You strip search him, find nothing, let him go, and then he takes command of the plane and can crash it anywhere, any time. How obvious is this??
The link you posted below, to the "FedEx Express Flight 705" incident is completely irrelevant since Mr. Calloway was not in charge of steering that plane. Had he been, he would not have tried to kill the crew.
To be fair, the TSA doesn't know that the guy is a pilot - only that he has the uniform and some sort of identification that says he is - both of which could be faked.
Unfortunately nothing is likely to change until it's not isolated incidents of people refusing to go through the full body scanners but rather 10% or more of the flying public. --I'm estimating, of course, but can you imagine the backlogs if just 10% of passengers refused every day and forced the TSA to spend time frisking them?
Unfortunate and ironic from a safety POV since driving is much more dangerous than flying on commercial flights.
When you're sitting in the driver's seat, who cares if you have any weapon you want? Ergo, anything that can get you in the driver's seat should be good enough to get you past security, faked or not.
If it's not the super trained government appointed guardians of our safety - the clerk at the departure gate ?
Surely there should also be a TSA agent standing behind each pilot throughout the flight if they can't be sure of the pilots identity?
The 'Delta connection' flight you are on is sub-contracted out to a 2 man outfit with a single regional jet.
Pay and conditions are so poor that staff turnover is huge and the number of staff is reduced so that people barely have time to glance at the person.
It's one of the hidden costs of replacing the company security guard with the cheap outside agency.
And EgyptAir co-pilot actually tried to overcome captain and recover till the end.
But I think those cases neither validate nor invalidate the need to screen the pilots?
Certainly they validate the case to have co-pilots.
On a side note, I fly a lot, and it seems like TSA and Homeland Security have gotten much more organized, fast, and polite over the last few years. It was pretty bad 3+ years ago, but the last few flights I took in the USA they were polite and calm and prompt. This piece seems like much ado about nothing - there's legitimate problems in the USA right now, but this event doesn't seem like one of them.
It really is a matter of your goals. If your goal is to use the airport for its intended use and you do not really care about your civil rights or you trust the government wholeheartedly then the above makes sense.
I think airport security exists more for the government to save face then anything else. It allows them to take an environment made unsafe in the perception of the public and make it 'safe'. Similar to stationing a squad of police officers at a shady part of town and having them harass everybody. In the short term everybody get harassed, but they have to admit in the long run the police officers 'fixed' the problem. This is also a medium of communicating this type of message that the government has practice and established methods of doing.
It boils down to: They are doing their best. Yes, it is infringing on our rights. The only solution is a drastic change in the american people. All the fear and drama surrounding airports now, is the victory terrorists had in 9/11. It was their goals to make us afraid as a nation, and they succeeded.
> If your goal is to use the airport for its intended use and you do not really care about your civil rights or you trust the government wholeheartedly then the above makes sense.
I'm a big civil liberties guy myself, but I really think this is pretty low on the list of things going wrong in America. If you wanted to take a stand on any of the 20 worst civil liberties violations in America, does airport scanners really come in on that list? I'm much more worried about the rampant corruption and favoritism of giving money to some banks, some activist groups, some states, according to party lines and individual favors. Then you've got companies writing regulation, and the Vice President openly calling for more internet censorship and government control over the net. No one understands the tax codes, which are ridden with loopholes and confusion and bureaucracy. There's no transparency in legislation, and new bills are frequently 10,000 pages long - that's not hyperbole. There's no way citizens can understand what's actually inside one of those bills.
The airports need some security. It's a little too showy right now (liquids and taking shoes off are somewhat ridiculous, in my opinion). But the installation of scanners has got to be pretty low on the list of things that are wrong with the American government. I'm all for drawing lines and holding ground and fighting for civil liberties, but I'm hard pressed to see airport scanners as where to draw the line and fight.
-I'm in favor of scanners because I think they'll speed things up.
-Taking shoes off seems unnecessary and counterproductive
-I fly a lot, and anecdotally it seems like TSA has improved in etiquitte and service quality
-In my opinion, this doesn't seem like an area worthy of much concern
People who disagree are welcome to express their disagreement, ideally with a reasoned, unemotional argument instead of flicking the button because you disagree with someone's reasoned point of view.
Boy, those Sep 11 attacks where like a needle straight to the heart ;)
The backpacker would have been tasered and thrown in jail after the first "no".