybe you can use that info for a more specific web search. It made some big news.

Where did you find the above? Do you have a link you could site?

I have flown on MH 91 from Newark to Dubai to Kuala Lumpur as well as MH 90 from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai to Newark; just a few months ago back in August.

While I was a First Class passenger on this flight, there was a good mix of ethnicities and individuals. First Class was only half-full, but the FC cabin had a great mix as well. Screening at EWR was done by the TSA only; no national guard or special security was present.

The TSA employees working the checkpoint at EWR B were friendly and no shoe removal was required. I felt just as safe on these flights as I do on any other international flights these days. FWIW, MH 91 / MH 90 were some of the best flights I've taken this year - primarily in terms of service and hospitality from the Malaysian Airlines crew.

FWIW, Malaysia Airlines has recently dropped the EWR-DXB-KUL service in exchange for EWR-ARN-KUL (ARN=Stockholm).

If MH 91/90 was still operating EWR-DXB-KUL, I would not hesitate to take it again. Unfortunately, Malaysia Airlines is eliminating First Class on their Boeing 777 (thus I will use LAX for my future MH flights).

When I arrived back into the states on MH 90, it was August 31st and the Republican convention was ongoing in NYC, just a few miles away. There were many US Customs Agents working this flight, the only arrival at this time of the morning. US Customs & Immigrations in Newark treated me with respect; they were polite and efficient.

I am a young white male and I am sure others received a good deal of scrutiny by US Customs/Immigrations, but I would hardly call this flight one that gives a "thrice-weekly dose of the willies to the already edgy screeners down at security..."


Now, to the original poster who started this thread: I would look for threads which have been started with news article links. One board you may find valuable is "The Newsstand" -- there are often news articles related to security failures on that board. If you read through this board, you will find several as well connected to some of the threads.

Lately there have been several news articles about high failure rates with respect to TSA tests and one article about the Newark Airport citing statistics about how bad TSA screening is, concourse C (Continental) in particular. I would also look for articles concerning the lack of cargo screening on passenger jets. If you go to the travel section at CNN you should be able to find a number of articles as well (go to Travel News and look back at the past month or two of articles).

Best of luck!

SDF_Traveler

Because thinking of specific words to search for might be difficult in this case, you might want to go to the bottom of the page and see the box where you can click to show all threads from a certain time period and click on either the beginning or the last year. You'll get many, many pages (39 since the last year) but you should be able to go through them fairly quickly as most of the thread titles are pretty good indicators of what you'll find. One for instance mentions resignations in advance of a Hobby press conference. That one gives a link to a story about weapons slipping through security there. Good luck.

Yes I do, actually - it may be found here:


http://archive.salon.com/tech/books/...smith_excerpt/

Emphasis added:

Is this a research paper or an editorial? You've already stated your "conclusion" and are now looking for "evidence" to back it up.

How about doing a research paper trying to answer the question "Are we just as safe as before?" and, should the answer be no, answer the question "Why are we less safe" or "Why are we safer" depending on the answer.

If you ask me, we are much safer than before for simply one reason -- we do not cooperate with hijackers any more. When Al-Qaeda mulled over their options for attacking us, that was the easiest one.

What they have left is more difficult, and the various options are, at best (best for them), the same, such as a surface-to-air missile, or more difficult, such as planting a bomb in checked luggage.

Thus, we are safer than ever before, and it has nothing to do with ID checks, boarding pass double-checks, shoe X-rays, and pat-downs. Simply lock the cockpit door and don't let anyone in, screen passengers and carry-ons for guns, large knives and bombs, and screen checked baggage for bombs.

Hi, Chris,

I think the cargo security issue is important, in that air cargo does not seem safe.

According to http://hutchison.senate.gov/speec279.htm "Twenty-two percent of all air cargo in the United States is carried on passenger flights, but only a tiny percentage of this cargo is inspected."

Info. about TWA Flight 800:
http://www.emergency.com/airlinsc.htm

Hmm. As I look there is a lot of stuff thru Google:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terro...rgo_04-16.html

Good luck!

Stiffler...welcome to the Travel Safety/Security Forum. I'm sure you will find many helpful people here who will assist you with your research paper.

It's pretty common to do a research paper where one tests a hypothesis.

Yes, but in order to test a hypothesis, you do need to look at all the evidence, not just seek out evidence that confirms what you want it to.

For example, a report came across my desk the other day that purported to show that "reparative therapy" "cured" homosexuals. How did they arrive at that conclusion? The "researcher" asked people who perform said "therapy" if they thought it worked.

It could be that the airport security we're complaining about is 99.99999999% effective. If you only look for the exceptions, you're going to think they're the rule.

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/g...scrnrs0600.pdf
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/a...ngs101601.html
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/g...rnrs031600.pdf
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/g...onsec92101.pdf
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/g...tion051498.pdf

That will give you an idea if things are really worse.

Maybe if you would try to participate with an open mind rather than blindly disregarding all posts not written by TSA employees, these discussions would be easier.

Read my post in this thread. While I did say that ID checks and boarding pass checks are silly, I actually did say we are safer now than we were before 9/11.

Other people may harp on the TSA for missing guns and bombs in tests, but I never do, even though I was always against the creation of the TSA in first place. TSA screeners aren't perfect and cannot be expected to find every single gun and fake bomb on an X-ray machine.

In other words, I am actually giving you some credit for making our skies safer! Please take this credit and stop insinuating that all posts not emotionally bashing the TSA are systematically disallowed from FlyerTalk, because it is simply not true.