The Christmas bomber has unleashed a whole new level of ineffectual crazy on us. I am not talking about the Nigerian perpetrator himself, but the new wave of airline regulations his attempt has triggered. If they become permanent, air-travel that is already uncomfortable will be even more so. First-up is a rule on international flights that prohibits travellers from leaving their seats or having anything on their laps in the final hour of the flight. Anyone with a weak bladder might have to forgo the Continent this year; but would-be bombers will not be inconvenienced at all. They will simply detonate an hour earlier.
This new rule mimics the logic that, in the wake of the 2001 “Shoe-Bomber’s” attempt to ignite his Ked’s, has us removing our shoes for inspection before every flight. The latest would be blaster left his seat and attempted to detonate himself in the bathroom one hour before arrival. Process of elimination. One can only extrapolate that this approach will ultimately have us arriving at the airport a day earlier, stripping naked, submitting to a cavity search, then donning orange jumpsuits equipped with NASA waste collectors for the trip home.
We all know and love the rule change that netted a bonanza of free health and beauty products for some casual somebodies charged with emptying the bins of discarded toiletries at security check-ins. Now how does that rule go again? I try not to fly, but I think the current rule might go something like this: only 2-oz. containers of any one liquid or gel, sealed in a quart-size zip-lok baggie, with a maximum of five items per baggie. My husband, who travels much more than I do, once asked the security screener what would happen if he decided to open his baggie during the flight and take something out? The security screener was at a total loss for an answer. He clearly had been given no explanation for the purpose of the rule. I think we all have similar stories of complete disconnect in the airport security chain, but the latest episode over Detroit compels me to share one more personal tale of security sillies.
In September, I drove a friend to Burlington airport for a flight to Las Vegas. She was attending her nephew’s wedding, and she had crammed as much as she could into her carry-on in the likely event that her luggage got lost.
It was a Sunday, the airport was quiet and she had arrived well in advance of her flight. When she reached the security screeners table, they asked her if, since there was plenty of time, she would “mind” if they submitted her carry-on to one of their random full-searches. She considered saying “no” because she didn’t like the idea of trying to cram everything back into her bag again; but she couldn’t see how she could refuse. The screener opened the bag and “wanded” the interior with a preliminary swipe, then ran the swab through a spectrometer which reacted with an alarm. All hell broke loose. “PETN!” the screener called out to another security staffer, “PETN?!” she responded concernedly. A chorus rose of “PETN!, PETN!”
The suitcase was unpacked and thoroughly swabbed, inside and out. My friend was searched and asked again if anyone had had the opportunity to tamper with her bag. She finally demanded an explanation and was told that PETN is essentially the “bang” in bullets, and there was a trace of it somewhere on her suitcase. They told her that she could have picked-it-up just wheeling her bag through the airport! The equipment was so sensitive that it could detect the tiniest grain of PETN. She stuffed her possessions back into her bag and was allowed to board. It made a great story at the wedding; and on her way home again, she wasn’t even queried. Then we forgot all about it until yesterday when the whole country learned that the Christmas bomber had somehow smuggled eight ounces of PETN onto his flight!
Ah, the myth of airport security: extremely random searches with equipment so insanely sensitive that it can detect particles too small to detonate, and so expensive and time-consuming to employ that only a tiny fraction of passengers can ever be screened. And who does the random screening nab for PETN? Not Mr. Christmas bomber who sails through check-in on an international flight with eight ounces of the Big Bang…no, not him, despite the fact that his own father had already warned the authorities. Instead, a middle-aged Vermont woman on her way to a Vegas wedding gets the full business.
When is National Security going to finally admit that we might as well be reciting incantations over passenger lists for all the practical good each new “regulation” does toward securing terror-free skies? We’re never going to be able to throw enough money at the problem to actually solve it through screening and regulations. In reality, if every single passenger was physically checked for every possible threat, and every single article in every single bag was screened as well, we might narrow the percentages considerably, but the cost of an airline ticket would quadruple, and we’d all have to get to the airport the night before our departure. The airline industry won’t absorb the losses, the taxpayers won’t fund them, and the passengers will get the shaft pretty much as usual.
Welcome to 2010.
…doesn’t happen in Europe. A U.S. traveler in Mexico reported that a security guy in the Mexico City airport led a musical chorus of “Don’t take off your shoes” directed the gringos.
The jihadists aren’t completely stupid. They will aim for the cracks in the armor, not the center of the armor, and there is no such thing as armor without cracks. What we see in airports and public buildings is mostly security theater to make us feel better.
Terrorism is a politically motivated crime. The proper modes of response to it involve politics and law enforcement. Criminal investigation, intelligence work, and interdiction are important, but short term band-aids. The real long term solution is getting our Middle Eastern policies straightened out. That will require us to get our energy policies straightened out. Which, as mentioned elsewhere, will require getting our campaign finance policies straightened out.
I hope I never have to fly again on a US airliner. I’ve never particularly liked it that much to begin with, but now I want to avoid it altogether.
it isn’t really that much different in our own backyard, where the taxes we pay for police action have migrated from public safety to law enforcement. The neighborhood cop who may have prevented crime is replaced by the guy who comes out and fills out a paper when you are the subject of one.
Theater is the best identifier for what most of these groups are doing. The most effective way to bypass any security system is to become the janitor… unlimited access pretty much.
As Sue points out, the US’ kneejerk response to any attempted act of terrorism is to overreact to the specific tactic of a specific terrorist. This is known in the vernacular as “locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.” Given the fact that Abdulmutallab (allegedly) hid the explosive inside his pants, my first thought was maybe TSA will make everybody take their pants off at the checkpoint, or make every passenger wear Speedos for easy visual inspection. Of course, people wouldn’t stand for that, so TSA won’t do it — whether it makes sense or not.
Which is one of the fundamental problems with airport security. It’s a balance between heightening security and minimizing inconvenience to passengers. They can’t do anything that might convince people not to fly, because that would affect corporate bottom lines. Just as they don’t do anything about the real breach in security — the cargo carried by every airliner — because the business community would scream bloody murder.
Us cynics call it “security theater” — a performance piece designed to make us think that steps are being taken, that our security is being guarded, whether it actually is or not. So take off those shoes, step through the gate, and smile.
I used to fly a lot – all over the world – and I loved it. Since these politicized “security” checks started after 9/11, I haven’t flown, except for once to China (where I wasn’t alowed to bring an unopened bottle of water onto the plane back to the US until the checker had popped the safety seal and stuck his nose into the water) and once to an early anti-Iraq War demo in D.C. On that trip I was in disbelief as I was made to take off my shoes in the Burlington airport so the screener could test for bomb material. (I wasn’t thus tested in the DC airport on the return.) I got myself a used camper van and have been having a wonderful time seeing the USA ever since. The stupidity of level of political astuteness is rivaled only by the magnificence of this country and the good hearts of its inhabitants when they aren’t tied up in fear induced insanity. I would never have dreamed that They would ruin flying for political theatre.