trying to make flying 100% secure from terrorists is insane anyway. If it was, are they really not able to just blow up a train? or a coach? or a shopping mall or put poison in a water treatment facility or…
The only solution to this kind of stuff is to deal with the underlying issue. The English spent a long time trying to prevent the IRA blowing up our cities. The only thing that EVER worked, was to get a negotiated peace in Northern Ireland.
Just saying…
Yeah, I agree. Even if you can make planes 100% secure it just means someone will blow up another concentration of people. Crazy plane security is not a good tradeoff.
I’m finding the news coverage of this to be a little outrageous. It’s one crazy guy but you’d think it was a foreign invasion.
Apparently guy was set up by Al Qaida branch in Yemen:
What I don’t understand, and to all the intelligence agencies monitoring the Internet, this is just the speculation of a citizen - if you wanted to create terror in the U.S. why go after targets that are covered in security, like airlines? If they had 10 people go to 10 big malls in the U.S. and blow up in the middle of the malls, all at the same time, you’d have true disruption and terror in this country. Suddenly we’d have armed soldiers and metal and explosives detectors in our malls, grocery stores, etc. and commerce in those areas would go down quite a bit (at least for a while.) And there is no way to prevent this today. I dread the day they figure this out.
The TSA has reacted to the incident and has banned moving around the cabin for one hour prior to landing.
Just fucking abolish the TSA already.
Making us all take our pants off in security would actually make more sense than that.
Apart from the fact that Al Qaida is a very different type of organisation than Warsaw Pact intelligence services then yeah, I’d be surprised if their best organisers/recruiters/planners/etc. were the ones to strap on the Semtex.
As much as it pains me to type this, cliffski nailed this one. Security theatre like the tsa isn’t helping.
I agree. But unfortunately a negotiated peace with, for example, Al Qaida is not likely to ever happen.
Ah, fuckit. I’m flying to the US in about two weeks and it’s already such a PITA… I’m sure they’ll have introduced pantless security checks before my departure.
And even if the TSA don’t operate here (or in The Netherlands) we do whatever they request us to do or our planes don’t get to land there.
I’m flying on Monday. Hooray.
Makes sense, no one would ever try to blow something up before an hour before landing.
And if you hit a pilot with a pillow he will fly the plane to Cuba.
So - the guy tried to set the thing off while in his seat. The other passengers saw and smelled what was going on and jumped him to try to keep him from doing anything further.
So the response is: You have to stay in your seat an hour before landing? That seems about as relevant to what happened as making everyone keep their seat in the unreclined position in the last hour of the flight.
True, but AQ are a group who thrive because they have genuine support from people who have a greivance against the west and the way they have behaved in certain countries.
It’s very hard to persuade hardcore AQ members to change their way, but I’m sure its possible to choke off their funding and popular support by simply making it obvious that AQs position makes no sense.
Right now, there are a lot of people in afghanistan who have recently been through a clearly corrupt and rigged election where their president is only in power because he is supported by US helicopter gunships. In that situation, people can easily be persuaded to support extremism, or at the very least, not go out of their way to co-operate in tracking down AQ members.
Treat the cause, not the symptoms.
I’m waiting for TSA to take the ultimate step: ban airplanes entirely.
I doubt they will ban them… You just won’t be allow to ride them without a sedative and full-body restraints.
Hell yes. That would be the way to fly.
Combined with the ~30m takeoff time, that means effectively only the longest transcontinental flights will ever allow you to even get out of your seat.
And yes, it’s retarded and ridiculous. For god’s sake Richard Reid was one crazy-ass terrorist wannabe who stuck plastique in his shoe and for this I’m waving my sneakers around an airport a decade later. Eventually we’ll just have to enter airplanes nude and be immediately strapped down on a vertical table, Hannibal Lector style. Airlines would be down with this because they could cram more people in steerage.
Just wait until someone tries implanting explosives subcutaneously. Then the TSA will have a surgery room at every gate.
No laptops or other devices on your lap for an hour before landing, either, apparently.
Pointless and useless.