The Joke's on Us

[Bill Mattocks]

Just thought this was an interesting article and wanted to share. Hyperbole aside, he makes some good points.

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=N2M4ZjFlMDUzZDAxZGNlYjdiMzc3NjNjZDhjNjJlN2Y=

January 02, 2010, 7:00 a.m.

The Joke’s on Us
The Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. We are.

By Mark Steyn

On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear. Pretty funny, huh?

But the Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. The real laugh was the United States government. The global hyperpower spent the next week making itself a laughingstock to the entire planet. First, the bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions.

Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you. At Heathrow last week, they were permitting only one item of carry-on on U.S. flights. In Toronto, no large purses.

Um, the Pantybomber didn’t have a purse. He brought the bomb on board under his private parts, and his private parts weren’t part of his carry-on (although, if reports of injuries sustained in his failed mission are correct, they may well have been part of his carry-off). But no matter. If in doubt, blame the victim. The TSA announced that for the last hour of the flight no passenger can use the toilets or have anything on his lap — not a laptop, not a blanket, not a stewardess, not even a paperback book. I can’t wait for the first lawsuit after an infidel flight attendant confiscates a litigious imam’s Koran as they’re coming into LAX.

 

[CanuckMA]

The worst part is that none of those measures are in force for US domestic flights. Must be because no terrorist ever started their journey of destruction from inside the US...



Oh, wait...

 

[Gordon Nore]

Just thought this was an interesting article and wanted to share. Hyperbole aside, he makes some good points.

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=N2M4ZjFlMDUzZDAxZGNlYjdiMzc3NjNjZDhjNjJlN2Y=

He does indeed. In the first four paragraphs he makes an argument for why Canadians ought to be outraged at the latest round of "security theatre" (I love that phrase) rules for flying over US air space.

It makes no sense. Laptop bags, diaper bags and ladies' purses are OK, but a little flight bag or back pack might be used to transport... what? Explosive underwear. None of these reforms actually respond to the actual Christmas Day incident.

 

[Makalakumu]

I see what the writer is trying to say, but to tell the truth, I'm getting tired of pointing the finger and ridiculing the "stupid people" of government as they "overreact" here and there and everywhere. I think we need to step back and look at the bigger picture here. How many times have we heard the same excuse as more and more intrusive measures are implemented and more of our privacy (and in some cases are Rights) are trampled upon?

It's kind of like hearing a kleptomaniac apologize again and again by saying, "Oh, I thought it was mine."

When do we call a duck a duck and just accept that the government is trying to subversively introduce a highly controlled, monitored, and policed society? As long as they can keep throwing out the T word (terror) and excuse their "mistakes" with the S word (stupid), they can divert debate on what's really happening.

 

[CanuckMA]

From the Toronto Star, Dec 30, 2009

While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.
That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience.

"It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?
"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?
"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.
Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" — behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.
"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"

Once you've parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters.
Armed guards outside the terminal are trained to observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion's half-dozen entrances, another layer of security are watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer.
"This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious," said Sela.

You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side?
"The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds," said Sela.
Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.

At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. Sela plays devil's advocate — what if you have escaped the attention of the first four layers of security, and now try to pass a bag with a bomb in it?
"I once put this question to Jacques Duchesneau (the former head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority): say there is a bag with play-doh in it and two pens stuck in the play-doh. That is 'Bombs 101' to a screener. I asked Ducheneau, 'What would you do?' And he said, 'Evacuate the terminal.' And I said, 'Oh. My. God.'

"Take Pearson. Do you know how many people are in the terminal at all times? Many thousands. Let's say I'm (doing an evacuation) without panic — which will never happen. But let's say this is the case. How long will it take? Nobody thought about it. I said, 'Two days.'"

A screener at Ben-Gurion has a pair of better options.
First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away.
Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation.
"This is a very small simple example of how we can simply stop a problem that would cripple one of your airports," Sela said.

Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson — the body and hand-luggage check.

"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.
"First, it's fast — there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

This doesn't begin to cover the off-site security net that failed so spectacularly in targeting would-be Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — intelligence. In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies.

"There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none."
But even without the intelligence, Sela maintains, Abdulmutallab would not have gotten past Ben Gurion Airport's behavioural profilers.

So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive, so un-Israelified?
Working hard to dampen his outrage, Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves.

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

And rather than fear, he suggests that outrage would be a far more powerful spur to provoking that change.

"Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good'. Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable

"But, what can you do? Americans and Canadians are nice people and they will do anything because they were told to do so and because they don't know any different."

We can learn a lot from these folks.

 

[chaos1551]

As we continue spending more and more money on security we lose liberty. Do we deserve neither, as Ben Franklin would suggest? It seems a conservative security system in tandem with good anti-terrorism intelligence would work wonders to keep the U.S. safe. The more money we spend on spinning our wheels, the more the terrorists win. No, no one died--this time. But the terrorists win this battle anyway. Wasn't it Bin Laden's goal to bankrupt this country?

 

[grydth]

Whether "The system worked" will become this administration's "Mission accomplished" remains to be seen.

One hopes the public will make the government clearly understand that harassing the ordinary citizenry is in no way an acceptable substitute for keeping alien murderers out of our country. Preferably by killing them at point of origin, and more importantly, terminating the Satanic "Holy Men" who recruit and send them.

Subjecting ordinary folks to body scans or MRIs or colonoscopies does not make the skies one iota safer. Annihilating the panty bomber in Yemen would have. Invading our privacy gains nothing; putting individuals like this on the No Fly List would.

The government, not our people is the problem. It needs to develope the resolve to defend our borders and the competence to use the enormous resources out tax dollars have given it.... and it needs to substantially leave us alone while doing these.

 

[Bruno@MT]

From the Toronto Star, Dec 30, 2009



We can learn a lot from these folks.

Americans don't want to be secure. They want to FEEL secure. Big difference.

 

[Bruno@MT]

The government, not our people is the problem. It needs to develope the resolve to defend our borders and the competence to use the enormous resources out tax dollars have given it.... and it needs to substantially leave us alone while doing these.

Wrong answer. The people are the problem. If the Americans keep electing the same type of politicians time and time again, because of nothing more than a handful of punchlines or dogmatic issues, who is really to blame? If you elect incompetent, stupid greedy politicians, whose fault is it that you have an incompetent stupid greedy government?

If Americans did not reward politicians who continue the entire terrorism charade, they wouldn't be governed by them. People complain a lot on the internet, but come the next election they'll still make the same choices again: potayto or potahto.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I'm agreeing with Bruno and Canuck. Lets face it, our "experts" are idiots and showmen. The real experts are and have been laughing at them for years, and the people who face major danger and are a closer and more hated target have a tighter and better system in place and have for years.

 

[Makalakumu]

I'm agreeing with Bruno and Canuck. Lets face it, our "experts" are idiots and showmen. The real experts are and have been laughing at them for years, and the people who face major danger and are a closer and more hated target have a tighter and better system in place and have for years.

Or maybe they aren't so stupid and these measures are being put in place for another reason. These "body scanners" for example, are scanning a fully detailed biometric image of your body that will be stored in a database. You could be identified and tracked any place a camera is watching...including from space. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but then again, you don't have to go back too far in time to find a place where people would have flipped out about having images of the naked body recorded and stored by the government. This slow erosion and all of its baby steps is still a plan to tyranny and I don't think we can just chalk it up to stupidity. To some degree, this is planned.

 

[Omar B]

The new measures are crazy. But it's no worse than months after 9/11 when you get looked at cock-eyed for being so rude as being Indian and ::gasp:: having an Indian name ... because the average TSA worker can't tell the difference between that and Muslim I guess.

Maybe one day the security measures will actually address the problem.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

The new measures are crazy. But it's no worse than months after 9/11 when you get looked at cock-eyed for being so rude as being Indian and ::gasp:: having an Indian name ... because the average TSA worker can't tell the difference between that and Muslim I guess.

Maybe one day the security measures will actually address the problem.

Well, Omar, clearly you are a terrorist, because your avatar pic is blurred and crazy looking.

 

[Omar B]

No, that's just me, blurry and crazy looking.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

No, that's just me, blurry and crazy looking.

I assumed that was the case.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Refuse the service often enough and the industry will collapse of its own weight.

Meanwhile, if fly you must, bite the bullet, pay the extra and fly private charter. It is better worth throwing your money away at them than throwing your money and dignity away to THESE clowns.

 

[grydth]

Wrong answer. The people are the problem. If the Americans keep electing the same type of politicians time and time again, because of nothing more than a handful of punchlines or dogmatic issues, who is really to blame? If you elect incompetent, stupid greedy politicians, whose fault is it that you have an incompetent stupid greedy government?

If Americans did not reward politicians who continue the entire terrorism charade, they wouldn't be governed by them. People complain a lot on the internet, but come the next election they'll still make the same choices again: potayto or potahto.

The above I certainly agree with.... but you aren't answering the point I was making. I was referencing our government's unfortunate tendency to crack down on innocent citizens while not doing enough to stop the killers.

 

[Omar B]

I just realized, with these new rules I'm gonna have one hell of a time bringing my guitars onto flights as my carry on. Nothing worse than putting your instrument in with the rest of the cargo, no matter how great a flight case you have.

This is gonna be a pain in the *** for musicians ... we already look "blurry," "crazy" and I might ad that most of that is true, especially rhe blurry part.

 

[Deaf Smith]

The word now is TSA may be stopped cause of child porn laws. See if they view naked children on the scanners....

Personaly, I'd just wear underwear made of the same stuff the camera film x-ray protection bags are made of.

If they want to frisk me, ok, as long as it's done by Alessandra Ambrosio.

Deaf

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I was gonna wrap my groin in tinfoil. Hey, that much radiation can't be good for the 'boys'.