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| Home Front: WoT |
| Poor airline security criticized |
| 2007-08-05 |
| Today, RON (remaining overnight) aircraft are invariably unattended and unlocked all night. Commercial aircraft typically do not have locks in their doors. They are protected by roving airport police patrols and closed circuit cameras. Neither methodology is very robust. A skeleton crew of employees is also on duty who may see something suspicious, but most have gone home. Jetway doors prevent access from the terminal but the exterior aircraft doors are unlocked to anyone who pushes a stairway up to them. If weapons are planted onboard, a terrorist team could have simply cleared security with their fellow passengers the next day, and armed themselves using the hidden weapons. This threat is mitigated by the fact that pilots, flight attendants, and ramp agents now routinely inspect the aircraft before flight each day, and this provides a measure of security. But it is not foolproof. Since there is little time to do a thorough inspection prior to passenger boarding, well-concealed weapons can be missed. Almost six years after 9/11, it is inexcusable that — in an environment where TSA misses more than 90% of weapons, RON aircraft are not secured, and ground employees are not screened — fewer than 2% of our airliners have a team of armed pilots aboard, fewer than 5% have air marshals, and the flight attendants have no mandatory tactical or behavioral assessment training. $24 billion dollars later, we are not materially safer, except in the areas of intelligence that prevent an attack from getting to an airport. Once at the airport, there is little reason to believe the attack won’t succeed. If these airplanes were appropriately defended, it would matter less who got onboard and with what weapon. From a comment at Jerry Pournelle's website at the moment the TSA is indistinguishable from an organization whose major purpose is to humiliate the people and make certain Americans understand they are subjects and not citizens. How easily can they be circumvented by intelligent and determined people? What new targets do our security measures create? It is pretty clear that you can't stop intelligent and determined people from destroying airplanes if the attacker doesn't mind being killed. You can prevent the airplanes from being taken over and used as cruise missiles against other targets. We all know how that can be done. Strong cockpit doors, armed pilots, air marshals not dressed in 3-piece suits and short haircuts |
| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |
| #1 at the moment the TSA is indistinguishable from an organization whose major purpose is to humiliate the people and make certain Americans understand they are subjects and not citizens. How easily can they be circumvented by intelligent and determined people? What new targets do our security measures create? The TSA is a creature born of politics, midwifed by the cynical, and parented by the incompetent. It is the prime example of how un-serious and cynical the civilian side of 'homeland security' (and their part in the WoT) is. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-08-05 20:56 |