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> By that logic, we should remove security at Fort Knox because it never gets robbed. Airports should have security. Every country has security in their airpor

> By that logic, we should remove security at Fort Knox because it never gets robbed. Airports should have security. Every country has security in their airports. Where it crosses the line are when you have the security preemptively treat you like a criminal, and violate your personhood without justification other than a blanket statement of "terrorists". Security ! always have to = Neo-Fascism. But many people feel it does in American airports.

zzzeek 13y ago
> Airports should have security. Every country has security in their airports but wait, in your response to me you said that the line people wait on for security checks is just as big a terrorist hazard as the plane itself. How are you not contradicting yourself here? Which is it, we wait on lines for metal detectors or not ?
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Security doesn't have to mean inspection lines or profiling. It could mean guards walking around, like in an apartment complex or mall. It could mean people watching CCTV. This could all be done by the airline. They don't want bombings just as much as you or I. The only difference is they don't have an incentive to create a regulation that forces people to subject themselves to embarrassment or harassment. Where is the TSA's incentive? Justifying their existence. In one hand, you have an anti terrorist, governmental agency, which will always try to justify itself, and on the other you have a necessary expense for the airlines mandated by their public relations and to reduce bad press/events from happening.
  - growupkids 13y ago
    But airlines provided the security before 9/11 and failed at that job miserably.
    - jpatokal 13y ago
      Airports (not airlines) provided security against known threats. The 9/11 hijackers circumvented that bringing in box cutters, not the expected guns and bombs, and by using the planes themselves as weapons, instead of just hijacking the plane and using the hostages as leverage. TSA is in precisely the same reactive mode: make people take their shoes off after some nut tries to blow up his shoes, etc. Bruce Schneier: "Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."
    - HN_Account 13y ago
      Wrong. Items used on that day were items that were permitted through security. They weren't "missed".
chrismcb 13y ago
Why should airports have security? Just because other countries have security, doesn't mean the airport needs security. I don't know of any other transportation that requires airport like security, why are airports so special? I've seen bomb sniffing dogs at train stations, and cops patrolling, but no patdowns, or forced searches.

zzzeek 13y ago

> Airports should have security. Every country has security in their airports but wait, in your response to me you said that the line people wait on for security checks is just as big a terrorist hazard as the plane itself. How are you not contradicting yourself here? Which is it, we wait on lines for metal detectors or not ?

tokenizer 13y ago
Security doesn't have to mean inspection lines or profiling. It could mean guards walking around, like in an apartment complex or mall. It could mean people watching CCTV. This could all be done by the airline. They don't want bombings just as much as you or I. The only difference is they don't have an incentive to create a regulation that forces people to subject themselves to embarrassment or harassment. Where is the TSA's incentive? Justifying their existence. In one hand, you have an anti terrorist, governmental agency, which will always try to justify itself, and on the other you have a necessary expense for the airlines mandated by their public relations and to reduce bad press/events from happening.
- growupkids 13y ago
  But airlines provided the security before 9/11 and failed at that job miserably.
  - jpatokal 13y ago
    Airports (not airlines) provided security against known threats. The 9/11 hijackers circumvented that bringing in box cutters, not the expected guns and bombs, and by using the planes themselves as weapons, instead of just hijacking the plane and using the hostages as leverage. TSA is in precisely the same reactive mode: make people take their shoes off after some nut tries to blow up his shoes, etc. Bruce Schneier: "Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."
  - HN_Account 13y ago
    Wrong. Items used on that day were items that were permitted through security. They weren't "missed".

chrismcb 13y ago

Why should airports have security? Just because other countries have security, doesn't mean the airport needs security. I don't know of any other transportation that requires airport like security, why are airports so special? I've seen bomb sniffing dogs at train stations, and cops patrolling, but no patdowns, or forced searches.