Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Airport Security

There was a photograph on Drudge of a nun being frisked at an airport and the headline was "The Terrorists Have Won."

Nonsense.

I suppose that when London had black-outs during the Blitz, the headline would have been "The Nazis Have Won."

Flick on those lights. That will show them.

Obviously, the terrorists would be much happier if we dropped all of our security screening. [Would we feel safer if the federal government announced that nuns and other religious personnel would be exempt from security searches?]

I traveled in Britain during the IRA terrorist days and was always singled out and searched. Seven people would be waved through by the security people and then they'd point at me. [After 9/11, I was stunned when the security screeners in a small airport in Georgia searched an elderly woman but let me through. Go figure.]

For all of the talk about privacy, screener voyeurism, and inconvenience, what is a credible alternative to the process? A German security expert once noted, "The Americans look for the bomb. We look for the bomber." He meant that the Germans place greater emphasis on examining the backgrounds and associations of people who want to board planes.

Since some people who are on "No Fly" lists are getting on planes, we may not quite be there yet.

2 comments:

GeekChic said...

Having flown through the Middle East, I would argue that a credible alternative is how El Al handles security. What your TSA is doing is mere security theatre with a side of porn and sexual harassment / molestation thrown in for good measure.

Michael Wade said...

GeekChic,

El Al has to be the gold standard when it comes to security. I wonder if Americans and Europeans would be willing to have such a thorough but time-consuming system.