Please read again -- the point is that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is doing this, NOT the airlines. The airlines (except DL ) are complicitous only to the extent that they are required to be.

Obviously TSA & the screening processes is a 'hot' topic on both sides, and I don't usually post on it. I don't feel as strongly about either side of the issue as some of you do.

But I'm absolutely stunned & appalled that anyone would compare TSA & Nazis - there is a world - and was a war - of difference.

Regardless of different viewpoints, those type of comments, I think, are inappropriate and I would like to think we're more mature and professional than to say things like that.



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Sharon

I think the appropriate response is "Godwin's Law - you lose" followed by an immediate end to the discussion.


(for more info than you ever wanted to know about Godwin's Law -- look here.)

We could be so lucky.

We really need an Anti-TSA forum, because "In the News" is now mostly articles that are critical of the TSA to which all the anti-TSA FlyerTalkers add their own anti-TSA comments to.

I happen to have few issues with the TSA, but I understand those who have had numerous poor experiences with and I also understand that much of what the TSA is being chartered to do (often by Congress and the Administration) is, in the "big picture", highly ineffective at preventing a terrorist attack.

Besides, National Intellegence Assets seem to be doing a great job of keeping tabs on the terrorists and nipping their plans in the bud well before they get past the "How bout we..." stage. And when Point(yhead)dexter gets his "Eye of Sauron" intelligence-gathering system, well, no bad thoughts will go unnoticed and everything will be hunky-dory.

I have no way of knowing, but suspect that to the average German of the era the home guard did not seem to talk with funny accents and slink around spouting comic opera commands- rather, they were just regular people, just like the average German, perceived as just doing their job. And trying to protect them all from what was perceived as an insidious enemy.

That the citizens had to produce papers and restrict their movements to directives of these officials of a democratically-elected government was something suffered for the greater good.

I'm not saying I support the analogy, but I suspect that's the viewpoint of some that are making it.

Plz read again, I stated that this was in place before we arrived. TSA had nothing to do with selectee status.

Then please tell me why we are spending billions of dollars searching for harmless pointy objects when there are much larger holes in security????

There is a residential neighborhood directly across the street from where a unway starts/ends at BWI. I have driven down this road when planes are landing. It wouldn't take a stinger to shoot one down.



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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

<sigh>

That may be the case but the TSA is an arm of the Federal Government. So -- the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is perpetrating this nonsense and the TSA is "just following orders" (uh oh -- I might be violating Godwin's Law myself!)

Because those "harmless" pointy objects (well, edged objects) brought down four aircraft, two skyscrapers, and killed thousands of people.

We may find many of these policies relatively ineffective and pointless, but the average public still seems to think it makes them safer. And with the media hyping every breach as the "next 9/11", the government telling us terrorism can happen "any minute" (Code Yellow) and occasionally telling us it is even more probable (Code Orange), the average public continues to show fear about flying - it's the ultra low fares that are convincing them to "take their chances".

Prior to 9/11, people could take four-inch blades aboard a plane. Then a handful of people use frelling boxcutters to pull off 9/11. Is it any wonder the public demanded everything with a point be yanked?

The problem with this policy now is cockpit doors are now essentially invulnerable to everything short of an assault rifle or the Jaws of Life. Which is why the TSA has "lightened up" a little (they now allow nail files again, I think).

Still, they need to "lighten up" more. For one, the metal detectors are still set way too sensative (I have never set off a detector at any government facility, while the same outfit is guaranteed to set off an airport detector.

Also, while I do not support bringing knives back aboard, things like scissors and such should not be banned items as they cannot penetrate a cockpit and the flight attendants and passengers are now considered "expendable", so it would not (or should not) change the minds of the flight crew in a hostage situation.

Unfortunately, Richard Reid made shoes a weapon. I'm not sure how an x-ray helps detect plastic explosive (can it be seen?), but at least they are not swabbing them for explosives (that would really slow things down).

Of course, the future is things like the backscatter x-ray machine and the "personal explosives sniffer" used at the CN Tower, for example. That way, people do not have to "disrobe" and can just spend a few moments in the scanner, be cleared, and move on. This should help reduce waits and would negate the need for secondary screening, which I think help contributes to the "traffic jam" as SS'ed folks come back to grab their goodies or their companions stand around waiting for them.

[This message has been edited by SEA_Tigger (edited 07-11-2003).]

As far as I know the process of upgrading cockpit doors is still in progress.

Well, we should be getting pretty close - not to mention it is in the airline's interests to complete it ASAP so they can crow how "safe" they are. I believe a review of banned items can start now, since it will take months to implement, anyway.

Cockpit-door replacement was required by law to be completed by April 2003 -- at least in the U.S. I believe that it has been accomplished. Thus, we don't really need to be concerned about tiny scissors and the like any longer.

Bruce

Not that I worry about tiny scissors, but what about all the Canadian and other international aircraft that use the same terminals and aren't retrofitted yet?

Well, I'm not an expert on this, but I believe that all aircraft using U.S. airports must have the new doors. I may be wrong about that.

I suppose someone could hijack a plane in Canada and fly it into the U.S., but eventually you get into some pretty remote contingencies, as we actuaries say!

Bruce

Yeah, I was kinda of talking out of my arse there. I don't know either.