airports - test the baby for chemicals, frisk the frail old person

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  • I'd like to introduce you all to the Allenby Bridge/King Hussain Crossing of the Jordan.

    It's like all of everyone's worst experiences of an airport rolled into one. Truly hellish.
  • Oh God! I'd forgotten the Allenby Bridge.

    Back in the 1970s when I backpacked through the Middle East it was the only way to get into Israel from an arab country. It was no picnic even then: we got to the Jordanian side at about 5am and it took a further 7 hours to go through the Israeli security checks - not helped by it being discovered that one of my companions had an uncle (deceased) who had been high-up in the police force of the UK's Palestine Mandate :grimace:
  • Well, 10 out of 10 to the Israelis for being thorough, if nothing else!

    I dread any possible (if unlikely) journey to Egypt, if they should notice that my great-great-grandfather was responsible for allowing certain charnel relics from the Valley of the Kings to leave the country.....
    :fearful:
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Challenging in its own small way is the land border between Canada and the US at Niagara Falls. A nice US Border Patrol officer takes your proffered passport - and then instead of handing it back, directs you to park up and retrieve it from a gloomy administrative building. Where you might get it again several hours later, if you're lucky.
  • I know of a Minister who was cavity-searched by the Israelis in Hong Kong before she boarded an El Al flight to Tel Aviv in the early 2000's.
  • OK, terrorists are quite capable of using the shoes of blind old ladies, babies' rectums and their mothers' and their vaginas and breast impants. Packed with Semtex. Position against the window and
  • Here's an interesting thought experiment.

    Duplicate all flights to all destinations.

    Have two check-in lines.

    For one, there are no controls and processing is that much faster.

    For the other, there are all the "security theatre" gadgets and indignities we have become used to.

    Which queue do you join?
  • lol

    It depends if I'm running late :)
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Which queue do you join?

    No security theatre for me, s'il vous plait. Especially if the cost of the security theatre is borne exclusively by those on the "safer" flight.
  • I'm such an anxiety-ridden person when flying, I'd pay the RooK surcharge and be on the one checked.

    Even though I believe, from papers and articles, the whole security malarkey may be flawed. There must be a better way.
  • Personally I'm in two minds. The TSA option might deter the more casual loony.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    No, the casual loony rents a truck.
  • Who is going to crew the plane with few checks?
  • Yes, and who is going to let their investment get in the air without necessary precautions... and who is going to insure that risk!

    Still, it's an interesting hypothetical.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Yes, and who is going to let their investment get in the air without necessary precautions... and who is going to insure that risk!

    Still, it's an interesting hypothetical.

    I suppose on reflection that (perhaps) @Eutychus is intimating something about security as performance art and that few of the visible security activities really do very much in and if themselves.

    I've probably stated here before that I don't believe planes are going to be the easiest targets for future outrages - and that's not much to do with tightening of airport security since 2001.

    If a terrorist really wanted to cause massive casualties there are easier targets with little security.

    So I don't know. I suppose it is possible to go without the long security queues and rely on the back-room security that we probably don't see much of but catch most potential terrorists. Things like dogs sniffing luggage, face recognition, body language interpretation etc.

    I suppose we assume that the security we see is somehow a symbol of the security we don't see - but then equally there have been occasions when visible security has been completely fake - as notably in Iraq, where the government relied on totally fake metal detectors for quite a while.

  • We've seen vehicles being driven into crowds of people and I'm sure car-bombs (which we have seen before in the UK) could make a come-back. No security checking can prevent these. I suppose it's what you want your terrorism to achieve. Do you want to make people nervous about stepping out of their door or do you want publicity through spectacle?
  • The Rogue wrote: »
    We've seen vehicles being driven into crowds of people and I'm sure car-bombs (which we have seen before in the UK) could make a come-back. No security checking can prevent these. I suppose it's what you want your terrorism to achieve. Do you want to make people nervous about stepping out of their door or do you want publicity through spectacle?

    Well there has been a long history of plane hijackings as a political device. As it has become a mass form of transport, I guess it has become a prestigious target, placing participants within a specific, terrible, historical context.

    But if it is really fear and visibility that you want, there must surely, in 2019, be bigger and easier targets.

    We all must be able to think of a few to ourselves, and we aren't clever terrorists.
  • I keep wondering how much damage a car bomb would do to, say, a north sea ferry. And how much the subsequent attempts to avoid another would cause problems.
  • I keep wondering how much damage a car bomb would do to, say, a north sea ferry. And how much the subsequent attempts to avoid another would cause problems.

    Yeah, I think my thought is worse than that, and almost impossible to predict or react to.

    Unless I'm completely wrong, and I don't think I am, a small number of well placed bombs would cause mass casualties and utterly paralyse the country.

    To me, it is therefore rather more worrying to be thinking about how fertiliser is being stored and monitored than the threat from nail clippers on planes.
  • I keep wondering how much damage a car bomb would do to, say, a north sea ferry. And how much the subsequent attempts to avoid another would cause problems.

    I've had similar thoughts myself many times on crossing the Channel. But it's probably best for everyone if we don't voice our speculation in public (even if terrorists raking through the embers of Hell trying to find new ideas is a remote prospect).

    (Although I will leave this, which appeared in a paper here after the attempted terrorist attack on a high-speed train, here. I think translation is probably needless).
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I keep wondering how much damage a car bomb would do to, say, a north sea ferry. And how much the subsequent attempts to avoid another would cause problems.

    I've had similar thoughts myself many times on crossing the Channel. But it's probably best for everyone if we don't voice our speculation in public (even if terrorists raking through the embers of Hell trying to find new ideas is a remote prospect).

    (Although I will leave this, which appeared in a paper here after the attempted terrorist attack on a high-speed train, here. I think translation is probably needless).

    At some level, it is hard to believe that the security services are unaware of this stuff - and how strategic targets away from airports are impossible to protect. So it stretches belief to think that we are saying anything that others don't ready know.

    But I am trying to be a bit erm opaque, simply because I don't want any blame for any future outrage. And also because I think most of this stuff is pretty obvious to anyone who stops and thinks about it in the privacy of their own mind.
  • My position on this can be summed up by this personal story:

    In the prison I minister in, the creativity of the inmates to do various illicit things, and the time they have to consider doing them, are both far beyond anything I can muster.

    Nevertheless, I don't consider it my role to make such shenanigans easier for them by doing their thinking for them or sharing ideas.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    My position on this can be summed up by this personal story:

    In the prison I minister in, the creativity of the inmates to do various illicit things, and the time they have to consider doing them, are both far beyond anything I can muster.

    Nevertheless, I don't consider it my role to make such shenanigans easier for them by doing their thinking for them or sharing ideas.

    Well that's true. On the other hand, it isn't too hard to imagine the benefits of sharing (very) public information about public safety and threats. One might be educating a particularly uninformed terrorist whilst also encouraging the general public to consider more their own safety.
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Unfortunately my thesis is that we are a lot less safe than we like to think. And that it is basically impossible to stop a determined terrorist who wants to paralyse the whole country.

    Which just shows how important intelligence services actually are. We have to trust that they'll find out about some audacious plan before it actually happens.

  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    Unfortunately my thesis is that we are a lot less safe than we like to think. And that it is basically impossible to stop a determined terrorist who wants to paralyse the whole country.

    Which just shows how important intelligence services actually are. We have to trust that they'll find out about some audacious plan before it actually happens.

    Alas, too true.

    The ingenuity of human beings, when thinking up ways in which to destroy other human beings, is almost as infinite (ISTM) as the mercy of God.

    But (hopefully, said he), not quite....
    :grimace:

  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    Unfortunately my thesis is that we are a lot less safe than we like to think. And that it is basically impossible to stop a determined terrorist who wants to paralyse the whole country.

    Which just shows how important intelligence services actually are. We have to trust that they'll find out about some audacious plan before it actually happens.

    While I'm sure intelligence services do their bit, I think we might actually be a lot safer than we are led to believe.

    When one considers just how easy it is to create mayhem, I'm amazed it doesn't happen more often. My conclusion is that most people are actually pretty reasonable and content to lead quiet lives, or restrict their protest to threats rather than acting out.

    I don't want to minimise the effect actual mayhem has, either (I know somebody who witnessed the Nice attacks) but I think the media magnify it out of all proportion. This fuels fear and of course provides the impetus for more controlling legislation.
  • There is nothing you've imagined that isn't already in print. Either I've thought of it, or know someone who has.

    (Hacking self-drive cars? Equations of Life, 2011)
  • We flew in and out of the US through Boston in 2000, the year before 9/11. Getting though there was easy, there was more security on the duty free shop, stopping anyone on a domestic flight, than there was on getting yourself and hand luggage onto a plane. This was for international flights.

    I imagine security on domestic flights would be lower. 9/11 happened because of lack of security. Give me security any day.

    Even if it means giving up my elbow crutches and walking though the scanner or x-Ray.
    "Can you remove your shoes?"
    "Have you got a chair?"
    "No."
    "I'm sorry, I can't remove them standing up."
    Etc.

    I have orthopaedic insoles, always picked up. If there was a place for disabled people to remove shoes seated, (yes MAN, it is you,) this could be avoided.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    I have Global Entry, which is supposed to excuse me from most of the Security Theater. Unfortunately, wheelchairs have to go through a regular line; I'm not supposed to have to remove my shoes, etc., but there's always some idiot TSA bully who wants me to doff them and then go through the Voyeur Machine anyway. It's tedious.

  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    Even before 9/11, when I went through one particular concourse's security at my Home Airport, I would be taken apart Every.Single.Time.

    I finally asked why. (It was a good time to ask; nobody else was in sight.) The security agent looked around cautiously, and said, her voice lowered, "We're not supposed to profile, and you (small, blonde, female, middle-class, middle-aged) don't fit the profile." Basically, by disassembling my carry-ons, they had a pass to take apart someone who did fit the profile.

    It was still massively tedious.

    This might explain why I got disassembled 15 out of 16 times when I was flying with my newborn and assorted paraphernalia.
  • edited February 2019
    Behavioural profiling. Advance screening.
    Both at several levels unobtrusively.

    Re safety.
    The risks of harm are poorly assessed by the average person. The biggest risks of harm to all of us ain't terrorism of any kind.
  • Behavioural profiling. Advance screening.
    Both at several levels unobtrusively.

    This would be a lot better, although might offer less subjective reassurance.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Have you looked up how much the security theatre costs? Or how much it is abused?
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    This might explain why I got disassembled 15 out of 16 times when I was flying with my newborn and assorted paraphernalia.
    It might!


  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    The Rogue wrote: »
    We've seen vehicles being driven into crowds of people and I'm sure car-bombs (which we have seen before in the UK) could make a come-back. No security checking can prevent these. I suppose it's what you want your terrorism to achieve. Do you want to make people nervous about stepping out of their door or do you want publicity through spectacle?

    No need for bombs as the car with added knife and truck killers (first kill your truck driver) demonstrate. To respond to your enemy's foreign policy, just groom anyone to kill as many helpless enemy citizens as possible. One person can just go in to a hospital ward or school and stab tens of weaker people in the throat for the six o'clock news, just make sure you scream "For ISIL" or its next incarnation when you do it, or just "Allah 'akbar". Although it's obvious why it's being done.

    It changes nothing of course. And what impresses me is that there are so few. To pre-empt it, if you can be bothered, strangle all insurgencies at birth in their back yard, saying if we don't they'll grow up in our back yard. You know the endless drill.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    And Al Qaeda is back of course.
  • Actually, looking at my current passport photo, I wouldn't let me into any self-respecting country.
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    My passport photo is wretched too, BF. I think it's mandatory for them.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    My current passport photo was taken by a Post Office employee, who said, "I hope you can live with that for the next ten years." Well, all righty, then!
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    : )
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    RooK wrote: »
    No, the casual loony rents a truck.

    No, no, no, far too complicated. Just go to a truck stop and stab the first driver who doesn't see you coming. These guys aren't loonies. They can't get a shag.

  • I have a pair of troosers that tend to slip down at the back, so when I wear them I have to pull them up every few minutes. In an airport over the weekend I wondered whether that was the sort of behavior that might raise security suspicions.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Have you tried suspenders?
  • No. I just tie them up really tight under my gut and pull my t-shirt down at the back if I feel a breeze.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Miss Amanda can't tell you how many sights she's been "treated" to by people in like circumstances who probably had no idea of how much they were showing . . . but she digresses.
  • perhaps the sideways smile is a subject for another hell thread :)
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I keep wondering how much damage a car bomb would do to, say, a north sea ferry. And how much the subsequent attempts to avoid another would cause problems.

    I've had similar thoughts myself many times on crossing the Channel. But it's probably best for everyone if we don't voice our speculation in public (even if terrorists raking through the embers of Hell trying to find new ideas is a remote prospect).

    (Although I will leave this, which appeared in a paper here after the attempted terrorist attack on a high-speed train, here. I think translation is probably needless).

    At some level, it is hard to believe that the security services are unaware of this stuff - and how strategic targets away from airports are impossible to protect. So it stretches belief to think that we are saying anything that others don't ready know.

    But I am trying to be a bit erm opaque, simply because I don't want any blame for any future outrage. And also because I think most of this stuff is pretty obvious to anyone who stops and thinks about it in the privacy of their own mind.

    Having been inside Windscale, the security is... impressive. Rapier missile battery. SAS patrolling in helicopter. Cops with HKs. However the first Dounreay, I certainly wrongly recall, (New Scientist report from nearly 20 years ago) knew they had a breach was when the SAS dropped in to the control room from the air con. Had a mate who used to guard Sullom Voe. On the sea bed. If terrorists can attack, they will. Very, very mainly they can't.
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