[The E]

Don't you feel safer knowing that America is protected by vigilant security professionals at all times who make sure that the dangerous individuals known as 4-year-old girls or disabled 7-year-olds are only allowed to board a plane after a thorough body search?

[MP-Ryan]

Modern airport security:  inconveniencing people to give the illusion of security.

[NGTM-1R]

Modern airport security:  inconveniencing people to give the illusion of security.

Has this not been the cases since they put in metal detectors?

[Grizzly]

It's a deterrent, like having enough nukes to destroy the world 100 times over. You only need to destroy the world once (Although destroying it another few times is good for fun), but you keep building those nukes because nukes are SCAARY

Same with airport security... But those waiting ques do make some interesting targets. Why target single flights? If you can cause rampage on an airfield, you can have a much bigger effect with much less means.

[Sushi]

Modern airport security:  inconveniencing people to give the illusion of security.

Has this not been the cases since they put in metal detectors?

Yes, but the security/inconvenience ratio has gotten much worse since then.

Also, this is a topic I can rage about all day, but I shall forbear. I'll just say that disbanding the TSA is a fantastic way to get my vote.

[The E]

The fundamental problem with airport security (which has been amply demonstrated by people like Bruce Schneier) is that it is completely reactive in nature. Bad guys use knifes to take pilots hostage? Ban knifes, reinforce doors. Bad people use shoes to smuggle explosives? Make people take their shoes of. Since all these measures are known and visible, it takes a rather dumb terrorist to get caught by these things.
In essence, all of this bullsit just ensures that the next attack (if indeed there is a next attack) will use a vector that isn't covered.
Just as it is more or less impossible to stop someone determined to commit suicide, it is impossible to stop a well-planned and executed terror strike; your best hope is to head off the attack before it leaves the planning stage. Which means human intelligence, not some minimum wage goon paid to grope people before boarding a plane.

[StarSlayer]

The fundamental problem with airport security (which has been amply demonstrated by people like Bruce Schneier) is that it is completely reactive in nature. Bad guys use knifes to take pilots hostage? Ban knifes, reinforce doors. Bad people use shoes to smuggle explosives? Make people take their shoes of. Since all these measures are known and visible, it takes a rather dumb terrorist to get caught by these things.
In essence, all of this bullsit just ensures that the next attack (if indeed there is a next attack) will use a vector that isn't covered.
Just as it is more or less impossible to stop someone determined to commit suicide, it is impossible to stop a well-planned and executed terror strike; your best hope is to head off the attack before it leaves the planning stage. Which means human intelligence, not some minimum wage goon paid to grope people before boarding a plane.

If I'm not mistaken the Israelis are supposed to have an excellent system based on hiring and training intelligent personnel.  Essentially they go through the lines asking simple questions and depending on the reactions are able to escalate as necessary.

[redsniper]

I like the part where young attractive women are more likely to randomly selected for full-body scans and wanding and stuff.

[Grizzly]

If I'm not mistaken the Israelis are supposed to have an excellent system based on hiring and training intelligent personnel.  Essentially they go through the lines asking simple questions and depending on the reactions are able to escalate as necessary.

Except for that case where a group of a family of Dutch girls along with their boyfriends were held up for hours because the Isreali's had problems with the slightly tanned dutchman of North-African decent, who was investigated for hours, even though the man was Dutch in any way a man can be Dutch (Account of one of the people I study with).

[Scotty]

I'm very inclined to doubt that, considering how brown most of the region's population happens to be.  Israelis included.

[Mika]

I just some times wish I could tell in public of some of the things what has happened to me with the airport security. Too bad I can't, I don't want to give anyone any silly ideas.

But basically, the one who said it is reactionary is correct.

[Dragon]

This only shows how successful terrorist are. Because of them, people are paranoid, scared and afraid of another bombing. Getting around the world is annoying due to security measures, and trust in government decreased. In short, the terrorists are winning the "War on Terror", and it doesn't seem like it's going to change soon.

[Nuke]

this is why i started taking boats. and you still have to show your ids to the ****ing smurffs.
at least they dont touch you, or scan you, or look through your stuff, or confiscate your knives and firearms (though you are expected to leave them in the cargo hold).

[Alex Heartnet]

A lot has been said against the TSA.  According to TIME magazine, they have yet to catch a single terrorist, and spend on average 2 million taxpayer dollars per gun they actually manage to confiscate.  It has repeatedly been demonstrated how a terrorist could easily slip something past the TSA if they really wanted to.  And the establishment of the TSA was unnecessary in the first place because airports were using private contractors for security before they came along.

Even worse, by allowing the government to curtail freedoms in exchange for security, we are letting the so-called 'terrorists' win.  By definition a terrorist's goal is to spread fear and terror, and by that definition they seem to be succeeding.

[Nuke]

i got my dope past the tsa, just dont ask how.

[Scourge of Ages]

I was flying home from Florida a couple of months ago with my brother. At the airport, we each got in two different screening lines to get past the checkpoint.
Neither of us noticed it at the time, it was only after I got past the checkpoint that I noticed that I had happened to choose the "metal detector/oh-he's-probably-safe" line, where my brother had accidentally picked the "backscatter/wand/pat-down" line.

It seemed kind of funny that an actually determined smuggler could just pick the right line and slip on through.

[MP-Ryan]

i got my dope past the tsa, just dont ask how.

Not hard, airport security ion scanners are calibrated for explosives, not drugs.  Customs on the other hand...

I worked in an airport (for the CBSA, before I switched departments) for a little over a year, and dealt with the morons in airport security virtually daily.  It's a joke - an absolute, complete, farcical mess.  I had a hilarious moment a few days ago flying for work.  One of the screeners pulled me aside to run the ion scan on my hands (for explosives) and asked me if I'd ever had it done before.  I patiently explained to him that I used to run the machine for another federal agency.  The look on his face was pretty entertaining.

Just like how they harass pilots over mother****ing nail clippers, yet the pilot can access a goddamned fire axe in the cockpit.  Ridiculous.

[jr2]

Seriously, pilots should be allowed to have whatever they want with them, within reason.  For the flight, they are master and commander of the craft and its passengers, to the point where they can point at someone and say "they aren't boarding my plane", and that's the law.  So, unless it's explosives, (except for ammo for a sidearm, if they carry), drugs, or other such obviously improper material, I don't see why the pilot can't take whatever he wants on board the craft that he is ultimately responsible for.

[Nuke]

i remember when they used to put those fire axes in certain places in the cabin, in the overhead bins near the flight attendant stations. if there was a fire onboard the plane i doubt you could get to a fire axe in a timely fashion. im just waiting for all this extra security to actually kill people.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Seriously, pilots should be allowed to have whatever they want with them, within reason.  For the flight, they are master and commander of the craft and its passengers, to the point where they can point at someone and say "they aren't boarding my plane", and that's the law.  So, unless it's explosives, (except for ammo for a sidearm, if they carry), drugs, or other such obviously improper material, I don't see why the pilot can't take whatever he wants on board the craft that he is ultimately responsible for.

Maybe they are afraid that the pilot will go crazy during a flight and do something funny with what they brought with them.