Why do we need airport screening at all?

[LawnLover]

I get on buses and trains all the time and nobody scans or gropes me or checks my luggage. I don't really understand why planes are so special.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Psychological, I think.

You can get off a bus if someone in there is making you nervous. And you might survive a ground attack, but you're not surviving anything at 33,000 ft.

[RKP5637]

2. Yep, very good point. I'm sure people feel more trapped in a plane. n/t

[sally cat]

3. A bus can't bring down a skyscraper or fly into the White House.

[LawnLover]

5. But it can be trapped on a freeway, unable to slow down past 55 mph

Or, more realistically, it could drive into a building and blow it up.

[sally cat]

8. OK, but if you keep making sense like that, the TSA WILL do this on buses.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. They already are, called Operation Viper

here

http://justpiper.com/2010/09/counter-terror-operation-operation-viper-stops-trucks-on-i-20-douglas-county-ga/

It is just that it has been very quiet.

[customerserviceguy]

23. That is never going to happen again

I cannot imagine any circumstances under which anyone in a cockpit is ever going to open the doors to that part of an aircraft without a safe code word being used to gain access. One of the things the 9/11 terrorists exploited was the desire of the cockpit crew being willing to save a flight attendant with a box cutter at her throat. I'm certain that they have all been fully trained to let everyone in the passenger cabin die, if necessary, to prevent an aircraft from ever being used as a terrorist weapon again.

We have a marvelous ability to not only close a barn door after the horse is gone, but to weld it shut permanently.

[LawnLover]

4. I think if I'm going to spend an hour in line waiting to be groped

I'd like it to be for a reason a lot more compelling than "psychological."

This is nuts.

[liberal N proud]

6. To keep terror in our minds

For terrified people are easier to manipulate and you can take their civil liberties away as necessary to facilitate your agenda.

In short, it is all about control.

[LawnLover]

7. That's makes sense, but if it's true

then why not extend that to trains and other public transportation? There's no logic there.

[liberal N proud]

9. Maybe they feared there would be a backlash sooner than with the trains

Trains in the US mostly are comprised of commuter traffic. If everyone had to go through screening everyday, the uproar we are beginning to see with the air travel would have happened years ago.

[madinmaryland]

10. Last time I checked, a bus when it goes off the road, does not have a 35,000 ft drop off.

:shrug:

[LawnLover]

13. But people can still die if it crashes or gets blown up

I'm just saying it doesn't make any damn sense. I think they should just stop screening altogether. I'll still fly. I think millions of others will, too.

[TransitJohn]

11. To make money.

Same reason that union busting was built in when those fuckheads set up the TSA.

[flvegan]

12. FEAR!

Back up against the wall with you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Actually Grayhound is getting the once over

and some AMTRAK routes as well.

It is called operation Viper.

And it is also a manpower issue.

There is something more. a Greyhound bus will run the company what quarter of a million, covered by insurance? Care to check the cost of a wide body 747?

And lastly, who travels on what? Yes, that is part of it.

That said, security is not stupid, and the threat is actually real.

[Raine]

15. Since they used planes before

that is the model they use. I guess they think the terrorists don't have the imagination or smarts to go with anything different. :silly:

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Which brings me to my favorite thing about this

we are slow to REACT, they are fast to ADAPT

Only reason why, imho, we haven't seen other means is... that little ocean... or actually two of them.

[Mika]

17. "they"?

I say/smell.... money. Blood money. Fear money.

---

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Yes the people we are trying to fight

leave the ideology to the side, you cannot defeat an ideology...

When you have a very large bureaucracy... that is slow to react, and your enemy is working in cells of at most 20 people...

Think of this in the following way.

What do you think turns faster? A USN Carrier, or a sailboat?

[Mika]

20. Not questioning the obvious.

I'm questioning the "they".


Seriously.

:hi:

---

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Well the they are the people who do mean to hurt us

for many complex reasons they haven't crossed oceans.

And they want to hurt us... for a good reason. We are not being nice to their families...

So I understand the threat is there, but like the IRA... they, for example in that case the IRA, will have to be negotiated with, and we will have to pull out and recognize their rights to self government and self determination. Yep, like most wars, it will come down to a political solution.

Trust me, I am not making them the other. I get it why they want to kill us. Don't help when a few drones fly round those distant lands with missiles underslung shooting up weddings... it tends to make people a little angry. Justifiably so by the way.


And tea leave reading is telling me that some folks on our side are now willing to consider seating down with them, and sharing a cup of tea... them in this case would be the Taliban, which is a whole problem for women for example, but that I don't think will be in the cards.

[LawnLover]

29. I tend to think the threat of terrorism HERE is highly exaggerated

in order to manipulate. We always have an enemy. Before terrorists it was commies in various forms. After terrorists what will it be? Aliens?

[drmeow]

22. I think

screening of airline passengers started as a way to stop hijackings more than airplane bombings. While you can hijack a train or bus, it doesn't tend to give you the type of leverage hijacking a plane does. Train cars can be decoupled, there are lots of windows people can shoot a hijacker through in a bus. In a plane the hijacker has more control.

I also think that while there are lots of non-airplane related terrorist attacks, attacks on airplanes tend to have more fatalities and injuries and are more global. Most of the people who died in the Oklahoma City bombings were locals. In contrast, representatives from 21 countries died in the Lockerbie bombing.

Finally, the point about falling 33,000 feet is valid. The World Trade Center collapse is an unusual case (and it did involve planes). Most terrorist acts on the ground affect a narrow area and people who are in the immediate area but not killed instantly can survive or escape. You can survive the initial bomb in an airplane but have no way to escape and will die regardless. That increases people's feelings of helplessness.

[bemildred]

24. Ships and trains can't be flown into skyscrapers.

I think the TSA should be abolished, but I also think some security measures WRT to airplanes are reasonable.

[LawnLover]

30. Ships and trains can blow up. What's the difference? nt

[lib2DaBone]

25. The TSA will be clamping down on all travelers in the near future...

Last week TSA and ICE ran a huge raid on the local Greyhound Bus station. Over a hundred armed police officers ran roughshod over 10 passengers and a couple of homeless guys watching.

The TSA has also staked out and disrupted the local train station. They were body searching and frisking all those who wanted to use the bathroom at the train station and all those waiting for trains.

This IS NOT about safety... it's not about PROTECTION from terrorism.. this is about CONTROL.

The American people (and many on this board) are very stupid.. giving up their freedom an inch at a time.

[BlueCheese]

26. Let's not go overboard.

Terrorists really do go after airplanes a lot. Heck, even with all the security, they're still going after airplanes.

If there were no security checks, don't you think that the Christmas bomber would have had something more potent than what he had in his underwear?

[truth2power]

28. I think the Christmas bomber was a false flag op that ended just as it was supposed to...

If al CIAda wanted to bring down an airplane they'd do it.

And what about that lawyer and his wife who watched the well-dressed man escorting the underwear bomber thru security? Hmmm? I wonder why our DOJ isn't looking into that?

Went down the memory hole, didn't it?

It's all about power and fear.

[LawnLover]

31. I highly doubt it.

I'm not convinced that these are anything other than lone wackos, and they can hit anywhere. Churches. Abortion clinics. Federal buildings.

Just because the "cause" is different, doesn't mean they aren't terrorists. But I doubt there would be a rise in terrorist incidents if we pulled TSA out.

[Rex]

27. Don't you remember, the GOPukers said 9/11 changed 'everything'.

By now, I am guessing they meant our civil rights and liberties as US citizens. I thought they were after the 'bad guys' as idiot GOPukers call 'them'.