In one case, I can explain. Before the flight, my girlfriend wanted to remove the scissors she keeps in her carry-on bag and put it into her checked bag. But she couldn't find it. So she assumed she must have moved it the day before and forgotten. The X-ray found the scissors, deep inside one of the pockets she forgot to look in.

Ed

I would say the terrorists have succeeded on 9/11. They have caused everyone to become security freaks.

Rightly or wrongly, trust is something no longer given freely. Millions of travellers are put through considerable inconveniences to prevent another hijacking.

As a frequent flier, I find it a huge pain to go through the new security processes. There are certainly valid reasons to have the security processes, and I do endure them with a smile on my face, even if I do feel violated time and time again.

The terrorists have succeeded on a magificent scale. No where else in the animal kingdom can a extremely small group of animals leverage such control and fear over such a large group of a population.

The terrorists have affected our daily lives, our outlook on travel, our freedom to travel, our freedom to vacation, our freedom to privacy.

Osama Bin Laden and his terrorists have definitely won the war on terrorism. Look at the airline industry, our federal and state budgetary crisis. Look at all the attention spent on interior plane security, while other softer targets are neglected.

I've never understood this. Why should the terrorists care whether we have to undergo increased security or not? In THEIR minds, I'm sure this has nothing to do with whether they consider themselves to have won or not. I mean, do you really think Osama Ben Laden cares whether we have to go through an X-ray machine?

In their minds, they will have won when we are either all dead, or all devout Muslims.

Ed


[This message has been edited by suranyi (edited 12-06-2002).]

Definitely OBL cares whether you go through an "X" Ray machine or not. Terrorism ensures economic penalties as well as mortal . Create terror and you increase expenditure on security.

Nigel

Terrorism is about destroying a way of life that they don't agree with. The ultimate goal may be death to us all but I am sure they take some pleasure in knowing that they have chiseled away many of our freedoms. Things that we as Americans took for granted pre 9/11.

The events of 9/11 have changed the way we live. These changes will affect us and many generations to come for a long time. Terrorists know this and think this is great.

What concerns me is how far we as a country are willing to take this. Terrorism is something that I believe can never be eliminated. It has been around for hundreds of years and will be around for hundreds of more years. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can win this so called war. Just like we think we can win the war against drugs.

We are fighting an enemy with no rules, no boundaries, and no country we can invade. No one leader that once killed will cause the rest of the structure to self-destruct. Terrorism is something I fear will be around for a long time.

I think there is one way that terrorism could be wiped out but it comes with a heavy price, it comes with the elimination of our personal freedoms. Will the government be so focused on winning this war that they there will come a time when they don't care what rights are violated or eliminated?

I do not consider myself an alarmists, I consider myself a realist. Let the deluge of criticism begin.

rawbert

Beergut said:

>Your constitutional rights are of no use >whatsoever if you're dead.

and

>Go on USA , get rid of the " intrusive " >security and have your " rights" chiselled >into your headstone.

These statements are relevant only if you can show that if we keep our constitutional rights, we will die. The truth is more of us will die from auto accidents that from terrorism. We seem to have accepted auto deaths as a cost of personal mobility. Maybe we should make our peace with the fact that terrorism won't be going away soon, take reasonable precautions of course, and maybe try to eliminate some of the reasons terrorism exists.

Exactly!

We should make peace with the fact that some will die as a result of terrorist attacks and try to eliminate/minimize those deaths - but not by infringing on my constitutional rights.

To re-phrase beergut's observation: My life is of no use if my rights have been taken away.

As they say in New Hampshire, Live Free or Die.

Rawbert, I thought the same thing come 9-11. I am reminded of a certain lieutenant's defense that "we had to destroy the village in order to save it." One wonders at what point security measures will secure a world no longer worth, well, the security measures.

Living more than the mere life is not possible either if you have no constitutional rights whatsoever.

Osama bin Laden, henchmen and ilk are, to some degree, students (perverted students) of history. They know well that the security and defense expenditures of the Soviet Bloc were so cumbersome that their economies collapsed under the burden. They are hoping to do the same thing to us. Fortunately, there are two things they forget: open market economics (capitalism) have a way to finance not only defense-related expenditures over longer periods of time than planned economies but our system also creates better economic growth to allow us to continue spending for longer periods of time -- more or less sustainably. The other item they forgot is that people work better when free.

[This message has been edited by GUWonder (edited 12-09-2002).]

Ok I'm assuming that you 4 guys above believe that being randomly searched is a breach of your constitutional rights or am I wrong?.

If that is the case then I also assume that you're happy flying with people carrying knives/guns or anything else they may care to bring aboard. Have I got the facts right ?

Nigel

I believe it is a breach of my Constitutional Rights but the Supreme Court will likely disagree with me, should the case ever be brought before them. I also think it's a disgusting violation of my person and belongings without probable cause.

I could care less if people bring knives on board. Or bats. Or box cutters. Or pool cues. I trust the x-ray machines and the magnetometers to keep out the real weapons, namely guns and bombs.



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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Interesting that while you apparently trust the TSA screeners for nothing else you are trusting them to do something which is beyond the capability of the technology in use.

Guns are probably the easiest weapon to detect on the Xray though the detection rate can be reduced by careful placement and surrounding them with material of similar density.

Explosive devices, on the other hand, can be made of items that look quite routine in a piece of luggage. That is why they are using the sophisticaed 3D MRI-type machines for screening checked luggage and even those are unable to completely clear all bags.

But you already know that, you just choose to ignore it.

When there is a large block of dense, material, do you think the screeners will just pass it because they don't see a gun?

Explosives also give off a different colored signature on the x-ray. The newer CT EDS machines that the TSA is blowing billions of dollars on might have better resolution were it not for the 30% false-positive rates and unknown false-negative rates.

But of course you knew both of these things too and just chose to ignore them as well...



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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

The "block of dense material" can be made to look like ordinary items.

The Xray can show organic material in a different color but there are lots of things, other than explosives, that will show up as organic.

The new checked bag screening machines are the best technology we currently have available. They do what no other current technology can do which is to quickly clear large quantities of checked bags which greatly reduces the number of bags which need additional attention.

The X-ray's false-positive rate is considerably lower than the EDS CT machines.

I'm not sure what you mean by "quickly clear large quantities of checked bags" when the false-positive rate has been shown to be 30+% and the false-negative rate is unknown.



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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry