danielonn, are you living in Israel? Then I can understand where you come from, I mean where those ideas come from. But, God beware, we don't need that yet in the US and we hopefully never will. Absolutely nothing is going to stop armies of people who are ready to die and stuff explosive devices in any humanly possible area.

The only thing that will make us ALL safer is if Israel and the US start to make friends instead of enemies even if that means heavy concessions and jumping over their own shadow.

Till

Speaking of the "finest sense of the dramatic", who mentioned anything about harassment?

I certainly never felt I was being harassed either at TLV or by El Al outside of the country. The interviewers are very well-trained and professional but they are also polite and usually very friendly. In fact, my only complaint is that quite a number of them are attractive young women who don't get involved in much longer conversations with me. :mad:

You can joke with them (once, when asked if I had a weapon, I replied, "I have the most powerful weapon in history in my hand luggage -- a book") and they will reply in kind. There is no shouting, yelling, or attempts to show off their authority.

As I mentioned earlier, for an Israeli, the interview generally takes about 2 minutes. An American will usually take about 5 minutes. Yes, it does involve profiling and a young, Arab, male -- even if he has Israeli citizenship -- will get asked more questions.

Here is the interesting part: I am an Israeli exception to the rule in that I prefer flying Delta to El Al. This has nothing to do with security, I simply don't like El Al's service on the ground. While some Israeli Arabs have complained about the profiling, the majority are like all other Israelis -- they fly El Al even when given a choice. Arabs, just like Jews, have absolutely no desire to be on a hijacked airplane.

Yes, you can consider any question asked of you by a security official to be "harassment" but I don't think that many people, Israeli or not, would go to that extreme.

In the meantime, no one here is talking about x-raying through our clothing, demanding that we take our shoes off, limiting how much liquid we can bring on a flight, or requiring us to put bottles in little Ziplock bags.

I really could not care less. I refuse to be interviewed/interrogated upon departure about my travel plans or other aspects of my life. It is no one's business but my own. If being forced to answer such ridiculous questions is the price of leaving Israel, then I consider that to be harassment and will happily pass on the entire experience.

That is your right and your decision. Frankly, I suspect that most people flying in or out of a country which is constantly subjected to terrorist attacks, and flights have repeatedly been targeted (although after the first attack all subsequent attempts have been foiled by Israeli security), are more comfortable knowing that there is effective protection.

You (and others) have repeatedly complained about "security theater" in the US. Israel has the opposite -- effective security procedures. The difference, of course, is that looking for weapons is only a cursory activity and the true effort is put into looking for terrorists.

That's the point. Israel is a country at war and has been so it's entire existance. The country and it's people have reached a different balance point than the US has with it's history.

The other difference is that much of what is done in Israel is done effectively, albeit in the small.

Walking into a store, the guards actually looked in my bag. He pushed up from the bottom to see the entire contents. Does that make the country as a whole safer? No. But it does give me a smidge of confidence that I can shop in that store or mall as safely as one can. So it's worth MY giving up a little personal freedom and it's worth the store hiring professionals who do the job right. Or I decide otherwise and take my business down the street.

Do only HALF, and you are right - it's theatre.

What the US is doing today is seeking the new balance point. But we are doing so under half-truths, theatre, etc. And resistance from those of us who cherish our constitutional freedoms.

What we need to to is to create groups like the NRA for the other 9 amendments. The ACLU needs to pick ONE amendment and defend it with appropriate zeal. Then we as a society can pick and choose from among the zealots and reach our new balance point.

-----Burton

Am I reading this correctly? Is Bart claiming that xraying shoes detects explosives? The same xray that cannot detect explosives in my water bottle? :confused:

Hmm, wouldn't the botched puffers have detected explosives in shoes if TSA didn't make people take off shoes before entering the puffer?

A shoe bomb is an IED, so I fail to see the distinction between shoe explosives and IEDs.

Super

No. The X-ray can detect an anomaly in the shoe that should not be there. Could be bubblegum for all we know, but we still have to check it out. An ETD would tell us what it is NOT, and in some cases what it IS. What should not be there stands out, with training and experience. We don’t need to know exactly what it is before we call for a bag check (shoe check in this case), only that something is “wrong with this picture”.

I had a couple of pairs of loafers that had hollow heels. It was quite annoying when they wore down to the point that the heels started picking up loose stone from my driveway. I am sure they would have been a serious security threat. :td:

What is "wrong with this picture" is that the TSA gets it wrong repeatedly despite all the money the US public is giving it. It's wasted money and will be as long as the TSA isn't cut down to size.

One traveling TSO randomly visiting airports? :D

I consider both the US and Israeli versions of "security" to be nothing but harassment. A pox on both houses. It doesn't have to be intrusive or stupid to be effective.

Spiff You are stuck in a time warp. You believe in something called individual freedom. America has changed and now you are the unamerican piece of crap that this country wants to get rid of.

Remember you are told just how to love and support America. The founders got so much wrong and that is now being rectified.

Agreed. What may be effective and workable in one country (especially regarding constitutional rights) isn't necessarily so for another country. The Israeli model may be effective for the threat and situation it addresses over there, but wouldn't work due to it being overly invasive and quite frankly, overkill for what we're dealing with in the US. If Israeli security were implemented here, it would still security theater as it wouldn't meet US needs, laws or situations.

If security were a "one size fits all" endeavor, it'd be pretty easy and wouldn't have an industry built up around it.

Super