10 ms·

Yeah, Airport security is not useless, I'm not against it, but at the same time it's undeniable that the airport shopping industry can thank terrorist groups fo

Yeah, Airport security is not useless, I'm not against it, but at the same time it's undeniable that the airport shopping industry can thank terrorist groups for justifying the existence of this absolutely inefficient system that keeps millions of people captive of their greediness..

noirbot 4y ago
I would be curious to compare to the 90s though. I remember when I was younger, I'd sometimes just go to the airport back when you could just walk out to the gates, grab a snack and then watch the planes take off and land. Obviously that's not a "normal" thing to have done, but in a world with lighter security, I remember airport food being around the same level as mall food court options, so it was an interesting option for getting out of the house. I'd be curious if there's some lower-security path towards making Airports more of a common space, not that there's any chance of it happening.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Changi in Singapore is very much a common space, because the security is at the gate.
  - paulmooreparks 4y ago
    Not really. A boarding pass is required for airside access.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Exactly. Changi is no different than other airports - you can only access the ticketing and baggage arrival areas unless you have a boarding pass. It does have a massive mall attached to the public area though (Jewel).
      - JadedEngineer 4y ago
        Yes but security is done at each individual gate which makes a massive difference. And the staff is nice and polite. I don't remember ever queing for anything at Changi and I've used it so much. It's about the only airport I don't hate these days.
        FabHK 4y ago
        Security at the individual gate is also done at Kuala Lumpur, Doha, and some others. I prefer the usual arrangement of a centralised security check. This stack exchange answer does a good job listing some of the advantages and disadvantages of security at the gate: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/34818/why-is-security-screening-done-at-the-gate-in-some-airports https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/34818/why-is-secu...
        7952 4y ago
        I think some of the space saving benefits are overstated. Baggage claim takes up a surprisingly large amount of space and you still need customs.
        refurb 4y ago
        Security isn't done at the individual gate in Terminal 4 (newest terminal). And actually security screening at the gate is a pain in the ass. Once you're screened you're stuck in a room with no bathrooms (you need to leave and get rescreened). And if your flight changes gates (happened to me), you have to get rescreened all over again. It is helpful in the sense that bottlenecks don't happen earlier on, but I'm not sure it's that great of an approach.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    Changi is a stunning example of how beautiful an airport experience can be. I fly through there + Singapore airlines every chance I get. Perhaps a benevolent "dictatorship" can be beneficial.
    - mrosett 4y ago
      “Benevolent” dictatorship
    - Kamq 4y ago
      A single dictator has never really been the problem. You can find dictators that do better than democracies throughout history (especially on long-term planning). It's the transition of power that's the problem. Like, a real bad problem. Like raze half your country and set you back 50-100 years problem.
      - mongol 4y ago
        What kind of dictator are you talking about? Roman-style, where it could be time limited, or the modern version, of which there are many terrible examples before power transition becomes an issue?
        denton-scratch 4y ago
        > could be time limited Roman dictators weren't like modern autocrats. They were officials, appointed for a limited time (usually no more than 6 months) to address some specific emergency. They weren't crooks who staged coups. And it doesn't seem to have been a desirable appointment to hold; dictators often stood down before the time-limit.
        vanattab 4y ago
        I mean your technically correct that dictators were supposed to give up thier absolute power and indeed some did. But there is definitely a reason the term has adopted it current meaning.
        4y ago
- efitz 4y ago
  In the early 1990s I was very late for a flight. My friend dropped me off at the departure area; I got out of the car 5 minutes before departure time. I ran through the airport to security, let them know what flight I was on, and then ran to the gate after walking through the metal detector fully clothed and sending my bag through x-ray. Security radioed the gate and the flight crew left the door open so I could board. I made it, took my seat and buckled in, they closed the door and the plane pushed back. Elapsed time car seat to plane seat was about 7 minutes. Every single person I interacted with was helpful and understanding. What strikes me today is that EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT FLYING SUCKS. Airports are just part of the problem. I know this sounds extreme but they need to deregulate and privatize every single thing about the airline industry. Government just needs to ensure that liability flows in part to executives and board members regardless of corporate structure. Airlines can form a consortium to operate ATC themselves and can modernize it; something the government is completely failing at. A modern ATC would let us break away from the hub model that gives airports so much power. And your sandwich will be cheaper at an airport closer to your destination where you didn’t have to wait an hour for security to feel you up and take naked pictures of you.
  - ido 4y ago
    I don’t know where your faith that deregulating and privatizing would help the experience comes from. Here in Europe once they privatized parts of rail travel the experience got markedly worse. I moved to Europe about 20 years ago and it used to be much more of a pleasure taking trains with the EU (mostly talking about long range international trains within Central Europe) even not that long ago. Specifically in Germany the experience seems to have only gotten worse (both with quality of service and punctuality).
    - saurik 4y ago
      FWIW, in the US an airport doesn't actually have to use the TSA: the government can't actually quite mandate a single vendor like that here; there thereby exist private companies that operate to the TSA specification, and an airport can go with one of them instead. The airport in San Francisco (SFO) is the only one I have ever seen do this, using a vendor named CAS... and while the experience is mandated to suck a lot, it still sucks a lot less than the TSA as the CAS employees seem to get that they are just security technicians, not officers of the state (a distinction the TSA people don't understand, but also applies to them: the police at the airport, for example, have lots of jurisdiction over them, as far as I understand).
- morelisp 4y ago
  I got me a white bread sandwich with some shredded lettuce And then I got me a ringside view for my quaint little fetish I just wanna drain my little pink heart of all its malice And kick back for the afternoon in this fluorescent palace
School-Cotton 4y ago
It’s not useless, but it doesn’t have to be as slow as it is. The government could hire 10x the number of agents to minimize lines without changing their budget by more than a rounding error, but they don’t care to.
- Retric 4y ago
  It’s IMO worse than useless as terrorists can more easily kill people at the airport lines than destroying an aircraft. Holiday rush + luggage filled with even gunpowder and metal would make a huge statement that that everything we did was worse than useless. I was honestly expecting exactly that kind of follow up attack for years.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    The main purpose of airport security is not to prevent people from blowing up planes (although that’s an important secondary purpose) — it’s to prevent hijackings. Read about hijackings in the 60s before airport security; they were extremely common and disruptive.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Yes and no. Airport security showed up after US hijackings had already peaked, based on timing it seems the Federal Air Marshal Service service may have had a larger impact. The airport screenings are really an outgrowth of a Supreme Court case making such in depth screenings legal. Also it was relatively frequent but not that serious in the late 1960’s. The first US fatality from aircraft high jacking didn’t occur until 1970. Attacking airports has also happened multiple times including a 2002 incident in LA and even quite deadly attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre
    - hackernewds 4y ago
      why is a hijacking worse?
      - 4y ago
KerryJones 4y ago
"Airport security is not useless" While that's a pretty extreme statement, airport security's usefulness is definitely in question. Most other airports outside the US are significantly less strict (don't have to take off shoes, for instance), and there have been tons of youtube videos showing how you could easily slip in weapons of various sorts through airport security. It's practically a meme about the fact that they throw out all "might-be-bomb" liquids into trashcans right next to you -- in the same receptacle. It seems much more like security theatre, and maybe thanks to terrorist groups, but more thanks to sensationalist media + clever people who take advantage of the capitalistic system (one of the heads of the TSA just-so-happens to make the machines they use to scan your luggage, "private" business on the side that he gets paid for.) In addition, TSA Precheck / Clear / Global Entry are all ways to pay to have less inconvenience -- but have you seen any statistics they've been able to give out about stopped terrorist attempts? Don't you think that would be a thing that would be promoted if it was happening?
- raspasov 4y ago
  Anecdotally, some of the worst/slowest/tedious airport security I have experience was outside the USA in recent years. In the US, even if there _is_ a tedious process, at least everything feels efficient, and appear quite standardized.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > even if there _is_ a tedious process, at least everything feels efficient What does this actually mean?
    - dannyw 4y ago
      There’s no security officers sitting on their phones playing some game and chatting to each other, a common occurrence in SEA airports.
      - gymbeaux 4y ago
        But I bet they have better bedside manners than TSA personnel. I really feel for the TSA “agent” who has to just sit and make sure nobody goes the wrong way through the “exit only” corridor that leads out of the terminal.
bboygravity 4y ago
counter-strike voice "Terrorists win."
hackernewds 4y ago
Or you know, instead of the strawmen, the airport security system could be much more efficient.
- mrleinad 4y ago
  Not sure how, without heavily stepping even more on people's privacy and liberty. And I'm not talking about terrorists, but drug smugglers.
roenxi 4y ago
> Yeah, Airport security is not useless An airplane flight is practically a high-tech bus trip. Airport security probably is useless, otherwise there'd be an analogue for public transport. And as people regularly point out, the cost-benefit of airport security is probably net-negative. I bet almost nobody would choose a high-security airport over a low security airport if they had a choice.
- megablast 4y ago
  They do have security in Canadian bus terminals who search you. And also in UK ferry terminals when going to Ireland.
  - dazc 4y ago
    I've travelled by ferry to both Northern and Southern Ireland several times and have only been searched once. This was on a work journey where it turned out my colleague had a criminal record. This was 10 - 12 years ago so perhaps things have changed since? I have been routinely searched before boarding a ferry to Spain as a foot passenger. AFAIAA, car passengers are not routinely searched, so I don't know what the logic is there?
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  In terms of attacking the passengers of the craft, you can equate the two. In terms of attacking a building with the craft, there are significant differences. A plane can take down a huge building. A bus usually can't. A train definitely can't.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Although I do agree with your point that the risk there is different; a much easier control would be to have an emergency autopilot mode in the plane that the pilot can't disable. So if the plane gets hijacked ... it just flys its normal route. The hijacker's only options are to either kill everyone on board (same risk profile as a bus trip) or not (at which point they aren't effective hijackers). Even if the plane just downed itself in an ocean in an emergency; that'd be technically not so hard to pull off. Enough to deter hijackers so the mechanism wouldn't need to be used.
chii 4y ago
> thank terrorist groups for justifying the existence of this absolutely inefficient system the terrorists have already won. They did more damage causing these security measures than any actual killing or bombing.
crote 4y ago
It is useless, though. The shops after security sell plenty of stuff which you somehow aren't allowed to take through security. A quick Google search will show you plenty of ways to build weapons or explosives using solely duty-free items. Not to mention that TSA over and over again fails their undercover inspections. In some cases 95% of weapons and explosives make it through TSA without any issues! Airport security literally is theater. At best it'll result in the terrorist attack being moved from the airplane to the security queue.
- qball 4y ago
  >At best it'll result in the terrorist attack being moved from the airplane to the security queue. This has already happened; most terrorist attacks these days occur at malls and schoolhouses. Same memetic infection to disrupt and destroy, same domestic hysterics, same feedback cycle. So it goes until the next big meme shift for the dissatisfied comes along. >Not to mention that TSA over and over again fails their undercover inspections. Every (mid-2000s) attacker that managed to get through the incompetent security was defeated by the best security force available: passengers that know that allowing their plane to be hijacked or threatened by a bomb means certain death for everyone on board should they stay in their seats and permit it.
  - hedora 4y ago
    It’s not quite true that every attacker has been thwarted. There have been a few cases where the pilot waited for the co-pilot to use the restroom, locked them out of the cockpit with the post-9/11 door, then intentionally crashed the plane. All of these incidents were overseas. One was confirmed, and one or two more are suspected cases of pilot suicide.
    - qball 4y ago
      >It’s not quite true that every attacker has been thwarted. When passengers have been able to intervene, they have defended their airplane 100% of the time. When passengers have been prevented by regulatory means from defending themselves, they have failed to defend against a "trusted" figure turned attacker 100% of the time. Sometimes the correct approach really is to do nothing.
klyrs 4y ago
Ironically, restaurants are the go-to source of steak knives past security.

noirbot 4y ago

I would be curious to compare to the 90s though. I remember when I was younger, I'd sometimes just go to the airport back when you could just walk out to the gates, grab a snack and then watch the planes take off and land. Obviously that's not a "normal" thing to have done, but in a world with lighter security, I remember airport food being around the same level as mall food court options, so it was an interesting option for getting out of the house. I'd be curious if there's some lower-security path towards making Airports more of a common space, not that there's any chance of it happening.

bobthepanda 4y ago
Changi in Singapore is very much a common space, because the security is at the gate.
- paulmooreparks 4y ago
  Not really. A boarding pass is required for airside access.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Exactly. Changi is no different than other airports - you can only access the ticketing and baggage arrival areas unless you have a boarding pass. It does have a massive mall attached to the public area though (Jewel).
    - JadedEngineer 4y ago
      Yes but security is done at each individual gate which makes a massive difference. And the staff is nice and polite. I don't remember ever queing for anything at Changi and I've used it so much. It's about the only airport I don't hate these days.
      - FabHK 4y ago
        Security at the individual gate is also done at Kuala Lumpur, Doha, and some others. I prefer the usual arrangement of a centralised security check. This stack exchange answer does a good job listing some of the advantages and disadvantages of security at the gate: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/34818/why-is-security-screening-done-at-the-gate-in-some-airports https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/34818/why-is-secu...
        7952 4y ago
        I think some of the space saving benefits are overstated. Baggage claim takes up a surprisingly large amount of space and you still need customs.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Security isn't done at the individual gate in Terminal 4 (newest terminal). And actually security screening at the gate is a pain in the ass. Once you're screened you're stuck in a room with no bathrooms (you need to leave and get rescreened). And if your flight changes gates (happened to me), you have to get rescreened all over again. It is helpful in the sense that bottlenecks don't happen earlier on, but I'm not sure it's that great of an approach.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Changi is a stunning example of how beautiful an airport experience can be. I fly through there + Singapore airlines every chance I get. Perhaps a benevolent "dictatorship" can be beneficial.
  - mrosett 4y ago
    “Benevolent” dictatorship
  - Kamq 4y ago
    A single dictator has never really been the problem. You can find dictators that do better than democracies throughout history (especially on long-term planning). It's the transition of power that's the problem. Like, a real bad problem. Like raze half your country and set you back 50-100 years problem.
    - mongol 4y ago
      What kind of dictator are you talking about? Roman-style, where it could be time limited, or the modern version, of which there are many terrible examples before power transition becomes an issue?
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        > could be time limited Roman dictators weren't like modern autocrats. They were officials, appointed for a limited time (usually no more than 6 months) to address some specific emergency. They weren't crooks who staged coups. And it doesn't seem to have been a desirable appointment to hold; dictators often stood down before the time-limit.
        vanattab 4y ago
        I mean your technically correct that dictators were supposed to give up thier absolute power and indeed some did. But there is definitely a reason the term has adopted it current meaning.
      - 4y ago
efitz 4y ago
In the early 1990s I was very late for a flight. My friend dropped me off at the departure area; I got out of the car 5 minutes before departure time. I ran through the airport to security, let them know what flight I was on, and then ran to the gate after walking through the metal detector fully clothed and sending my bag through x-ray. Security radioed the gate and the flight crew left the door open so I could board. I made it, took my seat and buckled in, they closed the door and the plane pushed back. Elapsed time car seat to plane seat was about 7 minutes. Every single person I interacted with was helpful and understanding. What strikes me today is that EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT FLYING SUCKS. Airports are just part of the problem. I know this sounds extreme but they need to deregulate and privatize every single thing about the airline industry. Government just needs to ensure that liability flows in part to executives and board members regardless of corporate structure. Airlines can form a consortium to operate ATC themselves and can modernize it; something the government is completely failing at. A modern ATC would let us break away from the hub model that gives airports so much power. And your sandwich will be cheaper at an airport closer to your destination where you didn’t have to wait an hour for security to feel you up and take naked pictures of you.
- ido 4y ago
  I don’t know where your faith that deregulating and privatizing would help the experience comes from. Here in Europe once they privatized parts of rail travel the experience got markedly worse. I moved to Europe about 20 years ago and it used to be much more of a pleasure taking trains with the EU (mostly talking about long range international trains within Central Europe) even not that long ago. Specifically in Germany the experience seems to have only gotten worse (both with quality of service and punctuality).
  - saurik 4y ago
    FWIW, in the US an airport doesn't actually have to use the TSA: the government can't actually quite mandate a single vendor like that here; there thereby exist private companies that operate to the TSA specification, and an airport can go with one of them instead. The airport in San Francisco (SFO) is the only one I have ever seen do this, using a vendor named CAS... and while the experience is mandated to suck a lot, it still sucks a lot less than the TSA as the CAS employees seem to get that they are just security technicians, not officers of the state (a distinction the TSA people don't understand, but also applies to them: the police at the airport, for example, have lots of jurisdiction over them, as far as I understand).
morelisp 4y ago
I got me a white bread sandwich with some shredded lettuce And then I got me a ringside view for my quaint little fetish I just wanna drain my little pink heart of all its malice And kick back for the afternoon in this fluorescent palace

School-Cotton 4y ago

It’s not useless, but it doesn’t have to be as slow as it is. The government could hire 10x the number of agents to minimize lines without changing their budget by more than a rounding error, but they don’t care to.

Retric 4y ago
It’s IMO worse than useless as terrorists can more easily kill people at the airport lines than destroying an aircraft. Holiday rush + luggage filled with even gunpowder and metal would make a huge statement that that everything we did was worse than useless. I was honestly expecting exactly that kind of follow up attack for years.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  The main purpose of airport security is not to prevent people from blowing up planes (although that’s an important secondary purpose) — it’s to prevent hijackings. Read about hijackings in the 60s before airport security; they were extremely common and disruptive.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Yes and no. Airport security showed up after US hijackings had already peaked, based on timing it seems the Federal Air Marshal Service service may have had a larger impact. The airport screenings are really an outgrowth of a Supreme Court case making such in depth screenings legal. Also it was relatively frequent but not that serious in the late 1960’s. The first US fatality from aircraft high jacking didn’t occur until 1970. Attacking airports has also happened multiple times including a 2002 incident in LA and even quite deadly attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    why is a hijacking worse?
    - 4y ago

KerryJones 4y ago

"Airport security is not useless" While that's a pretty extreme statement, airport security's usefulness is definitely in question. Most other airports outside the US are significantly less strict (don't have to take off shoes, for instance), and there have been tons of youtube videos showing how you could easily slip in weapons of various sorts through airport security. It's practically a meme about the fact that they throw out all "might-be-bomb" liquids into trashcans right next to you -- in the same receptacle. It seems much more like security theatre, and maybe thanks to terrorist groups, but more thanks to sensationalist media + clever people who take advantage of the capitalistic system (one of the heads of the TSA just-so-happens to make the machines they use to scan your luggage, "private" business on the side that he gets paid for.) In addition, TSA Precheck / Clear / Global Entry are all ways to pay to have less inconvenience -- but have you seen any statistics they've been able to give out about stopped terrorist attempts? Don't you think that would be a thing that would be promoted if it was happening?

raspasov 4y ago
Anecdotally, some of the worst/slowest/tedious airport security I have experience was outside the USA in recent years. In the US, even if there _is_ a tedious process, at least everything feels efficient, and appear quite standardized.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > even if there _is_ a tedious process, at least everything feels efficient What does this actually mean?
  - dannyw 4y ago
    There’s no security officers sitting on their phones playing some game and chatting to each other, a common occurrence in SEA airports.
    - gymbeaux 4y ago
      But I bet they have better bedside manners than TSA personnel. I really feel for the TSA “agent” who has to just sit and make sure nobody goes the wrong way through the “exit only” corridor that leads out of the terminal.

bboygravity 4y ago

counter-strike voice "Terrorists win."

hackernewds 4y ago

Or you know, instead of the strawmen, the airport security system could be much more efficient.

mrleinad 4y ago
Not sure how, without heavily stepping even more on people's privacy and liberty. And I'm not talking about terrorists, but drug smugglers.

roenxi 4y ago

> Yeah, Airport security is not useless An airplane flight is practically a high-tech bus trip. Airport security probably is useless, otherwise there'd be an analogue for public transport. And as people regularly point out, the cost-benefit of airport security is probably net-negative. I bet almost nobody would choose a high-security airport over a low security airport if they had a choice.

megablast 4y ago
They do have security in Canadian bus terminals who search you. And also in UK ferry terminals when going to Ireland.
- dazc 4y ago
  I've travelled by ferry to both Northern and Southern Ireland several times and have only been searched once. This was on a work journey where it turned out my colleague had a criminal record. This was 10 - 12 years ago so perhaps things have changed since? I have been routinely searched before boarding a ferry to Spain as a foot passenger. AFAIAA, car passengers are not routinely searched, so I don't know what the logic is there?
hunter2_ 4y ago
In terms of attacking the passengers of the craft, you can equate the two. In terms of attacking a building with the craft, there are significant differences. A plane can take down a huge building. A bus usually can't. A train definitely can't.
- roenxi 4y ago
  Although I do agree with your point that the risk there is different; a much easier control would be to have an emergency autopilot mode in the plane that the pilot can't disable. So if the plane gets hijacked ... it just flys its normal route. The hijacker's only options are to either kill everyone on board (same risk profile as a bus trip) or not (at which point they aren't effective hijackers). Even if the plane just downed itself in an ocean in an emergency; that'd be technically not so hard to pull off. Enough to deter hijackers so the mechanism wouldn't need to be used.

chii 4y ago

> thank terrorist groups for justifying the existence of this absolutely inefficient system the terrorists have already won. They did more damage causing these security measures than any actual killing or bombing.

crote 4y ago

It is useless, though. The shops after security sell plenty of stuff which you somehow aren't allowed to take through security. A quick Google search will show you plenty of ways to build weapons or explosives using solely duty-free items. Not to mention that TSA over and over again fails their undercover inspections. In some cases 95% of weapons and explosives make it through TSA without any issues! Airport security literally is theater. At best it'll result in the terrorist attack being moved from the airplane to the security queue.

qball 4y ago
>At best it'll result in the terrorist attack being moved from the airplane to the security queue. This has already happened; most terrorist attacks these days occur at malls and schoolhouses. Same memetic infection to disrupt and destroy, same domestic hysterics, same feedback cycle. So it goes until the next big meme shift for the dissatisfied comes along. >Not to mention that TSA over and over again fails their undercover inspections. Every (mid-2000s) attacker that managed to get through the incompetent security was defeated by the best security force available: passengers that know that allowing their plane to be hijacked or threatened by a bomb means certain death for everyone on board should they stay in their seats and permit it.
- hedora 4y ago
  It’s not quite true that every attacker has been thwarted. There have been a few cases where the pilot waited for the co-pilot to use the restroom, locked them out of the cockpit with the post-9/11 door, then intentionally crashed the plane. All of these incidents were overseas. One was confirmed, and one or two more are suspected cases of pilot suicide.
  - qball 4y ago
    >It’s not quite true that every attacker has been thwarted. When passengers have been able to intervene, they have defended their airplane 100% of the time. When passengers have been prevented by regulatory means from defending themselves, they have failed to defend against a "trusted" figure turned attacker 100% of the time. Sometimes the correct approach really is to do nothing.

klyrs 4y ago

Ironically, restaurants are the go-to source of steak knives past security.