safe to fly?

I was speaking with a friend of mine the other day who works for a certain government entity. He just got back from some anti-terrorist training. Apparently, they performed a study at the LAX airport and found that 40% of the people selected for random screening were females from the ages of 18 to 25 and the majority of those were blond. Seems they all want to wand the blond.

Now, I don't know about you but it seems to me that history shows the threat isn't from young attractive females but from middle eastern muslim males.... Maybe we should rethink our approach.

 

when my wife and I flew to Myrtle Beach in may, we were stopped twice...at the first airport leaving, and the first airport coming home. the only thing we could think is we bought our tickets from cheapfares.com. they decided they would check us when we checked in...the girl at the counter highlighted our tickets.

 

Our current airport security has more holes than Swiss cheese. Not only do we refuse to focus on those that might actually BE terrorists, watering down our efforts drastically, but screening employees miss a ton of stuff. They religiously remove nail clippers and paperback books with a bomb on the cover, but frequently miss the dummy guns, knives, and bombs in carry-on luggage that are used to test their competence and performance. Plus, security on the ramp outside the terminals has always been a joke, and still is.

Now. The good news is that even with shoddy security, today's reality is that any group of terrorists that tries to commandeer an aircraft WILL get mobbed and buried by passengers, and so they're not likely to try that stunt again. If their intent is to blow up the plane, they CAN do that, although the risks of getting caught are slightly higher than they were pre-9/11. However, considering the thousands of planes that fly every day, and the hundreds of people on each plane, the odds of being killed by a terrorist on an airliner are still far lower than the risk of being killed in your car on the ground on a driving vacation. We always worry about the wrong things, particularly about the sensational things, which is what makes terror attacks useful.

 

The last time I flew, they opened my suitcases and went through them because I had some Slim-Fast bars in the inside pocket, and the wrappers (foil) showed up on the x-ray and they didn't know what they were. Fine, whatever. I also had to run my boarding pass and bottle of water (clear) through the x-ray to get to the gate. Also fine, whatever.

The guy seated across the aisle from me at one point during the flight took out a pocket knife to cut the tag out of the back of his shirt. Seriously. WTF?

I figure it's no more or less safe in general, but at least other passengers are now more aware than they were.

 

Can't do anything real about security right now. Our culture is too PC (politically correct, not personal computer).

It would take a lot more killing to drive the point home.

 

Actually that is true. This guy that did the study is a risk management person. The TSA is being ran as if they they are afraid of being sued. The focus should be on people possibly dying rather than if they may be sued.

We recently found during a meeting with a risk management attourney that all of our policies were being made by people who were undeducated about the law and were making the decisions based on the fact that they didn't want to get sued. Well, you can be sued for anything!!! Risks are inevitable you just have to manage them.

 

well flying would still be safer than trying to drive of this island teehee

 

I got stopped by security flying home from atlanta cos i had a tin of baked beans in my suitcase. The security guy pulled it out, laughed and put it back. We had a laugh about it. Gets your blood pumping a little faster though!

Note to UK ppl: Baked beans in the southern states- not like Heinz Beans. A must try.

 

i miss heinz , and oxo's, and salad cream, and flakes, and real cream, and butter, and real bacon, and.........

 

Maybe it was the Space Ghost outfit???? LOL

My cousin works for Air NZ, 6'5", middle-aged blonde blue-eyed, says he gets searched at every U.S. airport (countless trips a year) On a list I guess but no one can figure out why!

 

Do you know something G.T. they say lightning never strikes twice, they obviously don't know you. (en)Lightning is always striking













Not being obsequious, just an observation

 

I've got a friend who is just about identical, but a couple of inches shorter. Blonde, blue-eyed, clean-cut...the poster child for All-American Boy.

He's been stopped every time he flies for as long as he can remember, WAY before September 11. They check people who don't look like drug runners, because those are the people who are typically running drugs, or smuggling something else.

 

I'll tell him that! He'll probably get a kick out of the fact that at least someone thinks he could be subversive in any way! Put it this way, if he and GT were trying to board the same flights, the delay could be for days

 

I had to fly to Nashville 1 1/2 months after 9-11,, and security was unbeleivable, but on the way there nothing really happened. Before I came back, I stopped at a very famous little truck stop, had breakfast, and bought a 20 LB country ham to take back. LOL,, they ran it through Xray twice,, and still called a security supervisor to look at it. They finally let me through, and when I got on the plane, some jokester yelled "Look Out,, He's got cold cuts!!!"

Everyone had a good, (if nervous) laugh.

 

ROFL! I, on the other hand, sail through security unless I'm stupid and get there really early so they have nothing else to do. Does that mean I look like someone who would be smuggling, so they don't suspect me? http://smilies.jeeptalk.org/cwm/3dlil/eek13.gif

 

After 9/11, when we all got busy confiscating nail clippers and any kind of pointy things, El Al (Israeli; main targets for terrorists for YEARS) instituted a new twist to their first class service. Along with the real, metal silverware that they've always passed out in first class, they started passing out complimentary nail clippers to every 1st class passenger. Everybody that boards an El Al flight has been thoroughly personally screened before they even reach the airport. ANYBODY questionable is grilled in person at the airport, and either cleared to their satisfaction, or denied a boarding pass. Inspections are competent. But when you get on that plane, they're not worried about what's in your pocket, they know who YOU are.

We always, always focus on and try to treat the symptoms and ignore the problems. Nowhere more evident than in our handling of airport security.

 

As does our international border with our neighbor to the South. Americans legally reentering the country through a U.S. Customs checkpoint are scrutinized as if we're all drug smugglers, while the illegals and the real smugglers enter unmolested through tunnels and gaps in our border 'security'

 

Both southern AND northern borders. While Canadians have never been a worry to us, Canada has become a safe-haven for Islamic terrorists in the last few years, acknowledged by both governments. Canada refuses to address the issue, and we refuse to pay any attention either. Homeland security is a joke.

 

And as long as we misdirect resources by linking fighting the drug war with enforcing homeland security, our actual security will suffer for it.

 

Yep! (more characters to make the minimum)