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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byh4rr4r ( 612664 ) writes:
Sounds like the lesser of two evils to me. If you really think they would not have done both keeping data and the enhanced pat downs I have a bridge to sell you in New York. Slightly used.
bybetterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) writes:
The TSA checkpoints, pat downs, nude scanners, and so forth are a complete waste. No competent terrorist would be deterred by such things -- and "competent" here means "able to do more damage in an airplane than out." It is easy enough to make a makeshift weapon past the checkpoints, and the 9/11 hijackers all used makeshift weapons. I am not even plotting an attack and I can think of a half dozen ways to arm myself on the other side of a TSA checkpoint.
Basically the TSA is cover-your-ass security theater. If there is any kind of attack, nobody wants to be the politicians who voted to remove the TSA from our airports, regardless of whether or not the checkpoints make a difference.
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byCanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) writes:
It is easy enough to make a makeshift weapon past the checkpoints, and the 9/11 hijackers all used makeshift weapons. I am not even plotting an attack and I can think of a half dozen ways to arm myself on the other side of a TSA checkpoint.
Exactly - all the security theater in the world won't do you a lick of good so long as one can still convince an underpaid, disgruntled porter to stash weapons in the terminal for a couple hundred bucks.
byEm Adespoton ( 792954 ) writes:
It is easy enough to make a makeshift weapon past the checkpoints, and the 9/11 hijackers all used makeshift weapons. I am not even plotting an attack and I can think of a half dozen ways to arm myself on the other side of a TSA checkpoint.
Exactly - all the security theater in the world won't do you a lick of good so long as one can still convince an underpaid, disgruntled porter to stash weapons in the terminal for a couple hundred bucks.
It's even easier than that... there are already weapons stashed past the TSA checkpoint. If boxcutters will do the trick, then why not chef's knives from the line of restaurants? How about cutting torches (if you can buy something flambe'd, there's a torch)? For that matter, there's raw materials to make your own bomb on the far side of the checkpoint. The only thing that might help here is increased surveillance and a "report if anything goes missing" policy.
By the time someone's got to the TSA checkpo
byMysteriousPreacher ( 702266 ) writes:
Duty free shop, strong alkihole (rum burns!), a rag...and you got yourself a molotov cocktail... wonder if the smoke detectors in lavatory would ring when someone tries to light half a dozen of those and smash'em all over the airplane. Maybe not absolutely catastrophic, but enough to cause a huge news fuss, suspicion of anyone buying drinks, and perhaps banning selling of alcohol :-)
This is why there are limits on the types of alcohol that can be brought aboard planes. You won't find high proof alcohol available for sale in duty free shops. Bringing in a bottle from the outside would be fiddly, and I know they confiscate stuff above a certain proof.
You can test this yourself. Go buy a selection of booze in the duty free store and bring it home to turn in to Molotov cocktails. You'd probably have to heat the vodka to get it anywhere near ignition, and that would be pretty difficult to
byxenobyte ( 446878 ) writes:
It's even easier than that... there are already weapons stashed past the TSA checkpoint. If boxcutters will do the trick, then why not chef's knives from the line of restaurants? How about cutting torches (if you can buy something flambe'd, there's a torch)?
How about steak knives already aboard the airplanes? - If the first class menu has steaks there will be real metal steak knives to go with it, and guess what? - Every single 9/11 hijacker had first class tickets in order to be seated near the cockpit...
bygrenadeh ( 2734161 ) writes:
Why is everyone on this article citing 9/11 as if it's something you know for a fact happened and how it happened? Bunch of delusional sheep, still buying into a 12 year fable that makes less sense than anything on ancient aliens.
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byEntropius ( 188861 ) writes:
Never mind that. Imagine someone wheeling a wheelie-suitcase consisting of explosives, nails, and warfarin powder into the TSA checkpoint -- you know, the ones consisting of a thousand people milling around waiting in line to take off their shoes and get groped -- and blowing it up.
You'd have a giant bloody mess, gobs of dead Americans, and a lot of very expensive theatrical equipment damaged, plus temporary paralysis of air travel, plus even more rules that impede travel.
The fact that nobody has done this yet points to al-Qaeda not trying very hard -- if they really did want to kill a bunch of Americans and terrorize us, they could do a lot better than the motley assortment of underpants bombers, shoe bombers, butt bombers (wasn't there one of those in Saudi Arabia?), and the like that have shown up lately.
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bymellon ( 7048 ) writes:
Depends on their goal. The underwear bomber made a shitload of money for the pornoscanner companies. The shoe bomber slowed down security checkpoints. The liquid explosive fraud created a huge hassle and is now making a lot of money for concessions at airports. The amount of economic damage these attacks have caused is absolutely massive! A suitcase bomb at the TSA screening area doesn't have an easy and economically damaging countermeasure, so there's not much point. That attack was tried once [wikipedia.org]. Aside from a temporary dip in the stock market in Russia, it was ineffective—no massively expensive security measures have been instituted in response.
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byActually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) writes:
no massively expensive security measures have been instituted in response
That's because the massively expensive security measures that the government ordered implemented were overturned by the Russian courts as depriving people of rights.
In America, you violate the rights of citizens in the name of security; In (former) Soviet Russia, the independent judiciary acts as a check and balance on the totalitarian executive branch.
For some reason, it's less funny then most of Yakov's jokes.
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byActually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) writes:
Check wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domodedovo_International_Airport_bombing [wikipedia.org]
Russian authorities directed all of the country's airports to immediately begin inspecting all visitors before allowing them to enter the airports.[17] However, this practice was ruled illegal by an appellate court in June 2011.[18]
I assume the malls are privately owned. Private companies doing security theater is very different from the government.
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bybillstewart ( 78916 ) writes:
Sure, the TSA's "be afraid, be very afraid" and "be compliant sheep" commercials while you're waiting in line tell you that, but they were making people take their shoes off at lots of airports before the shoe bomber. Why? Because lots of mens' dress shoes have metal shanks in them, and they set off metal detectors a lot, so they were slowing down lines dealing with them. By making everybody take their shoes off before that, they could avoid the problem, just like making people take their belts off avoid
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byAnonymous Coward writes:
Why would Al-Qaeda want to anyways?
It would take a ridiculous amount of effort to even equal the amount of killing and terrorizing of americans our own law-enforcement and 'security' measures commit.
Better to send a threatening letter and let their staunchest allies; The American Government, do the job themselves.
byAnonymous Coward writes:
The TSA promotes fear and cowardice among Americans. People who want to kill lots of Americans want to promote fear and cowardice among Americans. So, why are these people going to attempt to undermine the TSA?
byImprovOmega ( 744717 ) writes:
butt bombers (wasn't there one of those in Saudi Arabia?)
Abdullah Hassan Al Aseery [wikipedia.org] and it failed because his body basically shielded the intended target from the blast. Kind of like a twisted version of throwing yourself on the grenade.
byOl Olsoc ( 1175323 ) writes:
Abdullah Hassan Al Aseery [wikipedia.org] and it failed because his body basically shielded the intended target from the blast. Kind of like a twisted version of throwing yourself on the grenade.
When the police were investigating the scene, the prudish officer asked a witness where the bomber hid the device...
He hid the Damn thing up his Ass, Officer!"
"Rectum, please, his rectum" The officer retorted
"Rectum Hell, it killed him!" the witness declared.
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byEntropius ( 188861 ) writes:
I imagine it would work better if he pointed the correct part of his anatomy at the target before pushing the "explosive diarrhea" button?
Yes, it's a cheap shot. But there is no way that a failed butt bomber is not funny.
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byicebike ( 68054 ) writes:
Never mind that. Imagine someone wheeling a wheelie-suitcase consisting of explosives, nails, and warfarin powder into the TSA checkpoint -- you know, the ones consisting of a thousand people milling around waiting in line to take off their shoes and get groped -- and blowing it up.
There are a lot of easier places to hit than airports, as the Boston Marathon bombers proved. Yes, they maybe could have hurt more people by crashing a plane, but they could have done far more damage at any random sports stadium in the country with far simpler tools. Should any putative terrorists get their hands on simple mortars they could do this from half a mile away.
I agree, the evidence is that al-Qaeda, and their wanna-bees are not trying very hard.
And its not due to the surveillance culture the federal government has dropped over the entire nation. Virtually every fool the feds have caught was lured into a trap that they probably didn't have the brains or the means to develop by themselves. Meanwhile the determined, but not terribly bright Boston Bombers walk right through the dragnet even after being fingered by the Russians.
In the meantime Air travel in this country is virtually unbearable, no-fly-lists are unconstitutional, and every federal agent knows ahead of time you are planning a trip anyway.
The whole privacy argument is nonsense. You could make a case for the anti-racial profiling causing mass fondlement, but not privacy.
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byReziac ( 43301 ) * writes:
Like, any Walmart. Perhaps as many as 3000 people in the store at any given time, lots of flammables, and unless you're in the front third of the store, no direct route to the exits (due to the convoluted shelving layout in the middle of the store; you can't get there from here) and can you imagine screening each and every shopper as they enter and exit, confiscating water bottles one by one? Not to mention all those chemicals handily in the laundry and automotive departments; why bring your own when Walmar
bypoadshaw ( 1056186 ) writes:
I can't stand it when people give terrorists ideas like this... Remember right after 9/11 when news reporters where basically planning out how to blow up NFL events for the terrorists: "That sure would be easy... back to you Ted."
It is not obvious to anyone who doesn't live here what our vulnerabilities are until someone like you lays it out for them.
byicebike ( 68054 ) writes:
I can't stand it when people give terrorists ideas like this... Remember right after 9/11 when news reporters where basically planning out how to blow up NFL events for the terrorists: "That sure would be easy... back to you Ted."
It is not obvious to anyone who doesn't live here what our vulnerabilities are until someone like you lays it out for them.
Oh, come on. They have soccer matches in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have huge stadiums.
Do you really think they are unaware of the NFL and MLB and MLS? Do you think they don't know how
to use google maps? Do you think they don't know where every major refinery in the US is?
How long do they have to live here to figure out these things? 5 days?
The more it is mentioned, the less likely it will happen, because people will be aware.
byEntropius ( 188861 ) writes:
The more it is mentioned, the less likely it will happen, because people will be aware.
I would add something different: the more it is mentioned that someone who wants to murder some of us will probably be able to, the more we will get used to the idea that we, no matter how much we invest in airport gropers and See Something Say Something posters, are vulnerable -- and will stop overreacting to threats.
byicebike ( 68054 ) writes:
And the more people belittle "See Something Say Something posters" and adopt the attitude of never ever talking to the police the sooner our streets look like Beirut, or Syria, or Baghdad.
byGrishnakh ( 216268 ) writes:
Don't be stupid, there's been several movies showing terrorist attacks on stadiums; The Rock and The Dark Knight Rises off the top of my head. It doesn't take a genius to think of attacking a stadium: there's thousands of people clustered in one building with limited exits.
Another thing terrorists could do, which they haven't yet, is get assault rifles and shoot up people in malls or streets. It's been done before, in Mumbai, but it's never happened here.
The fact is, if terrorists wanted to create terror here, there's lots of ways to do it cheaply and easily, assuming they can find enough men willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause (the Boston bombers were different, they just planted a bomb and tried to evade capture). That this hasn't happened shows that the "terrorist threat" is completely overblown, and simply being used as a reason to curtail our civil liberties.
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bykermidge ( 2221646 ) writes:
Black Sunday '77, from the novel by Thomas Harris in 1975 (his first, btw) comes to mind. Read the book before the movie, they're both good.
byAgent0013 ( 828350 ) writes:
It makes me wonder if they weren't staged by insiders just to get the illegal laws passed. Two attempted attacks that don't even ignite that lead to even more oppressive TSA control and some really suspicious facts about the attacks on the buildings. If you wanted to take control of the country these would be very effective ways of getting people to turn off their brain and just go along with it.
bypnutjam ( 523990 ) writes:
Hiding behind silence or "ignorance" is the stupidest plan in the world. Knowledge is out there whether you say it out loud or not. Better to make it part of a rational discussion. Most people have learned this, you should too.
On a side note I will never attend an event where all you can carry is a clear bag. I find it unbelievable that people will put up with this abuse so they can watch a bunch of millionaires chase each other around a field. Something to scare people away from NFL games might not be suc
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byTheGavster ( 774657 ) writes:
*cough* *cough* [wikipedia.org]
byEntropius ( 188861 ) writes:
I meant in the US -- al-Qaeda doesn't really have that much of a beef with the Russians.
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byfustakrakich ( 1673220 ) writes:
...nude scanners, and so forth are a complete waste.
Obviously, you don't sell or distribute nude scanners, or you wouldn't be saying that.
byKleen13 ( 1006327 ) writes:
Probably a Jobs Program as well.
bypnutjam ( 523990 ) writes:
Sorry to Godwin this thread, but do some reading about the prevalence of uniforms in pre-nazi germany. It's eye opening.
byDo You Smell That ( 932346 ) writes:
One of my favorites was the time when, after getting through security in Zurich on a flight to the US (and mind you, having my ovomaltine crunchy cream (think nutella consistency), a gift for my wife, confiscated; because it's a "liquid"!), being able to buy cask-strength whisky and lighters *in the same shop*, dozens of feet from the gate to my plane.
...(also, yes spellcheck, whisky is the right spelling of that word, considering my heritage).
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