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Airport security fiascoes/Arming Pilots
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Airport security fiascoes
Balint Vazsonyi
As everyone who flies is aware, an assault is being waged on Americans every minute of every hour of every day at the nation's airports. On the same day, we have heard of yet another outrage from Grand Rapids, Mich.: the bestialization of a double-mastectomy patient, and former Sen. George McGovern declaring that even he's had it with airport "security." The situation is no longer tolerable.
For all intents and purposes, we are displaying the following notice at every one of our airports:
"If you choose to enter this building, you will be suspected of attempting to smuggle weapons capable of inflicting serious * harm or death, and of plotting to cause material damage to these United States as well as potentially fatal injury to its citizens. Federal authorities have determined to place you under suspicion because 19 Arab Muslims, having so plotted for years, and having executed their plans with no interference whatsoever by U.S. authorities, succeeded in what you now stand accused of planning to do. You have to be cleared of the above charges prior to proceeding to a gate area."
Spine chilling?
In the aftermath of September 11, with bloody tales of box cutters and plastic knives, it was understandable that we focused on the "what." But the decisive component isn't "what," it's "who." In other words, were I to take along an entire kitchen drawer, in and of itself that would pose no threat to the flight.
"If only all criminals would look like criminals, the police would have an easy job."
Bingo.
Actor James Woods told Americans on "Larry King Live" that he had no problem identifying potential highjackers a year ago when, about a month before September 11, they were on his flight as a sort of dress rehearsal. While no one suggests that every atrocity in history has been committed by young Arab/Muslim males, persons with normal brains realize that, for several decades now, a pattern of terror in the skies, and terror on land and sea, has been visited upon the world by them.
And they make no secret of it. S. Mohammad Karim, who lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a member of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), wrote to me: "We must expose the Islamophobic bigotry that apparently surrounds us, and thereafter punish it collectively."
CAIR received a copy from Mohammad Karim, but has yet to indicate a desire to distance itself from this threat.
Not "what," "who."
We are not trying to avoid being set upon by the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, or the storm troops of Hitler's Third Reich. We are trying to avoid being murdered by young Arab/Muslim men. No one else is currently threatening the safety of our skies. If and when they do, we can respond.
And if Arabs/Muslims don't like being singled out, they can stop doing it, stop inciting others to do it and stop financing it. Only they can decide to stop. The lady with double mastectomy can't. Meanwhile, Arab/Muslim Americans could earn special respect by volunteering to take the brunt of the security-related delays and indignities.
But the situation is intolerable. Something has to be done now.
One's gut reaction is to call Gov. John Engler of Michigan for a start, and ask him to replace the entire Grand Rapids security staff forthwith. However vile, though, that would be just one problem solved.
Then I thought of contacting Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. But his entire career was built on extracting compensation for Japanese Americans. I cannot rid myself of the - strictly personal - suspicion that deep down he resents America and Americans altogether.
Last week, Joseph Perkins made some recommendations, expressing hope that Adm. James Loy, recently appointed to assume responsibility for the also recently established Transportation Security Administration, will do a better job than his fired predecessor.
Perhaps. But I believe this one is for our president to fix.
We all trust that President Bush is slowly but surely, albeit secretly, punishing those who have inflicted upon us the worst day this nation ever endured. We all trust that some day, a modicum of satisfaction will be ours as we find out how the appropriate people have been divested of their fortunes, their training camps, their revenues, their lives.
Where we do observe punishment, though - every minute of every hour of every day - is in our own lives; that is, if we need to avail ourselves of what used to be the fastest means of transportation. And it's kind of tough to be standing with your arms and legs spread, shoes off, pockets emptied, hand luggage ransacked, all for the third time in a space of 20 minutes, and glance up to the television monitor showing the president of the United States surrounded (yet again) by some two dozen imams and Saudi princes, all basking in the warm hospitality of the White House.
As the anniversary of September 11 approaches, it is not unreasonable to ask our leader for a present to the nation. An appropriate gesture would be to say, "You have suffered enough for the sins you and your ancestors have committed according to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. As of Sept. 12, 2002, we will change the terms."
I believe Mr. Bush is a thoroughly decent man. But he needs to pay more attention to the monster created on his watch. The haphazard hodgepodge instituted over the past year is threatening to become permanent through benign neglect. An army of certified morons has been unleashed on women recovering from double mastectomy and everyone who wears shoes. Most importantly, no sane person believes for one second that any of this is relevant to security in our skies.
Americans have been, and remain, willing to undergo delays and indignities, so long as the process makes sense. Currently, it amounts to nonsense - insulting nonsense. And there is a good reason why the president, and the president alone, can fix a mess of such astronomic proportions.
As one of his distinguished predecessors taught us all, the buck stops there.
Even during the August vacation.
Balint Vazsonyi, concert pianist and director of the Center for the American Founding, is a columnist for The Washington Times and is nationally syndicated. http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020806-61114990.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Balint Vazsonyi
As everyone who flies is aware, an assault is being waged on Americans every minute of every hour of every day at the nation's airports. On the same day, we have heard of yet another outrage from Grand Rapids, Mich.: the bestialization of a double-mastectomy patient, and former Sen. George McGovern declaring that even he's had it with airport "security." The situation is no longer tolerable.
For all intents and purposes, we are displaying the following notice at every one of our airports:
"If you choose to enter this building, you will be suspected of attempting to smuggle weapons capable of inflicting serious * harm or death, and of plotting to cause material damage to these United States as well as potentially fatal injury to its citizens. Federal authorities have determined to place you under suspicion because 19 Arab Muslims, having so plotted for years, and having executed their plans with no interference whatsoever by U.S. authorities, succeeded in what you now stand accused of planning to do. You have to be cleared of the above charges prior to proceeding to a gate area."
Spine chilling?
In the aftermath of September 11, with bloody tales of box cutters and plastic knives, it was understandable that we focused on the "what." But the decisive component isn't "what," it's "who." In other words, were I to take along an entire kitchen drawer, in and of itself that would pose no threat to the flight.
"If only all criminals would look like criminals, the police would have an easy job."
Bingo.
Actor James Woods told Americans on "Larry King Live" that he had no problem identifying potential highjackers a year ago when, about a month before September 11, they were on his flight as a sort of dress rehearsal. While no one suggests that every atrocity in history has been committed by young Arab/Muslim males, persons with normal brains realize that, for several decades now, a pattern of terror in the skies, and terror on land and sea, has been visited upon the world by them.
And they make no secret of it. S. Mohammad Karim, who lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a member of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), wrote to me: "We must expose the Islamophobic bigotry that apparently surrounds us, and thereafter punish it collectively."
CAIR received a copy from Mohammad Karim, but has yet to indicate a desire to distance itself from this threat.
Not "what," "who."
We are not trying to avoid being set upon by the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, or the storm troops of Hitler's Third Reich. We are trying to avoid being murdered by young Arab/Muslim men. No one else is currently threatening the safety of our skies. If and when they do, we can respond.
And if Arabs/Muslims don't like being singled out, they can stop doing it, stop inciting others to do it and stop financing it. Only they can decide to stop. The lady with double mastectomy can't. Meanwhile, Arab/Muslim Americans could earn special respect by volunteering to take the brunt of the security-related delays and indignities.
But the situation is intolerable. Something has to be done now.
One's gut reaction is to call Gov. John Engler of Michigan for a start, and ask him to replace the entire Grand Rapids security staff forthwith. However vile, though, that would be just one problem solved.
Then I thought of contacting Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. But his entire career was built on extracting compensation for Japanese Americans. I cannot rid myself of the - strictly personal - suspicion that deep down he resents America and Americans altogether.
Last week, Joseph Perkins made some recommendations, expressing hope that Adm. James Loy, recently appointed to assume responsibility for the also recently established Transportation Security Administration, will do a better job than his fired predecessor.
Perhaps. But I believe this one is for our president to fix.
We all trust that President Bush is slowly but surely, albeit secretly, punishing those who have inflicted upon us the worst day this nation ever endured. We all trust that some day, a modicum of satisfaction will be ours as we find out how the appropriate people have been divested of their fortunes, their training camps, their revenues, their lives.
Where we do observe punishment, though - every minute of every hour of every day - is in our own lives; that is, if we need to avail ourselves of what used to be the fastest means of transportation. And it's kind of tough to be standing with your arms and legs spread, shoes off, pockets emptied, hand luggage ransacked, all for the third time in a space of 20 minutes, and glance up to the television monitor showing the president of the United States surrounded (yet again) by some two dozen imams and Saudi princes, all basking in the warm hospitality of the White House.
As the anniversary of September 11 approaches, it is not unreasonable to ask our leader for a present to the nation. An appropriate gesture would be to say, "You have suffered enough for the sins you and your ancestors have committed according to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. As of Sept. 12, 2002, we will change the terms."
I believe Mr. Bush is a thoroughly decent man. But he needs to pay more attention to the monster created on his watch. The haphazard hodgepodge instituted over the past year is threatening to become permanent through benign neglect. An army of certified morons has been unleashed on women recovering from double mastectomy and everyone who wears shoes. Most importantly, no sane person believes for one second that any of this is relevant to security in our skies.
Americans have been, and remain, willing to undergo delays and indignities, so long as the process makes sense. Currently, it amounts to nonsense - insulting nonsense. And there is a good reason why the president, and the president alone, can fix a mess of such astronomic proportions.
As one of his distinguished predecessors taught us all, the buck stops there.
Even during the August vacation.
Balint Vazsonyi, concert pianist and director of the Center for the American Founding, is a columnist for The Washington Times and is nationally syndicated. http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020806-61114990.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
August 6, 2002
Call me old-fashioned, but I like my pilots to concentrate on flying the plane.
I like it when the pilot looks older than me and talks in that reassuring, right-stuff tone that hints of a career mastering landings with a blown tire or setting down safely despite a failed engine.
I like it when the pilot refers to raging thunderstorms as just "a bit of weather" and orders flight attendants to stow their carts and take their seats. This means the pilot prefers keeping people safe to keeping them satiated. I'm tickled when the pilot says it's a "beautiful day for flying." The joy in this announcement of the obvious is a sign the person at the controls still has enthusiasm for the job.
In other words, I like my pilots to be pilots. Not cops.
Soon they may be both. Congress, over the objections of the Bush administration, is rushing to approve the arming of commercial airline pilots. The House, in a lopsided and rare bipartisan vote last month, approved the creation of federal flight deck officers - armed pilots who would, in the worst case, be the last line of defense against terrorists or other hijackers bent on commandeering a plane and engineering a catastrophe. Support is building in the Senate. A vote is likely when lawmakers return to work in September.
The pilots' unions approve and so, after initial opposition, do the flight attendants. If all else fails, the thinking goes, courage in the cockpit, backed with firepower, might save the day.
There is not much to be gained from arguing against such simple common sense, rooted in fear and the desperate search to ease it. But giving guns to pilots is roughly akin to draping school uniforms on inner-city schoolchildren. There isn't much harm in it. But not much good, either.
The wearing of plaid skirts and white shirts does nothing about dilapidated and disordered public schools. Nothing about chronic under-funding, impoverished and stressed families that don't provide support for learning; nothing about debilitating rates of teacher turnover or incompetent bureaucrats. The uniforms do not sort through the complicated, expensive and politically hard choices needed to improve schools. But boy, does that plaid make us feel good!
Guns in the cockpit do nothing about the chaos and political denial that still permeate airline and airport security. Nor do they counter Washington's compulsion to do it on the cheap.
At the same time the House was voting to create squads of armed pilots, it abandoned its own goal, set right after Sept. 11, of requiring all baggage - not just carry-ons - to be screened for bombs and weapons before it is placed aboard. The initial deadline by which all airports were to have the big, expensive screening machines was Dec. 31. That's been pushed forward to Dec. 31, 2003.
So which is now easier, or more likely:
A hijacker slipping by airport security screeners, then the newly alert gate attendants, then overtaking the flight attendants and passengers, then storming through a newly reinforced cockpit door to seize a plane?
Or someone concealing a bomb in a suitcase destined for the cargo hold, knowing it won't be given a cursory scan for explosives?
"We have an unfortunate habit in this country of preparing for the type of security breach that most recently occurred," Capt. Stephen Luckey, chairman of the national flight security committee of the Air Line Pilots Association, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee recently.
The pilots' association supports arming pilots. But it also presents a positively chilling list of security holes no one is rushing to plug.
There is no requirement for packages placed aboard cargo airliners to be screened. The system for identifying airline and airport employees with proper access to secure areas is spotty. There is still no good way to verify that someone who claims to be a law-enforcement agent - and so entitled to carry a gun aboard an airplane - is legit.
Filling these gaps takes time and money. Someone has to pay. The airlines? passengers? shippers? the federal government? Sides must be taken, political and ideological disputes settled.
There is a messy hashing-out and ante-ing up that is still required. This is different from the simplicity of putting guns in the cockpit, which merely sates the all-American appetite for a quick fix.
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpcoc062811641aug06.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
Email: cocco@newsday.com
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By C.D. Kirkpatrick : The Herald-Sun
ckirkpatrick@heraldsun.com
Aug 5, 2002 : 9:49 pm ET
DURHAM -- Airport security screeners checking for weapons may be getting a little too close for some passengers' comfort, local and federal transportation officials say.
"We have a few complaints about what passengers say is inappropriate touching," said Mindy Hamlin, spokeswoman for the RDU Airport Authority. "The few I have heard of are all women."
Some passengers have complained that security screening has amounted to deliberate groping and sexual harassment. No charges have been brought against anyone.
The complaints may be inevitable and for the most part inadvertent under new rules since Sept. 11, officials said.
"Sometimes it's someone who was wanded too closely," Hamlin said of passengers who have complained after screeners waved a wand under their outstretched arms or asked to see the inside of their belt.
New security measures at RDU even include car searches for anyone parking in deck spaces closest to the terminals. A guard at Terminal C checks cars entering the deck. The screener looks inside car trunks and walks around cars.
With the added security have come the complaints.
In Arizona earlier this year, a group of at least 32 female passengers, including a 12-year-old girl, complained that screeners at Sky Harbor International Airport fondled and groped them.
Hamlin said at RDU, checkpoint managers are told about a complaint after it happens.
She said the airport forwards the complaints to the new Transportation Security Administration, which was created after the terrorist attacks to manage airport security operations.
On Nov. 19, the federal administration will put its own screeners into the jobs with new requirements, such as minimum education requirements. The guidelines for searches are kept secret so passengers can't study how to beat the security systems, said Dave Steigman, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.
But it goes without saying, he said, that sexual touching is not part of the job or screening procedures.
"I wouldn't say we've had a lot of complaints," he said. "But we do see stories that crop up about someone who spoke to a reporter and wondered why the little old lady was searched and, yes, we do occasionally have complaints that screeners inappropriately touched someone."
http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-254387.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878