5 ms·

This doesn't surprise me in the least. I've been in India for the last month, and I've been shocked by two new things since my last visit (several years ago).

This doesn't surprise me in the least. I've been in India for the last month, and I've been shocked by two new things since my last visit (several years ago). First, security here is everywhere. Second, security here is pointless. I have had to walk through security to get to supermarkets, discount stores (think Walmart), high-end shopping malls, temples, mosques, movie theaters, national monuments, airports, hotels, you name it. You can't walk into a large building and not walk through a metal detector. The ACLU would probably go ballistic if the US had even 1% of the number of pat-downs that I have had to go through daily here. Unfortunately, it's entirely pointless. Generally, I don't take my belt/jewelry/phone off when going through the metal detector, and most of the time, it doesn't even detect that. Whether or not I set off the detector, the process is the same: they (occasionally) wave a wand over, and then send me to a second person who briefly pats me down (<5 seconds in all). Keep in mind, the exact same process is applied to those who do and do not set off the metal detector. A few times, I've set it off and they just wave me through without even checking me further. It's mind-boggling. I can't say I'm a fan of ubiquitous security, but the only thing that's worse than ubiquitous ineffective security. Anybody who really wants to cause trouble can bypass it in their sleep - all you manage to do is disrupt the lives of everybody else, all the while accomplishing literally nothing.

smiler 15y ago
It's more about giving people jobs I think
- chimeracoder 15y ago
  I doubt it. The supermarkets in West Bengal, for example, have security because there were riots when they first came to the state (which is not that hard to believe if you compare them to Wal-Mart in the US). Ditto for the hotels (2008 terrorist attacks) and the temples and mosques (decades of Partition-related violence). India's focused on developing its economy, but not in the way that private institutions (or a budget-aware government) would actively spend money on security theater just for that purpose - especially not when there actually are real security threats afoot. It's just like the US - the problem isn't that people don't care about security, or that they don't recognize it's a concern. The problem is that the existing measures (like the TSA) don't seem to be paying proper attention to the problem.
lkozma 15y ago
Similar thing happened to me when visiting a museum in the Vatican. Long queues, metal detectors, etc. After passing through the whole thing with no problem, I realized I had my pocket knife in my pocket throughout the day. I noticed then that the metal detector was beeping all the time, but they were not paying attention, as they probably didn't want to get people to take off belts, etc.
- brc 15y ago
  I accidentally took a pocket knife through airport security in LAX. After that, I realised that the TSA was not only annoying and a waste of time and money, it was completely pointless as well.
  - rdtsc 15y ago
    It is possible to deduce that from their track record as well. In 10 years TSA has caught exactly 0 terrorists. Not saying there weren't attempts, but those were caught by FBI, other agencies, and most importantly, regular citizens.
    - TomAnthony 15y ago
      I'd never thought about it like that. That is both scary and amusing.
    - ryanbrunner 15y ago
      While I agree that the "security theatre" that the TSA provides is largely useless, I don't think this is really an accurate statement. It's entirely possible that TSA screening prevented someone getting on a plane with a weapon of some sort, but that the person in question was never identified as a terrorist, since they had to abandon whatever plans they had.
      - rdtsc 15y ago
        > It's entirely possible that TSA screening prevented someone getting on a plane with a weapon of some sort I disagree with that statement. "It could" is hard to measure. We spend 100s of billions of $ on something based on this unproven hypothesis. Keep in mind, TSA was created to catch terrorists red-handed as they are just about to board a plane. As in "Hey look a bomb in the x-ray machine, arrest this guy!". That is their purpose. They have not yet done that, once, in 10 years! Govt. intelligence work and regular citizens have prevented and stopped attempts. There is some track record there. TSA doesn't have one. By your metric one could have just as well re-defined TSA's mission as "Protect the citizens of the United States of America against Evil Pink Elephants from Neptune". Chances are very high that TSA's track record with that task would have been exactly what it is with their current mission. AND you could have still made your argument "See no Pink Elephants from Neptune have attacked us, so they must be doing their job." Or think about it another way: How many airliners were blown up in US airspace before 9/11? Was it a monthly occurrence? Yearly? Now if was a yearly thing, and then TSA came along and it suddenly stopped, you could have made a correlation based argument saying, that it is probably because of fear of TSA that we didn't have any more attacks. Yet another way to look at it. As a terrorist you are trying to instill terror and kill as many people as possible. A large gathering of people would maximize your impact. I wonder what places and events consistently create large queues of people waiting in line? What about also a place that would cripple and disrupt the economy and travel? I'll leave that as a rhetorical question.
bdunbar 15y ago
Unfortunately, it's entirely pointless. It's much the same in the states. I went through eleventy-dozen checkpoints on the Mall, and elsewhere. All the guards searched my backpack at every check point. On the way home I found I had left a charged magazine (8 .45 rounds) in the bottom of my backpack. Not especially well-hidden, just snugged under my spare socks. D.C. seems to have the highest per-capita police presences in the US. And it's all useless and dumb and ineffective.
- checker 15y ago
  It does. Near the Capitol, you have the Capitol Police. And since the area is designated a national park, you have US Park Police. In addition to DC police. Finally, you have the Diplomatic Security and Secret Service that will randomly be in the area, and each building's own security force.
namdnay 15y ago
I remember the security nightmare at IGI: The entire airport was surrounded in soldiers who wouldn't let you in without a ticket. The whole concept of electronic reservations seemed to go right over their head, until I managed to convince a very kind BA stewardess to go in a print an e-ticket confirmation and then bring it outside to me (I'm sure even Al Qaeda could fake one of those). What a bunch of muppets
bconway 15y ago
How many attacks and/or suicide bombings have taken place during your time there?

smiler 15y ago

It's more about giving people jobs I think

chimeracoder 15y ago
I doubt it. The supermarkets in West Bengal, for example, have security because there were riots when they first came to the state (which is not that hard to believe if you compare them to Wal-Mart in the US). Ditto for the hotels (2008 terrorist attacks) and the temples and mosques (decades of Partition-related violence). India's focused on developing its economy, but not in the way that private institutions (or a budget-aware government) would actively spend money on security theater just for that purpose - especially not when there actually are real security threats afoot. It's just like the US - the problem isn't that people don't care about security, or that they don't recognize it's a concern. The problem is that the existing measures (like the TSA) don't seem to be paying proper attention to the problem.

lkozma 15y ago

Similar thing happened to me when visiting a museum in the Vatican. Long queues, metal detectors, etc. After passing through the whole thing with no problem, I realized I had my pocket knife in my pocket throughout the day. I noticed then that the metal detector was beeping all the time, but they were not paying attention, as they probably didn't want to get people to take off belts, etc.

brc 15y ago
I accidentally took a pocket knife through airport security in LAX. After that, I realised that the TSA was not only annoying and a waste of time and money, it was completely pointless as well.
- rdtsc 15y ago
  It is possible to deduce that from their track record as well. In 10 years TSA has caught exactly 0 terrorists. Not saying there weren't attempts, but those were caught by FBI, other agencies, and most importantly, regular citizens.
  - TomAnthony 15y ago
    I'd never thought about it like that. That is both scary and amusing.
  - ryanbrunner 15y ago
    While I agree that the "security theatre" that the TSA provides is largely useless, I don't think this is really an accurate statement. It's entirely possible that TSA screening prevented someone getting on a plane with a weapon of some sort, but that the person in question was never identified as a terrorist, since they had to abandon whatever plans they had.
    - rdtsc 15y ago
      > It's entirely possible that TSA screening prevented someone getting on a plane with a weapon of some sort I disagree with that statement. "It could" is hard to measure. We spend 100s of billions of $ on something based on this unproven hypothesis. Keep in mind, TSA was created to catch terrorists red-handed as they are just about to board a plane. As in "Hey look a bomb in the x-ray machine, arrest this guy!". That is their purpose. They have not yet done that, once, in 10 years! Govt. intelligence work and regular citizens have prevented and stopped attempts. There is some track record there. TSA doesn't have one. By your metric one could have just as well re-defined TSA's mission as "Protect the citizens of the United States of America against Evil Pink Elephants from Neptune". Chances are very high that TSA's track record with that task would have been exactly what it is with their current mission. AND you could have still made your argument "See no Pink Elephants from Neptune have attacked us, so they must be doing their job." Or think about it another way: How many airliners were blown up in US airspace before 9/11? Was it a monthly occurrence? Yearly? Now if was a yearly thing, and then TSA came along and it suddenly stopped, you could have made a correlation based argument saying, that it is probably because of fear of TSA that we didn't have any more attacks. Yet another way to look at it. As a terrorist you are trying to instill terror and kill as many people as possible. A large gathering of people would maximize your impact. I wonder what places and events consistently create large queues of people waiting in line? What about also a place that would cripple and disrupt the economy and travel? I'll leave that as a rhetorical question.

bdunbar 15y ago

Unfortunately, it's entirely pointless. It's much the same in the states. I went through eleventy-dozen checkpoints on the Mall, and elsewhere. All the guards searched my backpack at every check point. On the way home I found I had left a charged magazine (8 .45 rounds) in the bottom of my backpack. Not especially well-hidden, just snugged under my spare socks. D.C. seems to have the highest per-capita police presences in the US. And it's all useless and dumb and ineffective.

checker 15y ago
It does. Near the Capitol, you have the Capitol Police. And since the area is designated a national park, you have US Park Police. In addition to DC police. Finally, you have the Diplomatic Security and Secret Service that will randomly be in the area, and each building's own security force.

namdnay 15y ago

I remember the security nightmare at IGI: The entire airport was surrounded in soldiers who wouldn't let you in without a ticket. The whole concept of electronic reservations seemed to go right over their head, until I managed to convince a very kind BA stewardess to go in a print an e-ticket confirmation and then bring it outside to me (I'm sure even Al Qaeda could fake one of those). What a bunch of muppets

bconway 15y ago

How many attacks and/or suicide bombings have taken place during your time there?