TSA authorities can fine you $10,000 for leaving the airport

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well isn't it religious extremists we're worried about?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by glatt

There were 13,531,058 commercial passenger flights in 2008. If you take that number and multiply it out over the last 8 years, when security had gotten a lot tighter since 9/11, you get about 100 million US flights since 9/11 with not a single plane taken down by terrorists.

The tightened security since 9/11 has worked. Not a single plane has come down. 100 million!

The numbers are not a compelling argument that we need these new extremely invasive security techniques.

Our founding fathers wouldn't be able to recognize us. What a bunch of pussies this country has become. We are so afraid of an infinitesimal risk of terrorism that we are willing to give up all our personal freedoms.

You prolly should work in there somewhere the number of planes hijacked/taken out from American soil also. You know, to justify all this extra security. I don't know how to begin to come up w/that number, but, I bet it's comparably small.

paraphrasing:

Those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither.

Where did I see that? The Cellar?

[Undertoad]

[Gravdigr]

I'll never fly again. Fuck 'em.

[Happy Monkey]

Fuck who? TSA won't care.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I'll never fly again. Fuck 'em.

Me too !

But this made me wonder...
Why are people willing to go through these invasions of privacy ?

1) Some may think it is to keep planes from flying into buildings.
But that can be prevented by a secure door into the pilots cabin.

2) Some may feel it is for personal security... i.e., I want everyone else on my plane to be screened.

But if an airline can guarantee (#1), then the only problem is (#2)
Paper is much cheaper than whole-body scanners.
So why don't we start our own airline where NO passengers are screened... passengers must just sign an "informed consent".

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

1) Some may think it is to keep planes from flying into buildings.
But that can be prevented by a secure door into the pilots cabin.

You don't even need that. You just need the passengers to remember 9-11, and you won't get any more hijackings. 9-11 worked because the passengers expected the planes to land somewhere, followed by some sort of hostage negotiation. That is no longer the case.

(bombs are a different issue)

[footfootfoot]

Whatever happened to that guy who tried to check out of the hospital and got the shit kicked out of him by the guards? This guy got off lightly.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

(bombs are a different issue)

It's my understanding that this is what they're afraid of at this point. First, everyone on the plane dies of course, but second, if they time it right the whole thing comes crashing down into a major metropolitan area.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

if they time it right the whole thing comes crashing down into a major metropolitan area.

Yeh like that's EVER happened?

Next thing you'll tell me is that they'll fly one into a building or something.

[Clodfobble]

Personally I think the "bad guys" are being short-sighted. You could do just as much damage by blowing yourself up at a major sporting event or at the mall on a crowded weekend, and that sort of thing would have a much greater impact on our collective mental state, since it would convince us that it could happen to anyone anywhere, not just in heavily-controlled air travel. I'm honestly stunned that it hasn't happened yet.

[classicman]

I totally agree! Seriously.

[classicman]

........................................

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Personally I think the "bad guys" are being short-sighted. You could do just as much damage by blowing yourself up at a major sporting event or at the mall on a crowded weekend, and that sort of thing would have a much greater impact on our collective mental state, since it would convince us that it could happen to anyone anywhere, not just in heavily-controlled air travel. I'm honestly stunned that it hasn't happened yet.

Maybe because in their world people dying a sporting events is normal. Whereas planes falling is seen as an accomplishment, since all the enemies that have threatened them for the last hundred years have done so from the air.

[Lamplighter]

So the American public is going to buy into these scanners, eventually at court houses
and government buildings, and sporting events and schools ?

I suspect that eventually it will be easier to scare American women about radiation
(genetic or cancer) damage from the scanners than to scare of them about suicide bombers,
and that will be the end of the scanners.