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Baltimore Washington Intl. airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport both recently got body scanners. They both changed their process to c
by daten 16y ago
Baltimore Washington Intl. airport and
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport both recently got body scanners. They both changed their process to close all lanes not equipped with a body-scanner and funnel everyone through the one or two scanners they had.
At BWI they would make every 15th or so person go through the scanner, or anyone who volunteered by walking up to it instead of the metal detector.
At Atlanta the scanners weren't even operational yet and they still only opened the metal detectors with scanners beside them and had an army of TSA screeners standing around doing nothing while a huge crowd of travelers waited in a very long line.
The processes have indeed changed.
- daten 16y agoAdditionally I would feel perfectly safe flying without any security screening at the airports. No "terrorists" have been attacking schools, churches, malls, buses, trains, bridges, theaters, libraries, office buildings, etc. Either they only attack planes (not even the airports themselves) or there aren't enough terrorists to justify this amount of "security".
- ceejayoz 16y agoI've always been baffled by the lack of those sorts of attacks. One can imagine the economic damage if everyone was terrified to go to malls, grocery stores, schools, etc. Amazon.com would be about the only company to come out okay.
- roc 16y agoDespite what the security and media apparatus would have us believe, it simply isn't easy to convince people to go on murderous rampages. Most people are not monsters. Let alone suicidal ones. When you realize the inhumanity required to follow through on a terror plot is the limiting resource, their targeting and methods make more sense.
- mcantelon 16y agoForest fires seem, to me, the low hanging fruit. Lots of economic damage for little effort so the fact they're not being done make me doubt the omnipresence of Emmanuel Goldstein.
- ceejayoz 16y agoI'm surprised Al Qaeda hasn't used the DC snipers as a model.
- asmithmd1 16y agoThis amazes me also. Imagine 6 or 8 teams of two shooting one person at random every other day or so in our largest metro areas. It would paralyze the country. And TSA would start swiping your hands at the airport to see if you had recently fired a gun.
- ceejayoz 16y agoExactly. The DC folks got caught because they used the same vehicle and stayed in the same area. Al Qaeda surely has the resources to avoid that one. Add in some random rural targets and the entire country comes to a standstill. That this hasn't happened yet indicates to me either that Al Qaeda is far more neutered than we generally think, or they utterly lack any amount of imagination. It's rather terrifying how close our society is to total panic and shutdown.
- mistermann 16y ago>That this hasn't happened yet indicates to me either that Al Qaeda is far more neutered than we generally think, or they utterly lack any amount of imagination. Or perhaps Al Quaeda isn't quite what you've been told. For some reason that is considered impossible by almost all normally open minded people.
- ceejayoz 16y agoI tend to doubt that Al Qaeda is some poor, misunderstood group of people who just want to be our friends if we'd only let them.
- jamii 16y agoI hate to keep making a point of this, but it has happened in the past and the solution wasn't pretty. Wikipedia says: The Troubles' impact on the ordinary people of Northern Ireland produced such psychological trauma that the city of Belfast had been compared to London during the Blitz. [104] The stress resulting from bomb attacks, street disturbances, security checkpoints, and the constant military presence had the strongest effect on children and young adults. [105] In addition to the violence and intimidation, there was chronic unemployment and a severe housing shortage. Vandalism was also a major problem. In the 1970s there were 10,000 vandalised empty houses in Belfast alone. Most of the vandals were aged between eight and thirteen. [106] Activities for young people were limited, with pubs fortified and cinemas closed. Just to go shopping in the city centre required passing through security gates and being subjected to body searches. In addition, some statistics from the same page: Injuries 47,541 Shootings 36,923 Armed robberies 22,539 People charged with paramilitary offences 19,605 Bombings and attempted bombings 16,209 Arson 2,225 [citation needed] I'm constantly amazed that after surviving the Troubles we over-react so massively to a couple of nutjobs lighting their crotches. Al Qaeda are incompetent morons. PIRA were fucking scary.
- mootothemax 16y agoAl Qaeda are incompetent morons. PIRA were fucking scary. I kinda-sorta agree: suicide bombing's a pretty stupid way to go about things, as it means you wipe out all your capable terrorists after only one go. The IRA didn't have that problem - well, intentionally at least.
- jamii 16y agoAl Qaeda also seem to keep throwing themselves after hard targets. PIRA (and the UVF, UDA etc) left bombs on trains, dropped them in shopping centre bins, posted them through letter-boxes. The really terrifying thing was that nowhere was safe. One of my earliest memories is helping to check under the car for bombs before driving to school.
- tomjen3 16y agoThats the part I never got either - I remember after 11/9 that I had wished America was British, because you guys reacted so sensible and wouldn't have gone so crazy. A country that can survive the Blitz isn't going to care about a couple of buildings.