9 ms·

I don't consider luggage searches overbearing. I would not want to get on a plane if everyone's luggage wasn't searched beforehand.

gregschlom 10y ago
How about getting on a bus? Getting on a train? How about walking on the street next to people whose backpacks haven't been inspected? Should we put x-ray detectors on every street corner, next to the security cameras we already have?
- slimsag 10y ago
  I get where you are coming from. I don't think that having x-ray detectors for plane luggage gives the passengers much safety: they could always use whatever weapon/bomb at the security line anyway! I do, however, think that it's important not to let those people onto planes in contrast to buses, street corners, etc. because otherwise someone might take control of an entire plane, which can do a lot more damage than a bomb/pistol/etc, you know?
  - jjnoakes 10y ago
    This is what locked cockpits are for, not invasive luggage searches.
    - slimsag 10y ago
      Interesting point; are there protocols in place to prevent a terrorist on board a plane from entering the cockpit at all costs? e.g. if they start executing passengers, threaten to blow up the plane, etc?
      - chimeracoder 10y ago
        The cockpit doors have been locked since Sept 12, 2001. It is impossible to open them from the outside without very heavy machinery that could not be operated by a passenger, and even then it can take over half an hour. Even if we did away with security entirely and let people carry guns on board, there would be literally zero risk of a hijacked plane in the US thanks to the locked doors. (There might be other reasons not to do that, but hijacking fears are not one of them). And even then, it's arguable that this would still be impossible. 9/11 happened because hijacking protocol never took into account the possibility that the hijackers would use the plane itself as a weapon. The people on the final hijacked plane on 9/11 did know this, because they received calls about the WTC, so they fought back and forced the plane to crash, thwarting the hijackers' plans.
      - kbenson 10y ago
        It may be mandated, or company policy, but ultimately it's up to the pilots. Cockpits seem to have quite a bit of security since 9/11[1], with the ability of crew to enter after a 30 second delay if there is not a denial by someone within the cockpit, and the doors are supposedly rated to withstand a grenade. As we've seen, a plane can be devastating when used as a weapon, so I think it is sensible to deny terrorists to the cockpit at the expense of the passengers. Theoretically, there are few situations where passengers can be forcibly restrained, since they should outnumber any people trying to seize the plane by quite a bit, passengers could (and have[2]) attempted to neutralize the threat themselves (as they understand the possible consequences of waiting out the situation in this era where the goal is not money, but chaos). 1: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 2: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/22/911.flight.93/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/22/911.flight.93/
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      What happens when the pilots need to use the bathroom? This has always bothered me when people talk about reinforced cockpit doors as a cure-all for hijackings.
      - lwhalen 10y ago
        I think if the alternative is a psycho/collection of psychos gaining access to the cockpit, a puddle/pile on the floor is a reasonable outcome in that situation.
      - jboles 10y ago
        The cockpit door has a peep hole, and loitering near the front of the plane seems to be prohibited by most US air lines.
        pkaeding 10y ago
        In addition, there is a protocol for this. The pilot will contact the flight attendant working in the front of the plane. The flight attendant will lock a beverage cart in front of the bathrooms, creating a (heavy, but not immovable) barrier between the cockpit and bathroom, and the rest of the plane. The flight attendant stands behind the cart, watching the passengers. The pilot looks through the peep hole, and when it is clear, comes out, locking the cockpit door behind him/herself. After using the rest room, the pilot knocks on the door to ask the copilot to open it. The peep hold is used to be sure the flight attendant is still standing guard and everything is normal. There are obviously some risks here, as the door is opened briefly twice, but there are a number of steps taken to minimize this risk.
        mb_72 10y ago
        I'm curious - is this a 'known and standard' protocol adopted universally across many airlines? Or how do you know this? I guess I'm thinking that if this is 'known and standard' it may also be possible to design an attack against it.
        10y ago
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    In fairness, you can kill more people with a smaller bomb by detonating it in flight than just about anywhere. This is simply because airplanes are dense with people and very delicate. Given the cheapness and minimal passenger disruption from x-ray inspection of checked baggage, it seems like a no-brainer.
    - chrismcb 10y ago
      How much damage is done to searched bags, and how many items have been stolen by the searchers? More or less than the damage a terrorist would cause? I'm trying to say that searching bags is more expensive and more disruptive than you are trying to argue
      - sliverstorm 10y ago
        That's a hard sell. I'd rather have luggage regularly stolen outright than perish in a plane crash. Luggage and lives are hard to compare.
        jessriedel 10y ago
        I'd rather not die in a car crash, but that doesn't mean I'd pay an extra $10,000 for a car that reduced the risk of dying in a crash by 1%. You can't avoid putting an effective price on life, and in the US it's about $10 million.
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        Well, first note that you have to compare the current costs of scanning to the counterfactual where there is no scanning and terrorists know it. I'd wager we'd have at least a few bombing per year. (Planes seem to be a high-visibility target, and the US gets various random bombings on a yearly basis.) The cost of a downed passenger plane is of order $2 billion, using the statistical value of $10 million per life in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Life_Value_in_the_US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Life_Value_in_th... The TSA's annual budget is $7.5 billion, of which only part gets spent on checked baggage screening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Admini... So those are some very rough numbers, but I think they will come out favoring screening. I'd be very interested in the calculation if you'd like to try to be more exact! The hardest part will be estimating the counterfactual bombing rate, but I bet the FBI has expert estimates of this somewhere.
- TillE 10y ago
  It's a lot harder to murder hundreds of people with a bomb elsewhere. It's possible (eg, Timothy McVeigh) but you need a much bigger bomb. Nobody wants something like Lockerbie to be easy. Pre-9/11, pre-Richard Reid airport security was generally sensible and not too much of a burden.
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    We won't know the real truth behind Lockerbie until a good century after America goes the way of Rome, but I'm sure once nationalism leaves the scene there will be a lot of contention about it. Furthermore the same can be said about 9/11. Once could make a legitimate argument that over half of airplane related criminal acts are related directly to US government intervention. But of course, if that's true, most of the evidence is either _lost_ or destroyed.
    - sctb 10y ago
      This comment violates the HN guidelines. Please don't derail the discussion by introducing flamewar topics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    > It's a lot harder to murder hundreds of people with a bomb elsewhere Airport security lines would be an obvious target with hundreds of people (at the larger terminals). Major cities are full of areas where hundreds of people routinely gather within a small radius. Airplanes aren't special.
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    > It's a lot harder to murder hundreds of people with a bomb elsewhere Not really. Honestly the best places are probably TSA checkpoints considering how slow and clogged they get. In almost any amusement park during the summer (one of the reasons Disney searches all bags and has undercover security everywhere). Time Square at various times. Yes exploding on a plane likely kills 100+ at once but in all honestly I would imagine it's far easier to do it elsewhere you just might need a tiny bit more explosive material. And now I'm thoroughly depressed. Life is so fragile...well on the scale I care about.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  I like to point out that someone is probably carrying a gun on any random ten car BART train.
- stronglikedan 10y ago
  If you survive a blast at ground level, you survive. If you survive a blast at 39,000 feet, your problems are just beginning.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Depends on the blast size and location. There have been a lot of failed attempts to down aircraft. Ex: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot The only bomb they detonated killed one person on an aircraft in flight.
    - jboles 10y ago
      If you survive a 'successful' blast at ground level, you survive. If you survive a 'successful' blast at 39,000 feet, your problems are just beginning.
      - wcummings 10y ago
        Not necessarily >The bomb only created a relatively small hole in the plane's fuselage, however, and the aircraft was able to return to Mogadishu and land safely. Somali authorities now believe that they know who carried the bomb onto the plane and detonated it: A man who was then sucked out of the hole in the fuselage and became the attack's only fatality. (Only two minor injuries were reported among other passengers and crew.) http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/05/somali_airplane_bomber_was_only_victim_of_bomb.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/05/somali_air...
        dredmorbius 10y ago
        That blast happened at about 12,000' elevation. "Passengers on a Daallo Airlines flight leaving from Mogadishu were subjected to just about the most terrifying experience imaginable on Tuesday as a bomb exploded in the plane's passenger cabin somewhere above 12,000 feet." Note that while 12,000 feet is well above sea level, it's only 4,000 feet above effective internal cabin altitude of 8,000'. So the fuselage stresses are vastly lower than those at 29,000'. The pressure differential is about 10 pa (pascals), vs. about 40 pa at 29,000'. That's roughly 1.5 psi vs. 11.5 psi -- there's nearly 10x the pressure differential at FL29.
- duaneb 10y ago
  It would be very difficult to ransom a bus. Speed is not a realistic movie.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  An airplane, as multiple people have pointed out: 1. Is tremendously fragile. It's an inflated sausage with a fragile skin, with half its takeoff weight as highly flamable, very high-energy fuel, soaring at altitudes and speeds which will almost certainly tear it to pieces, more particularly if control systems are affected, from even a modest blast. You'd need tens to thousands of times as much explosive to do remotely similar damage on ground. 2. Survivors of any initial blast are unlikely to survive subsequent developments. 3. Of their nature, airline passengers tend towards the wealthy and influential: businesspeople, legislators, and others with significant responsibility and importance within social structures. 4. The vehicle itself can be used as a weapon in ways few other vehicles can. A bomb used to direct an aircraft to a specific destination becomes a tremendous lever (as in 9/11). The bomb which brought down Pan Am 103 (the Lockerbie incident) weighed a few ounces. The bomb Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols constructed for the Oklahoma City attack weighed 7,000 lb and filled a truck. The Boston Marathon bombing involved two devices, several kilograms each. Three people were killed. Yes, 264 others were injured, some quite seriously. But the same explosives divided, say, amongst a number of aircraft could have killed many hundreds, possibly 1,000 or more. Yes, highly strategic explosives placement might be able to disrupt other sites or forms of infrastructure. But the physical, medical, economic, social, and symbolic impacts of few other attacks are as high as those on aircraft.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Before airport security, attacks on airplanes were rampant. Introducing basic screening cut that way down. There is a happy medium between TSA molestation and not even attempting to stop the most obvious attempts to bring bombs and weapons. It's interesting and strange to me that so many people react so badly to the TSA that they want to do away with this stuff altogether. I wonder if they realize how frequent incidents were back before airport security.
  - chrismcb 10y ago
    Were they though? Outside of the 69-71 era there were only a dozen or two per year. How many of those could be prevented simply by locking the doors and not giving in? I've had significantly more damage done to my belongs because they were searched than what terrorists have done.
    - chatmasta 10y ago
      "A dozen or two per year" is one or two a month. Do you not consider that a lot?
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Why exclude the era where hijackings became so common that the authorities decided they had to implement security screenings to combat them? That seems like a rather relevant timeframe to me! In that period, there was an average of something like 30-40 per year in the US. And air travel has increased substantially since then, so if we saw that rate today it would be more like 60-100 per year, or one every few days. Looking at it another way, about one in 100,000 flights were hijacked, compare that to the modern rate of fatal crashes of somewhere around one in 10 million to one in 100 million. (The number is very approximate because not enough crashes happen to get an accurate idea of the risk anymore.) Now, hijacking don't have to be fatal, but they also don't have to be safe. Even a fairly small fatality rate (for a hostage situation) would catapult air travel from the safest mode of transportation available to the most dangerous. And people like blowing stuff up too. If anyone can build a big pipe bomb and bring it onto an airplane with no risk of being caught, the rate of exploding airliners would look more like that old hijacking rate than the modern rate of essentially indistinguishable from zero. Airliners are easy and attractive targets. You get a lot more bang for your buck there. For example, the bombs used at the Boston Marathon would have killed a couple hundred people on an airplane, versus three people when detonated on the street. I see no evidence that the increased screening measures since 2001 have helped things at all. But it seems crazy to me to argue for zero security. We tried that, it worked poorly, and basic x-ray machines and metal detectors cut the rate way down.
rconti 10y ago
Handbaggage or checked? My understanding (possibly mistaken) is that checked baggage was NOT X-Rayed until after 9/11. I remember at the time one of the "fixes" was to X-Ray checked bags, and I remember being stunned to find out they simply hadn't bothered before.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  I was pretty young then but I think all luggage did get x-rayed and you walked through a metal detector. the new things are liquid restrictions, removing shoes, etc If they didn't x-ray carry-on, ask yourself this, why didn't the hijackers just bring AK-47's in their briefcases.
  - slavik81 10y ago
    Checked bags are the ones you don't carry on. They're not accessible to passengers.
    - sliverstorm 10y ago
      I said all luggage. Isn't carry-on luggage?
      - slavik81 10y ago
        Sorry. I'd thought you misunderstood due to this part, which appeared to be refuting a claim nobody made: > If they didn't x-ray carry-on, ask yourself this, why didn't the hijackers just bring AK-47's in their briefcases.
        sliverstorm 10y ago
        Oh lord, clearly I wasn't processing what I was reading, I thought my original parent was saying they thought carry-on wasn't x-rayed.
rdl 10y ago
I'd be vastly more tolerant of security searches if they were ONLY for security (bombs) and would not report or confiscate drugs, cash, or potentially, weapons other than bombs-vs-this-aircraft. From what I've heard, Israeli nightclub searches are sort of like that -- drugs and such are fine (even though banned/illegal), but no weapons.

gregschlom 10y ago

How about getting on a bus? Getting on a train? How about walking on the street next to people whose backpacks haven't been inspected? Should we put x-ray detectors on every street corner, next to the security cameras we already have?

slimsag 10y ago
I get where you are coming from. I don't think that having x-ray detectors for plane luggage gives the passengers much safety: they could always use whatever weapon/bomb at the security line anyway! I do, however, think that it's important not to let those people onto planes in contrast to buses, street corners, etc. because otherwise someone might take control of an entire plane, which can do a lot more damage than a bomb/pistol/etc, you know?
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  This is what locked cockpits are for, not invasive luggage searches.
  - slimsag 10y ago
    Interesting point; are there protocols in place to prevent a terrorist on board a plane from entering the cockpit at all costs? e.g. if they start executing passengers, threaten to blow up the plane, etc?
    - chimeracoder 10y ago
      The cockpit doors have been locked since Sept 12, 2001. It is impossible to open them from the outside without very heavy machinery that could not be operated by a passenger, and even then it can take over half an hour. Even if we did away with security entirely and let people carry guns on board, there would be literally zero risk of a hijacked plane in the US thanks to the locked doors. (There might be other reasons not to do that, but hijacking fears are not one of them). And even then, it's arguable that this would still be impossible. 9/11 happened because hijacking protocol never took into account the possibility that the hijackers would use the plane itself as a weapon. The people on the final hijacked plane on 9/11 did know this, because they received calls about the WTC, so they fought back and forced the plane to crash, thwarting the hijackers' plans.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      It may be mandated, or company policy, but ultimately it's up to the pilots. Cockpits seem to have quite a bit of security since 9/11[1], with the ability of crew to enter after a 30 second delay if there is not a denial by someone within the cockpit, and the doors are supposedly rated to withstand a grenade. As we've seen, a plane can be devastating when used as a weapon, so I think it is sensible to deny terrorists to the cockpit at the expense of the passengers. Theoretically, there are few situations where passengers can be forcibly restrained, since they should outnumber any people trying to seize the plane by quite a bit, passengers could (and have[2]) attempted to neutralize the threat themselves (as they understand the possible consequences of waiting out the situation in this era where the goal is not money, but chaos). 1: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 2: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/22/911.flight.93/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/22/911.flight.93/
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    What happens when the pilots need to use the bathroom? This has always bothered me when people talk about reinforced cockpit doors as a cure-all for hijackings.
    - lwhalen 10y ago
      I think if the alternative is a psycho/collection of psychos gaining access to the cockpit, a puddle/pile on the floor is a reasonable outcome in that situation.
    - jboles 10y ago
      The cockpit door has a peep hole, and loitering near the front of the plane seems to be prohibited by most US air lines.
      - pkaeding 10y ago
        In addition, there is a protocol for this. The pilot will contact the flight attendant working in the front of the plane. The flight attendant will lock a beverage cart in front of the bathrooms, creating a (heavy, but not immovable) barrier between the cockpit and bathroom, and the rest of the plane. The flight attendant stands behind the cart, watching the passengers. The pilot looks through the peep hole, and when it is clear, comes out, locking the cockpit door behind him/herself. After using the rest room, the pilot knocks on the door to ask the copilot to open it. The peep hold is used to be sure the flight attendant is still standing guard and everything is normal. There are obviously some risks here, as the door is opened briefly twice, but there are a number of steps taken to minimize this risk.
        mb_72 10y ago
        I'm curious - is this a 'known and standard' protocol adopted universally across many airlines? Or how do you know this? I guess I'm thinking that if this is 'known and standard' it may also be possible to design an attack against it.
        10y ago
- jessriedel 10y ago
  In fairness, you can kill more people with a smaller bomb by detonating it in flight than just about anywhere. This is simply because airplanes are dense with people and very delicate. Given the cheapness and minimal passenger disruption from x-ray inspection of checked baggage, it seems like a no-brainer.
  - chrismcb 10y ago
    How much damage is done to searched bags, and how many items have been stolen by the searchers? More or less than the damage a terrorist would cause? I'm trying to say that searching bags is more expensive and more disruptive than you are trying to argue
    - sliverstorm 10y ago
      That's a hard sell. I'd rather have luggage regularly stolen outright than perish in a plane crash. Luggage and lives are hard to compare.
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        I'd rather not die in a car crash, but that doesn't mean I'd pay an extra $10,000 for a car that reduced the risk of dying in a crash by 1%. You can't avoid putting an effective price on life, and in the US it's about $10 million.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      Well, first note that you have to compare the current costs of scanning to the counterfactual where there is no scanning and terrorists know it. I'd wager we'd have at least a few bombing per year. (Planes seem to be a high-visibility target, and the US gets various random bombings on a yearly basis.) The cost of a downed passenger plane is of order $2 billion, using the statistical value of $10 million per life in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Life_Value_in_the_US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Life_Value_in_th... The TSA's annual budget is $7.5 billion, of which only part gets spent on checked baggage screening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Admini... So those are some very rough numbers, but I think they will come out favoring screening. I'd be very interested in the calculation if you'd like to try to be more exact! The hardest part will be estimating the counterfactual bombing rate, but I bet the FBI has expert estimates of this somewhere.
TillE 10y ago
It's a lot harder to murder hundreds of people with a bomb elsewhere. It's possible (eg, Timothy McVeigh) but you need a much bigger bomb. Nobody wants something like Lockerbie to be easy. Pre-9/11, pre-Richard Reid airport security was generally sensible and not too much of a burden.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  We won't know the real truth behind Lockerbie until a good century after America goes the way of Rome, but I'm sure once nationalism leaves the scene there will be a lot of contention about it. Furthermore the same can be said about 9/11. Once could make a legitimate argument that over half of airplane related criminal acts are related directly to US government intervention. But of course, if that's true, most of the evidence is either _lost_ or destroyed.
  - sctb 10y ago
    This comment violates the HN guidelines. Please don't derail the discussion by introducing flamewar topics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > It's a lot harder to murder hundreds of people with a bomb elsewhere Airport security lines would be an obvious target with hundreds of people (at the larger terminals). Major cities are full of areas where hundreds of people routinely gather within a small radius. Airplanes aren't special.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > It's a lot harder to murder hundreds of people with a bomb elsewhere Not really. Honestly the best places are probably TSA checkpoints considering how slow and clogged they get. In almost any amusement park during the summer (one of the reasons Disney searches all bags and has undercover security everywhere). Time Square at various times. Yes exploding on a plane likely kills 100+ at once but in all honestly I would imagine it's far easier to do it elsewhere you just might need a tiny bit more explosive material. And now I'm thoroughly depressed. Life is so fragile...well on the scale I care about.
Gibbon1 10y ago
I like to point out that someone is probably carrying a gun on any random ten car BART train.
stronglikedan 10y ago
If you survive a blast at ground level, you survive. If you survive a blast at 39,000 feet, your problems are just beginning.
- Retric 10y ago
  Depends on the blast size and location. There have been a lot of failed attempts to down aircraft. Ex: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot The only bomb they detonated killed one person on an aircraft in flight.
  - jboles 10y ago
    If you survive a 'successful' blast at ground level, you survive. If you survive a 'successful' blast at 39,000 feet, your problems are just beginning.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      Not necessarily >The bomb only created a relatively small hole in the plane's fuselage, however, and the aircraft was able to return to Mogadishu and land safely. Somali authorities now believe that they know who carried the bomb onto the plane and detonated it: A man who was then sucked out of the hole in the fuselage and became the attack's only fatality. (Only two minor injuries were reported among other passengers and crew.) http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/05/somali_airplane_bomber_was_only_victim_of_bomb.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/05/somali_air...
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        That blast happened at about 12,000' elevation. "Passengers on a Daallo Airlines flight leaving from Mogadishu were subjected to just about the most terrifying experience imaginable on Tuesday as a bomb exploded in the plane's passenger cabin somewhere above 12,000 feet." Note that while 12,000 feet is well above sea level, it's only 4,000 feet above effective internal cabin altitude of 8,000'. So the fuselage stresses are vastly lower than those at 29,000'. The pressure differential is about 10 pa (pascals), vs. about 40 pa at 29,000'. That's roughly 1.5 psi vs. 11.5 psi -- there's nearly 10x the pressure differential at FL29.
duaneb 10y ago
It would be very difficult to ransom a bus. Speed is not a realistic movie.
dredmorbius 10y ago
An airplane, as multiple people have pointed out: 1. Is tremendously fragile. It's an inflated sausage with a fragile skin, with half its takeoff weight as highly flamable, very high-energy fuel, soaring at altitudes and speeds which will almost certainly tear it to pieces, more particularly if control systems are affected, from even a modest blast. You'd need tens to thousands of times as much explosive to do remotely similar damage on ground. 2. Survivors of any initial blast are unlikely to survive subsequent developments. 3. Of their nature, airline passengers tend towards the wealthy and influential: businesspeople, legislators, and others with significant responsibility and importance within social structures. 4. The vehicle itself can be used as a weapon in ways few other vehicles can. A bomb used to direct an aircraft to a specific destination becomes a tremendous lever (as in 9/11). The bomb which brought down Pan Am 103 (the Lockerbie incident) weighed a few ounces. The bomb Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols constructed for the Oklahoma City attack weighed 7,000 lb and filled a truck. The Boston Marathon bombing involved two devices, several kilograms each. Three people were killed. Yes, 264 others were injured, some quite seriously. But the same explosives divided, say, amongst a number of aircraft could have killed many hundreds, possibly 1,000 or more. Yes, highly strategic explosives placement might be able to disrupt other sites or forms of infrastructure. But the physical, medical, economic, social, and symbolic impacts of few other attacks are as high as those on aircraft.
mikeash 10y ago
Before airport security, attacks on airplanes were rampant. Introducing basic screening cut that way down. There is a happy medium between TSA molestation and not even attempting to stop the most obvious attempts to bring bombs and weapons. It's interesting and strange to me that so many people react so badly to the TSA that they want to do away with this stuff altogether. I wonder if they realize how frequent incidents were back before airport security.
- chrismcb 10y ago
  Were they though? Outside of the 69-71 era there were only a dozen or two per year. How many of those could be prevented simply by locking the doors and not giving in? I've had significantly more damage done to my belongs because they were searched than what terrorists have done.
  - chatmasta 10y ago
    "A dozen or two per year" is one or two a month. Do you not consider that a lot?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Why exclude the era where hijackings became so common that the authorities decided they had to implement security screenings to combat them? That seems like a rather relevant timeframe to me! In that period, there was an average of something like 30-40 per year in the US. And air travel has increased substantially since then, so if we saw that rate today it would be more like 60-100 per year, or one every few days. Looking at it another way, about one in 100,000 flights were hijacked, compare that to the modern rate of fatal crashes of somewhere around one in 10 million to one in 100 million. (The number is very approximate because not enough crashes happen to get an accurate idea of the risk anymore.) Now, hijacking don't have to be fatal, but they also don't have to be safe. Even a fairly small fatality rate (for a hostage situation) would catapult air travel from the safest mode of transportation available to the most dangerous. And people like blowing stuff up too. If anyone can build a big pipe bomb and bring it onto an airplane with no risk of being caught, the rate of exploding airliners would look more like that old hijacking rate than the modern rate of essentially indistinguishable from zero. Airliners are easy and attractive targets. You get a lot more bang for your buck there. For example, the bombs used at the Boston Marathon would have killed a couple hundred people on an airplane, versus three people when detonated on the street. I see no evidence that the increased screening measures since 2001 have helped things at all. But it seems crazy to me to argue for zero security. We tried that, it worked poorly, and basic x-ray machines and metal detectors cut the rate way down.

rconti 10y ago

Handbaggage or checked? My understanding (possibly mistaken) is that checked baggage was NOT X-Rayed until after 9/11. I remember at the time one of the "fixes" was to X-Ray checked bags, and I remember being stunned to find out they simply hadn't bothered before.

sliverstorm 10y ago
I was pretty young then but I think all luggage did get x-rayed and you walked through a metal detector. the new things are liquid restrictions, removing shoes, etc If they didn't x-ray carry-on, ask yourself this, why didn't the hijackers just bring AK-47's in their briefcases.
- slavik81 10y ago
  Checked bags are the ones you don't carry on. They're not accessible to passengers.
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    I said all luggage. Isn't carry-on luggage?
    - slavik81 10y ago
      Sorry. I'd thought you misunderstood due to this part, which appeared to be refuting a claim nobody made: > If they didn't x-ray carry-on, ask yourself this, why didn't the hijackers just bring AK-47's in their briefcases.
      - sliverstorm 10y ago
        Oh lord, clearly I wasn't processing what I was reading, I thought my original parent was saying they thought carry-on wasn't x-rayed.

rdl 10y ago

I'd be vastly more tolerant of security searches if they were ONLY for security (bombs) and would not report or confiscate drugs, cash, or potentially, weapons other than bombs-vs-this-aircraft. From what I've heard, Israeli nightclub searches are sort of like that -- drugs and such are fine (even though banned/illegal), but no weapons.