Profiling, El Al does, professional screeners.

I guess I have to agree with you, cyrena, that most of the “threat” is manufactured by those who stand to profit greatly from it… and I don’t mean a few foreign fanatics.

The hysteria generated by the opportunistic government leaders in the USA following 9/11 is HUGELY profitable by those involved. There are MILLIONS of people now working in “security” jobs that simply didn’t exist before. It’s legalized extortion - they pretend to be protecting us from unimaginable horrors. They can’t, of course, prove that any such threat exists, and we can’t prove that they don’t. So pay up, dear taxpayer, and keep paying and paying and paying like the sucker you’re being taken for.

This is now a HUGE industry worth BILLIONS and there isn’t a chance in hell that the manufacturers of the threats which fuel this industry will cease and desist their fraudulent con game anytime soon. It’s just like the justice system… those involved connive to maintain a level of “crime” sufficient to ensure the security of their high paying jobs fighting crime. It’s a fraud and a depressing joke.

And it doesn’t matter a damn that these sick schemes are public knowledge. Like I said, the incomes of millions of average Americans depend directly on keeping these scams going. There’s no way they’ll be shut down.

Make the airlines provide their own private security.

After flying a million miles around the globe to numerous countries, my final flying encounter was with a 21 y.o. TSA inspector who made my 6 y.o. son take off his belt and flip flops in Manchester NH, the live free or don’t fly state.

What ? You mean the creation of the huge Homeland Security Dept. hasn’t made travelling on planes safer after all ? How can this be ? That would have to mean, after all the billions spent, all the talk of keeping us safe from those big bad terrorists that Bush has once again just been blowing smoke ? Like everything this sociopath does, he never had any intention of accomplishing his stated goal. All the money, all the lives lost mean nothing to this individual. All he sees, all he hears, all he thinks about, is playing this make believe role as the warrior king. He has always been a dismal failure in every misadventure he has undertaken , and this role the 9-11 hijackers helped create for him, is his answer to all his failures. Reality needn’t enter into it, it never has, never will. He no doubt should, in reality be locked away as a dangerous / delusional sociopath he has proven himself to the world he is. Vote out the republicans, every chance you get. Make them pay for supporting this criminal conspiracy within the White House all this time. Even if we had a democratic leadership with some backbone who understood what their primary job should be, to defend the democracy by removing these criminals, we’d still be left with all the Mitch McConnel republican ( & democratic ) enablers in the Congress. We’ve never been to a more important time in our nation’s history that warrants such a thourough house cleaning of our so-called elected representitives.

#113736 by RAE

Wow Rae!!! You sure did hit the nail on the head here.

• will twig that the solution lies with FINDING THE CAUSE and FIXING IT! For decades, millions travelled through our skies without fear of being hijacked or bombed. So what’s CHANGED?

I agree 10000% about the significant passengers on earth that have reason to be annoyed as well, but back to your basic statement. What’s CHANGED?

I would say…, NOTHING. What’s ‘changed’ is what has been ‘CREATED’. This change has been ‘created’.

For all of those decades that you’re referencing, (which would be the same ones that I have in mind) how many ‘highjackings’ or ‘terrorist events’ actually occurred in relation to US air travel? Humm, we can point to a few US air carriers, (TWA) but none that originated here in the US as domestic flights.

So, the change is only one that has been manufactured, to address a THREAT that has also been MANUFACTURED. And, before anybody starts howling that I don’t think terrorism is a problem, that’s NOT what I’m saying. I AM saying that security measures of the past several decades, (basic stuff, without these ‘layers’) has always “worked” before, to week out the occasional crazy. But in reality, security has never ‘caught’ any of these ‘terrorists’ because there haven’t BEEN any!! Individuals with grievances, maybe a few. But this whole thing with groups of international political terrorists on domestic soil just didn’t happen here in the US.

So, NOTHING has changed in that respect. THAT much of the ‘threat’ has been manufactured. So, all of these ‘layers’ serve no purpose. The original security procedures were far more effective for dealing with REAL (not manufactured) threats.

Notwithstanding that only IDIOTS continue to do what doesn’t work you’ve gotta give “SECURITY” a gold star for trying.

Time and time again “security” is breached. So what does “SECURITY” do? Add yet another layer… patch, patch, patch… and STILL the system fails.

I guess, in time, someone possessing more than a room temperature IQ, will twig that the solution lies with FINDING THE CAUSE and FIXING IT! For decades, millions travelled through our skies without fear of being hijacked or bombed. So what’s CHANGED?

Could it possibly be that some significant passengers on planet Earth are being mistreated and their pleas for fairness and a level playing field ignored?

WAKE UP “SECURITY.” You’re just not smart enough to catch all who’d give their lives to get an even break in this life. Pile on another 18 layers, at uncountable cost, and you STILL won’t be secure.

As I said, only IDIOTS continue…

….”TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said the exercise tested only one of the agency’s 19 layers of security and therefore doesn’t mean the overall system is unsafe.”…
“…"While people think about us in terms of the checkpoints and they see us as the checkpoints, there’s a lot more layers of security,” she said. In addition to the checkpoints, the TSA uses different technologies and has officials who check the validity of documents and observe people’s behaviors throughout the airport. “Just because somebody gets through one layer doesn’t mean they’re going to get through all of the layers."….”
I’m absolutely shocked and awed – YET AGAIN!! She actually SAID this…in other words, there were an additional 18 ‘layers’ that might have ‘caught’ the perpetrators, even AFTER they obtained a boarding pass, (can’t go through security without one) and managed to get the banned items PASSED THE CHECK POINT, and onto the sterile side of the airport, where they then needed only wait for the boarding call, and walk on the airplane.
So, when are these other 18 layers supposed to kick in? Maybe one of the “Behavior Detection Officers” might notice some ‘suspicious behavior”? And then what? That’s one other layer. What would be the others? What does she mean about documents? They’ve already shown the documents when they got the boarding pass. OK. Let’s say the passengers/possible perpetrators show their documents again before they get on the airplane. That would be another layer I suppose, (even though they’ve obviously just shown the same ‘document’ in order to obtain the boarding pass. So, that takes care of 3 layers. (one duplicated). So, where are the others? Does each passenger now put themselves though one of those explosive detection machines? Like, their entire bodies? I haven’t noticed anything like that going on. And, that still leaves a bunch of the 19 ‘layers’ unaccounted for.

I can’t believe she said this. I DO believe that –as usual- they wouldn’t name of the 16 airports where they were able to accomplish this feat.

I remember the days/decades (before the creation of the TSA) when this would NEVER have happened. Now, they’ve got 19 layers, and it still did. But, who knows, MAYBE one of those 19 layers might have ‘caught’ them before they boarded the aircraft.

Still, the math says they got passed the greatest hurdle once they got on the other side of that checkpoint.

Gee, we’re all so much safer now. Or, as much safety as an onion or two can provide. (how many layers does the average onion have anyway?)