robvberg

Gargoyle, that is simply not true. Skipping the numbers like 50 kilo. First if you fail or succeed you have left multiple clues. You are probably on cameras, you have left finger prints and info on the shipping forms and many other minor things. Look how fast the spanish and english cracked the bombings. If you fail you have a bomb left in the system that will be inspected once no one claims it or is contactable about it not being claimed. Will they be stupid enough to go and try and claim it like the deposit on the first world trade center van? You don't launch this typoe of operation until you have practiced building and detonating the bombs. Not always easy and even less so after Oklahoma City in the US. Then you have to put a team in position, either create fake identities or figure your operatives are blown. Actually probably blown even with fake ids. To have any success with a timer you will need to use the airlines cargo service which if not a known shipper, you will probably have it scanned. If you use a shipping service, the bomb needs to be more durable and more likely to detonate when it is not at altitude. this is not easy. there are estimated to be maybe 10K or more people that have gone through camps in afganistan, phillipines, balkans, chechnya and other places. Yet very few successful attacks on aviation. I am sure that is because they want spectaculars, instead of a small town mall bombing but still there are alot of people with basic explosive skills and we do not have cargo bombs going off, and the few that have are probably libyan or maybe with air india, pakistani ISI. No one has ever claimed them involved but the groups suggested have probably had advanced training from them. So again it is no where near as simple as you want to believe it and will cause more disruptions than now. Or maybe you want to massively jack the price of your ticket by the airlines not carrying any cargo?
Oh and I am not saying we should not look at technologies including trusted shipper type softwares and improved scanning. I am just saying it is fools money spending billions on screeneing cargo with equipment that will need to be replaced and maybe is not effective. Also most suggestions on scanning will occur at airports and be occuring alongside your bags. If things get held up, how likely is your bag and maybe flights to be delayed or you be required to show up even earlier for check in?

robyng

I agree with most of this.

And I am curious. Since you seem to have some technical expertise about security issues - what would be the top 5 things you would do to improve security in terms of screening things (not people - I'm in favor of profiling people but that is a different issue than screening things). From a US perspective. At the gate - or in checked baggage. And forget about the exploding laptop batteries - that isn't a security issue - it's a safety issue.

I invite other people to list their top 5 things too.

We have to keep in mind that the United States is somewhat unusual. It is a pretty large country - and there is a lot of airline travel within the country - passengers and baggage who don't go through immigration/customs. In countries which are smaller geographically - a lot of mass transit within a country is by rail (and I've seen no evidence of any security in rail travel in those countries outside the US that I've visited recently). I think that - in general - people are more willing to go through rigorous security when they are traveling between countries - and not within countries. So it's important to get the most bang for the buck (and the time spent) in security procedures when talking about air travel within the US. Robyn

GUWonder

Actually what Gargoyle said, in that part of the post you quoted, is generally true when it comes to aviation. Your assertion, that it's simply not true, is more false than true. More conditions would have to be attached to your scenario than to his for yours to be correct.

Dont call me Shirley

I've missed a few posts in this thread, so this may been have been covered already; there is now a website devoted to this topic: http://www.kiphawleyisanidiot.com/

BTW, a yahoo search now shows over 82000 hits for "kip hawley is an idiot"!



Didn't think of it until now, but I am reminded of an old joke from the Soviet era. A drunken man is arrested after running through Red Square and shouting "Breshnev is an idiot"!. He was sentenced to 15 days for disturbing the peace and 15 years for revealing a state secret.

GUWonder

Two simple improvements related to the OP's circumstances? Get rid of these stupid rules of 3ozs but not 6ozs, ok with plastic bags but not ok without. Hold government accountable for harassing someone just because they have written a constitutionally-protected opinion about a public official.

Thailandflyer

I was talking about the Attitudes and unrelated questions ... I never mentioned narcotics or my not presenting my bags for inspections...
I suppose you're response about the "US Citizen exemption Crap" was the gen. attitude I was posting frustration with...
remember who works for who... and to be disrespectful to me will never play well.....
Keep to the point at hand... the TSA, Customs and Border security... "the Whole of the Dept. of Homeland Security"... ARE a Joke and Are played on U.S. Citizens... you know ... the "U.S". .. that pays for all of these impish minions and their tactics...

Doppy

Well perhaps you have a lot of spare time and you don't mind having it wasted. That's fine for you, but not for many of the rest of us.

Would you be so willing to be detained if you missed your flight and had to wait a few hours or even overnight (at your own expense in a hotel or free on the airport floor) for the next flight? As I asked above - where do you draw the line on the government's "right" to punish people for dissent?

I can be surprised because it's unconstitutional and contrary to the values and ideals of this country.

Gargoyle

OK, they want spectacular- it's easy. Per the book "The Outlaw Seas" as of 5 or 6 years ago Bin Laden owned at least one, perhaps as many as 20, ocean freighters. Also, that book describes how easy it is to hijack a freighter- happens pretty often in SE Asia.

So, run an oil tanker or a freighter full of fertilizer into a major US port, and blow it up. Seriously spectacular, and quite feasable. But we're too busy confiscating toothpaste tubes to prepare for that one.

Doppy

But you see, the "their" you're referring to are people who think it is their right to limit my rights. And generally they want to do so in ways that does nothing to improve security.

You can feel however you want - that's your right. But the government can't violate everyone else's rights just to please you.

robvberg

I am not completely sure I can answer this effectively. Not without pulling out alot of studying again. I would probably look at some modifications to screening. But as someone mentioned above. It is important to work on logically securing the rest of the airport and some of the other weak spots. To be honest I think aircraft have dropped in overall danger but we need to work at disrupting the groups earlier. Some of that is based on profiling and disruption. undecover and intel gathering. It is nearly impossible to stop a well planned op through defensive security measures. You can only make it difficult to succeed. And then hopefully roll up the attackers after. As many have said after the kennedy assassination, you can not protect someone if the attackers are determined enough. the same is true here.

Doppy

The hold is pressurized. Any in any case, it only took a pound of explosives to bring down Pan Am 103.

Travellin' Fool

U.S. ports are fairly secure in that area, your scenario [edit] in the u.s. [/edit] is highly unlikely. I know this because I have directly dealt with the idiosyncrasies of port perimeter and interior security. However, what's coming into the country on the containers is a concern. Without going into too much detail, we do have fairly intricate and effective algorithms as far as how we search our containers but since it's still based on a pseudo-random search instead of searching everything there are loopholes.

Travellin' Fool

I was travelling there so i put it in my location, been to lazy to change it. I'm a U.S. (America is a continent) Citizen living in the U.S.

Doppy

Anyone can get around the search criteria fairly easily.

ABC's Brian Ross was able to get depleted uranium artillery shells (which emit radiation grossly similar to what a nuclear weapon would) in through cargo containers twice.

MKEbound

The original baggie pass though security for the third time today, this time at MKE concourse D.

No comment from the lone TSA employee who saw it.