6 ms·

What constitutes a 'dangerous person'? There is already an extensive no-fly list in place, which incidentally is secret and gives people no avenue for appeal if

by iwwr 15y ago

What constitutes a 'dangerous person'? There is already an extensive no-fly list in place, which incidentally is secret and gives people no avenue for appeal if they have been wrongly put on it.

swombat 15y ago
Israeli airports use extensive profiling to identify potential suicide bombers, from car checkpoints away from the airport to airport staff instructed to look people in the eye and ask them how they're doing (people about to blow themselves up tend to act differently from normal people). They definitely seem to focus on identifying people rather than things. Seems to work ok for them under much harsher conditions than the US has ever or, hopefully, will ever know.
- smhinsey 15y ago
  The TSA already seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for their screeners. Given the tremendous discrepancy in the number of airports in Israel vs. the United States, how are we supposed to come up with enough people who are as qualified as the ones Israel can handpick for their airports?
  - cema 15y ago
    The number of airports is consistent with the number of people. But who in his right mind would want to work in TSA if they can find a respected job elsewhere? Israeli screeners, on the other hand, are respected.
    - smhinsey 15y ago
      To be clear I didn't mean that there are not literally enough people to hire to do the job. I should've been a bit clearer but what I was really getting at was the massive scope and cost of such an agency with staffing requirements like that. We're talking about something on par with or larger than the FBI.
      - chopsueyar 15y ago
        There is only a $1 billion difference between the two agencies budgets (2010). TSA is $8billion, FBI is $9billion, DHS is $55billion. As the US military uses less air conditioning in Afghanistan, that should free up at least a couple billion.
        smhinsey 15y ago
        Wow, I should've looked at that, that is stunning, considering that the FBI actually regularly solves crimes. I imagine if you paid what it really cost to have screeners with that level of training we'd be talking about a pretty hefty increase over the FBI. Mind boggling.
        chopsueyar 15y ago
        But where is the other $47 billion going to? It is not the FBI's or CIA's budget. [edit] Probably to ICE for government provided IP protection and enforcement without due process.
        smhinsey 15y ago
        The DHS is huge now. It covers everything from stuff like ICE to the Coast Guard. If you ask me, TSA is the tip of the DHS iceberg. The whole thing is suspect, top to bottom, and probably ought to be scrapped and done over.
- owenmarshall 15y ago
  Israel has one major international airport, Ben Gurion. It serves ~12 million passengers a year. That's two months of traffic for Hartsfield-Jackson. The Israeli security model will not scale.
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    Israel's population is less than 7.5 million people.
    - owenmarshall 15y ago
      People don't fly into Israel now? :)
      - chopsueyar 15y ago
        No. Only planes and missles.
  - swombat 15y ago
    Your argument: Your site serves 20'000 users a month. There are more than a billion potential internet users in the world. Your site will not scale. Everything scales if you put the effort into it. Ok, maybe some things don't, but saying "The Israeli security model will not scale" just because it hasn't scaled, without providing further arguments, is a bit like saying "Rails doesn't scale" without providing further arguments. Sure, Rails does things differently from how PHP does the same things, and that means the performance trade-offs are different, but that doesn't mean it can't be engineered to scale. And if it makes the passengers/developers happier, it may be worth looking into, not dismissing without argument.
    - owenmarshall 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airport#Security_procedures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airpor... I'm saying that requiring a face to face interaction with every person about to board an airplane in an American airport would be unreasonably expensive and introduce massive delays. I won't deny that it works well in a country with a very high risk of terrorist incidents and a low amount of air traffic. The US, however, flies 633 million people per year, and is at a much lower risk for terrorist attack. You've got to pick the right solution for the right problem. Israeli security isn't it.

by iwwr 15y ago

What constitutes a 'dangerous person'? There is already an extensive no-fly list in place, which incidentally is secret and gives people no avenue for appeal if they have been wrongly put on it.

swombat 15y ago

Israeli airports use extensive profiling to identify potential suicide bombers, from car checkpoints away from the airport to airport staff instructed to look people in the eye and ask them how they're doing (people about to blow themselves up tend to act differently from normal people). They definitely seem to focus on identifying people rather than things. Seems to work ok for them under much harsher conditions than the US has ever or, hopefully, will ever know.

smhinsey 15y ago
The TSA already seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for their screeners. Given the tremendous discrepancy in the number of airports in Israel vs. the United States, how are we supposed to come up with enough people who are as qualified as the ones Israel can handpick for their airports?
- cema 15y ago
  The number of airports is consistent with the number of people. But who in his right mind would want to work in TSA if they can find a respected job elsewhere? Israeli screeners, on the other hand, are respected.
  - smhinsey 15y ago
    To be clear I didn't mean that there are not literally enough people to hire to do the job. I should've been a bit clearer but what I was really getting at was the massive scope and cost of such an agency with staffing requirements like that. We're talking about something on par with or larger than the FBI.
    - chopsueyar 15y ago
      There is only a $1 billion difference between the two agencies budgets (2010). TSA is $8billion, FBI is $9billion, DHS is $55billion. As the US military uses less air conditioning in Afghanistan, that should free up at least a couple billion.
      - smhinsey 15y ago
        Wow, I should've looked at that, that is stunning, considering that the FBI actually regularly solves crimes. I imagine if you paid what it really cost to have screeners with that level of training we'd be talking about a pretty hefty increase over the FBI. Mind boggling.
        chopsueyar 15y ago
        But where is the other $47 billion going to? It is not the FBI's or CIA's budget. [edit] Probably to ICE for government provided IP protection and enforcement without due process.
        smhinsey 15y ago
        The DHS is huge now. It covers everything from stuff like ICE to the Coast Guard. If you ask me, TSA is the tip of the DHS iceberg. The whole thing is suspect, top to bottom, and probably ought to be scrapped and done over.
owenmarshall 15y ago
Israel has one major international airport, Ben Gurion. It serves ~12 million passengers a year. That's two months of traffic for Hartsfield-Jackson. The Israeli security model will not scale.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  Israel's population is less than 7.5 million people.
  - owenmarshall 15y ago
    People don't fly into Israel now? :)
    - chopsueyar 15y ago
      No. Only planes and missles.
- swombat 15y ago
  Your argument: Your site serves 20'000 users a month. There are more than a billion potential internet users in the world. Your site will not scale. Everything scales if you put the effort into it. Ok, maybe some things don't, but saying "The Israeli security model will not scale" just because it hasn't scaled, without providing further arguments, is a bit like saying "Rails doesn't scale" without providing further arguments. Sure, Rails does things differently from how PHP does the same things, and that means the performance trade-offs are different, but that doesn't mean it can't be engineered to scale. And if it makes the passengers/developers happier, it may be worth looking into, not dismissing without argument.
  - owenmarshall 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airport#Security_procedures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airpor... I'm saying that requiring a face to face interaction with every person about to board an airplane in an American airport would be unreasonably expensive and introduce massive delays. I won't deny that it works well in a country with a very high risk of terrorist incidents and a low amount of air traffic. The US, however, flies 633 million people per year, and is at a much lower risk for terrorist attack. You've got to pick the right solution for the right problem. Israeli security isn't it.