In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Revenge of the Tweezer People
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Revenge of the Tweezer People
Thursday, August 22, 2002
By Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Call it the revenge of the tweezer people. The backlash against senseless -- and useless -- airport security rules is building up into something nasty.
How nasty? Enough that some people are leading airport revolts against dumb security delays, while a popular Web site catering to frequent flyers is distributing "Impeach Norman Mineta" bumperstickers.
The anger that travelers feel toward airline security measures -- like the confiscation of G.I. Joe nailclippers and tweezers, or "random" searches that seem to target mostly white-haired old women or whoever's the first person in line -- is real. It could blossom into a political force.
In 1976, Malcolm Wallop used similar public anger brewing against OSHA bureaucrats to defeat hapless incumbent Sen. Gale McGee. Wallop ran television commercials that featured a cowboy with a port-a-john strapped to his horse. It doesn't take much imagination to see the sort of commercial that could be made in response to today's airport security idiocy.
But Mineta's biggest risk probably doesn't come from the millions of irritated travelers who would like to take home his scalp. It comes from the millions of irritated travelers who have decided that they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more.
Gary Leff
They're not going to take the plane, that is, because all the hassles involved in searching passengers for tweezers have not only made flying unpleasant -- they've increased delays.
That's changed people's calculations. Trips that were feasible when you could arrive at the airport a half-hour before your flight just aren't feasible if you have to be there two hours early. I know that I've passed up some trips that I would have taken in the old days, because I could have flown to another city, given a speech or had a meeting, and returned home the same night to sleep in my own bed. That's almost never possible any more.
Even for trips of several hundred miles, the delays and hassles are such that many flyers are choosing to drive instead of fly. As USA Today reports:
Many business travelers have raised their driving-time thresholds. "I have established my cutoff at five to six hours," says consultant Bill Teater of Mount Vernon, Ohio. "I can not only avoid the (airport) security charade protecting me, but I can get to my destination sooner."
Three out of four corporate travel managers say they are seeing some employees substitute driving for flying. About 15 percent say the crossover has been substantial, the Business Travel Coalition found in a survey last spring.
This phenomenon had something to do with U.S. Air's recent bankruptcy. The same story quotes a U.S. Air official as saying that they've had problems because they're a short-haul airline, and "customers still perceive the airport experience as a hassle." A hassle? Imagine that.
These problems aren't going away. Once people and businesses get in the habit of canceling trips, or substituting automobiles or teleconferencing for air travel, that business is going to be very hard to get back. Flying hasn't really been fun for 20 years. People travel for business as often as they do out of habit as much as out of need. Now airline security has made that habit unpleasant enough that they're looking at alternatives. Once those alternatives become habits, they're likely to remain in place.
All of this might be simply an unavoidable cost of the war on terrorism if it actually did any good. But, as the quote from consultant Bill Teater above makes clear, it's just a "charade," and flyers are well aware of it. As one Israeli security expert said, America doesn't have a system for air security, it has a system for bothering people. Given the recently disclosed problems with the supposedly elite Air Marshal program, that sounds about right.
The post-Sept. 11 air security system has been all about appearances. It's the bureaucrats' effort to fool the American public into feeling safe via cosmetic measures that create enough inconvenience to fool the gullible into thinking that all that hassle must be making them safer. That's what has people angry. It's not that the air security program is ineffective, and it's not that it's a big pain. It's that it's both at the same time. That the powers-that-be seem happy with that state of affairs is what really rankles. Apparently, the powers-that-be overestimated the number of gullible air travelers.
P.T. Barnum supposedly remarked that no one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The airlines -- with a lot of help from Norm Mineta -- may be about to prove Barnum wrong.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee and publishes InstaPundit.Com. He is co-author, with Peter W. Morgan, of The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society (The Free Press, 1997).
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61008,00.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
Thursday, August 22, 2002
By Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Call it the revenge of the tweezer people. The backlash against senseless -- and useless -- airport security rules is building up into something nasty.
How nasty? Enough that some people are leading airport revolts against dumb security delays, while a popular Web site catering to frequent flyers is distributing "Impeach Norman Mineta" bumperstickers.
The anger that travelers feel toward airline security measures -- like the confiscation of G.I. Joe nailclippers and tweezers, or "random" searches that seem to target mostly white-haired old women or whoever's the first person in line -- is real. It could blossom into a political force.
In 1976, Malcolm Wallop used similar public anger brewing against OSHA bureaucrats to defeat hapless incumbent Sen. Gale McGee. Wallop ran television commercials that featured a cowboy with a port-a-john strapped to his horse. It doesn't take much imagination to see the sort of commercial that could be made in response to today's airport security idiocy.
But Mineta's biggest risk probably doesn't come from the millions of irritated travelers who would like to take home his scalp. It comes from the millions of irritated travelers who have decided that they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more.
Gary Leff
They're not going to take the plane, that is, because all the hassles involved in searching passengers for tweezers have not only made flying unpleasant -- they've increased delays.
That's changed people's calculations. Trips that were feasible when you could arrive at the airport a half-hour before your flight just aren't feasible if you have to be there two hours early. I know that I've passed up some trips that I would have taken in the old days, because I could have flown to another city, given a speech or had a meeting, and returned home the same night to sleep in my own bed. That's almost never possible any more.
Even for trips of several hundred miles, the delays and hassles are such that many flyers are choosing to drive instead of fly. As USA Today reports:
Many business travelers have raised their driving-time thresholds. "I have established my cutoff at five to six hours," says consultant Bill Teater of Mount Vernon, Ohio. "I can not only avoid the (airport) security charade protecting me, but I can get to my destination sooner."
Three out of four corporate travel managers say they are seeing some employees substitute driving for flying. About 15 percent say the crossover has been substantial, the Business Travel Coalition found in a survey last spring.
This phenomenon had something to do with U.S. Air's recent bankruptcy. The same story quotes a U.S. Air official as saying that they've had problems because they're a short-haul airline, and "customers still perceive the airport experience as a hassle." A hassle? Imagine that.
These problems aren't going away. Once people and businesses get in the habit of canceling trips, or substituting automobiles or teleconferencing for air travel, that business is going to be very hard to get back. Flying hasn't really been fun for 20 years. People travel for business as often as they do out of habit as much as out of need. Now airline security has made that habit unpleasant enough that they're looking at alternatives. Once those alternatives become habits, they're likely to remain in place.
All of this might be simply an unavoidable cost of the war on terrorism if it actually did any good. But, as the quote from consultant Bill Teater above makes clear, it's just a "charade," and flyers are well aware of it. As one Israeli security expert said, America doesn't have a system for air security, it has a system for bothering people. Given the recently disclosed problems with the supposedly elite Air Marshal program, that sounds about right.
The post-Sept. 11 air security system has been all about appearances. It's the bureaucrats' effort to fool the American public into feeling safe via cosmetic measures that create enough inconvenience to fool the gullible into thinking that all that hassle must be making them safer. That's what has people angry. It's not that the air security program is ineffective, and it's not that it's a big pain. It's that it's both at the same time. That the powers-that-be seem happy with that state of affairs is what really rankles. Apparently, the powers-that-be overestimated the number of gullible air travelers.
P.T. Barnum supposedly remarked that no one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The airlines -- with a lot of help from Norm Mineta -- may be about to prove Barnum wrong.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee and publishes InstaPundit.Com. He is co-author, with Peter W. Morgan, of The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society (The Free Press, 1997).
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61008,00.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
Comments
San Jose State student could face 20-year prison term for trying to warm batteries for portable CD player
Ray Delgado, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, August 22, 2002
A misguided attempt to recharge a battery using a cigarette lighter has landed a 22-year-old Santa Clara man in hot water after his actions prompted the pilot of an American Airlines flight headed to San Francisco to divert to another city.
San Jose State University student Maxim Segalov was charged Wednesday morning before a U.S. District Court magistrate in Salt Lake City with interfering with a flight crew. He faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines stemming from the Tuesday afternoon incident.
FBI spokesman George Bougherty said crew members aboard American Airlines Flight 781 from Chicago to San Francisco became concerned when they saw Segalov using a cigarette lighter to heat up some AA batteries.
"At the time, no one knew exactly what he was trying to do," Bougherty said.
"If you're lighting a cigarette lighter on an airplane, anything can catch on fire. Once you get a fire on an aircraft, it's kind of a spooky thing."
Bougherty said Segalov willingly turned over the lighter and batteries to crew members and made no threats after a fellow passenger reported his actions.
The pilot diverted the flight to Salt Lake City.
"After an incident where someone tried to light his shoes on fire, I'm sure that everyone's taking every precaution to make sure that flights are safe," said Bougherty, referring to the December arrest of a man who tried to ignite explosives in his tennis shoes while on a flight from Paris to Miami.
Segalov's father, Efim, said Wednesday that his son is a gentle man who made a mistake.
"Probably my son was a little bit foolish," he said.
Segalov said he spoke with his son shortly after his arrest.
"He said, 'Mom and Dad, I don't know how it happened,' " Segalov recalled. "He said, "I tried to do my best and explain to authorities that I tried to do nothing wrong or dangerous.' "
The elder Segalov said he was preparing for a trip to Salt Lake City to support his son, depending on what happens at a detention hearing today.
He said his son is a junior majoring in computer engineering at San Jose State and has never been in trouble with authorities. The family emigrated from Belarus eight years ago, and the younger Segalov is a U.S. citizen who was returning from visiting friends in Belarus, his father said.
Segalov's attorney, Steven Killpack, said his client was physically shaking in court Wednesday and regrets his actions. Killpack said Segalov had been listening to a portable CD player when the batteries died.
"He had heard somewhere that if you heated the batteries, somehow you created enough static or chemical motion that you could recharge the batteries, " Killpack said. "At the time he wrongfully thought he could give his batteries a little extra punch."
Stanford University chemistry professor emeritus John Ross said batteries require electricity to be recharged. He also said heating a battery with a flame could lead to a small explosion and release some toxic chemicals, but it would be no threat to an airborne plane.
"It just raises havoc," Ross said. "The airlines should be concerned about that, but it's not going to blow up a plane."
American Airlines spokesman Todd Burke said the pilot of the aircraft made a good decision based on an unknown threat.
"When the crew was alerted to what we consider was unusual behavior, the pilot made a decision to land the aircraft and have the situation evaluated," Burke said. "The captain's primary responsibility is to secure the aircraft and protect all passengers on board."
David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said he was not surprised at the pilot's actions in a climate of heightened security after last year's terrorist attacks.
"I don't think these kinds of activities were perceived to be a threat (before Sept. 11)," Stempler said. "Now we know they are. I don't know whether this particular person engaged in a felony act, but I don't think the crew did anything unreasonable."
Flight 781 left Chicago at 11 a.m. local time with 108 passengers on board and made its unscheduled landing in Salt Lake City at 1:40 p.m. local time. It was not an emergency landing, Burke said.
FBI agents escorted Segalov and his male traveling companion off the flight to be interviewed, and the plane was searched for any signs of wrongdoing. The flight left Salt Lake City two hours later without Segalov and landed without incident at SFO.
Bougherty said Segalov's companion was questioned and released and took a later flight to the Bay Area.
Segalov was placed under arrest after FBI agents consulted with the U.S. attorney's office. Bougherty said Segalov was very cooperative.
U.S. attorney spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said it is possible that the charges could be reduced or dismissed after further investigation. But authorities are taking the matter seriously.
"All of (the mitigating circumstances) will be taken into consideration," Rydalch said.
Killpack said of his client, "He has absolutely no connection with any terrorist organization. He's made an honest mistake."
E-mail Ray Delgado at rdelgado@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/08/22/BA69440.DTL
"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
I'm not a confrontational person by nature. If my steak is too rare, or someone breaks in line, I'm not one to make a fuss about it. But I have my limits.
I led a revolt against airport security yesterday. They've had it coming. I'll wait longer in line in order to keep the airplane safe. I'll submit to having my less than fresh boxer briefs fluffed on the return trip by someone named Delbert who couldn't spot a shank if it was stuck in his porkchop gut. I'll have my luggage x-rayed, my belt buckle checked and re-checked by unusually interested minimum-wage rent-a-cops, my children patted down while swarthy young men named Mohammed board unmolested.
I will put up with all of it, but I will not let this nonsense, this massive managerial incompetence disguised as security enhancement, cost me my flight. Today, they pushed me too far. I arrived at the Wichita airport with my wife and two little ones 45 minutes before our flight. We endured an especially slow trip through the American Airlines ticket counter line. Here's a quote from the effete little man who took our bags: he didn't say "I apologize for the confusion," or "sorry we didn't separate people who are on the earlier flight," but instead, "I have to put up with this every day." How difficult for you, Emile, or Jamey, or whatever girly little name you go by. Tell the other girls at the hair salon about it.
So, we rounded the corner and saw a 150 foot line waiting to get through security. Let me paint the complete picture for you, because this helps one see why people who don't get paid very much generally deserve what they earn. At the head of the line is a single security guard, checking tickets and ID's, taking about 30 seconds per person. Thirty feet beyond him are two x-ray machines, but only one metal detector for passengers to walk through. Security guards are manning the x-ray machines, and one is searching people who set off the metal detector. A clump of security guards are standing to the side, having a nice conversation.
Now, here's how they do things in a real airport. One guard will stand at a table, helping people get their computers, phones, etc., into plastic trays. Another will assign people to x-ray machines and metal detectors, in order to save the inevitable time people take trying to make up their own minds. In an airport where the security is really on the ball, like Dulles, for example, a thick crowd can move quickly.
But this was Wichita, and the security guards didn't care whether that line stretched two feet or two miles. At this point we had twenty minutes remaining before take-off. After waiting seven or eight minutes and moving 15 feet, I did some quick math, and figured we weren't going to make it. As I was doing the math, the gate agent announced over the intercom the last call for our flight. So I led my little troop to the security guard at the front of the line.
"Excuse me," I said to the guard, "that was our flight they just called." The guard gave me an annoyed look, then took another person's ticket before replying.
"There are people in front of you."
"Yes, but we'll miss our flight."
"Some of them might be on that flight too, and they were in front of you."
Like I said, I'm not a confrontational person. But my options, as I saw them, were pretty narrow. Do the job these slobs should have been doing, or miss our flight. So, I shouted to the crowd behind me: "Okay, people, who's on the 11 o'clock?"
Several people raised their hands. The security guard started shifting from one foot to another. "C'mon up!" I shouted. "Fall in behind me!" About 20 people stepped out of line and congregated behind me. My wife was mortified.
"Okay," I said to the guard, "now all those people are right here."
"That's not what I meant, sir. You shouldn't have done that. There are people who were here first."
I shouted again to the larger crowd. "Does anybody mind if those of us on the 11 o'clock go first?" Some people towards the front shook their heads no, and a couple of people told us to go right ahead. I turned back to the guard, who was looking exceedingly uncomfortable. "There," I said, "nobody minds if we go ahead."
"You're not supposed to do that, sir. You can't go in front of people."
"Look, I'm not trying to make trouble here, but if you don't let us through, we're all going to miss that flight." The guard looked at my newly formed platoon, then at me. He sighed and held out his hand for my ticket. We all made it to the plane.
Power to the people, baby. Fight the Man. Dare to challenge stupid. Take a stand, and your fellow man will stand with you.
Much later, on the plane:
Wife: "You were pretty confrontational back there."
Me: "They left me no choice. The people in the crowd dug it."
Wife: "I can't believe he let us through."
Me: "He was intimidated." (long pause) "I suppose he and his buddies could have forced me into some back room" (only if I let them, I thought).
Wife: "Yep, and all those people who were digging you would have gotten back in line and left you hanging."
Me: "Sheep."
http://www.tonywoodlief.com/archives/000819.html#000819
"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
FIVE WEEK SERIES ON AIRPORT "SECURITY"
"In the months after terrorists hijacked four airliners and turned them into guided missiles, how much has changed in the nation's airport security systems? Baggage screeners are now federal employees, cockpit doors have been bolted shut and the Federal Aviation Administration says security is tighter than ever. But is it tight enough? In a five week series, MSNBC.com investigates what went wrong and examines steps being taken to fortify the nation's first line of defense."
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/airport_security/airsecurity_front.asp?cp1=1
"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