Amongst other drivel, Mark Newton said:
>If you have no intention of blowing something up, every time you
get
>singled out for extra scrutiny is a security failure.
Security
>*successes* would involve singling out people who *did* want to
blow
>things up, and actually catching them. Yet aviation security
has
>never once managed to chalk-up a success like that anywhere in
the
>world. And they have hundreds of thousands of *failures* all
over
>the world every day."
Being singled out for "extra security" can occur for a
multitude of reasons in addition to terrorism and "successes" occur
virtually every day around the world. They are invariably not publicised
for a variety of reasons which will be apparent to anyone prepared to
apply a little thought and common sense to the matter.
How do I know that? Because I have discussed
the subject on many occasions with the Chief Customs Officer at a major
Australian airport and also with the Senior Vice President, Safety, of a major
International Airline. Both gentlemen happen to be sons-in-law
of mine.
Brian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:42
AM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Securing
Gliders - Was "The list is... alive!"
Mike Borgelt wrote:
> They may be evil but it is a
mistake to think some of them at least aren't
> stupid.
If you
have no intention of blowing something up, every time you get
singled out
for extra scrutiny is a security failure. Security
*successes* would
involve singling out people who *did* want to blow
things up, and actually
catching them. Yet aviation security has
never once managed to
chalk-up a success like that anywhere in the
world. And they have
hundreds of thousands of *failures* all over
the world every
day.
(you can bet that they'd be trumpeting it from the heavens if
they
ever -did- manage to catch a real terrorist. but they haven't,
so
we're forced to wonder what's actually being achieved each time
we
need to take off our shoes to walk through a metal
detector)
Despite a track record of 100% sustained miserable failure
for over
30 years, we keep giving them money and political capital to do
more of
it. Insane, isn't it? Think of all the *real* security
we'd have if
the world hadn't spent the time since the '70s sqandering
trillions of
dollars on metal detectors and X-ray machines with a
demonstrated
track-record of failing to prevent aircraft from blowing up,
and had
instead spent those trillions of dollars on in-the-field
agents
infiltrating actual terrorist groups and preventing them from
getting
near the airport in the first place...!
(of course, that
might be difficult: when one considers how
laughably ineffective the
world's security measures actually are,
the only rational conclusion to
draw is that that reason more critical
infrastructure doesn't get destroyed
is that nobody wants to
destroy it. It's probably hard to infiltrate
terrorist groups
when there aren't any. The world has a population of
6 billion people,
and the last ones who tried to commit an international
terrorist
incident in the US killed themselves on Sep 11 2001. Who's
out there
to infiltrate? *Anyone*? And given that our security
spend is less
concerned with infiltration than it is with laminated passes
for GA
pilots, how will we ever know?)
The world's aviation security
apparatus is so clueless that it took
them nearly ten years to work out
whether or not TWA flight 800 had
been blown up by a terrorist (it wasn't
-- but we've got the extra
baggage screening and hand-luggage restrictions
it inspired anyway).
Now they've banned us from walking onto the apron at
piss-ant little
airfields out in the middle of nowhere that most people
have never
heard of before. Does anyone feel safer? And, more
importantly, is
anyone *actually* safer?
-
mark
[ still laughing at how the X-ray screening
staff at San Jose
airport completely
failed to find the toolkit I forgot I
had
in my laptop bag when I flew back
to LA 3 weeks ago...
]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I
tried an internal
modem,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I
walked.
Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777
-----
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