Lets tighten up our airline "security" because foreign goverments aren't.

[strredwolf]

Doesn't make sense, does it?

There's already reports that flight crews are requiring no in-lap anything for the last hour of the flight (the original rule was 10 minutes) and that there's additional screening on domestic flights.

That's pushing it.  The story as it stands now is that the suspect was on a Lagos-Nigeria-Amsterdamn-Denver trip.  He went through Nigerian security and passed it, with a valid passport and US visa.  He was rescreened again at the boarding gate of the Nigeria-Amsterdamn flight.  There was no rescreening in Amsterdamn; he boarded Northwest 253 and tried to blow himself up 30 minutes outside of Denver.

And now they want to up internal security inside the US?!?  When the threat was OUTSIDE?!?

Now, granted, we've been ramping security up over time; Southwest here in BWI has sniffer booths that detect chemical explosives, something that could have detected this guy.  A sudden push isn't going to help TSA's own public image.

So, mind if I suggest a few things?

1. Continue the existing path of the slow security ramp-up, but be more transparent about it.  Let news agencies report on the sniffer equipment, and get the equipment out en-mass to all airports.  Continue to develop technologies that balance detection with time.
   
2. That said, restrict international travel to border states.  Airplanes from overseas cannot travel across state boundaries. East coast for Europe/Africa/Middle East, southern states for Mexico and South America, West Coast for Asia and Austrailia.  The only exception is Canada, due to how we're sharing northern and east coast boarders.
3. If you're traveling internationally, you get screened again in every country. No exceptions.  When the EU gets fully merged, then yes, all the "international" flights say from France to Germany are really going to be classified as "domestic" and they can loosen up a bit there. But if you're going continent to continent, you better get rescreened.
   
4. Review screening procedures to an inch of their life.  President Obama has already ordered this for US flights.
5. Retrain all flight personnel, pilots and flight attendants, in FCC and FAA regulation.  They should not be telling me to turn fully off my iPhone when they've already tested Airplane mode.  If the airlines have a problem, then the FCC and FAA need to permit testing of the most common gadgets to see if they do cause a problem.  So far, they haven't!
   
   (A sidenote: an episode of Mythbusters had Grant with equal equipment in a faraday cage, and sweeping through all known cell phone frequencies.  One of the GSM frequencies caused problems.  It could not be confirmed, however; when they went out in an actual plane, parked outside a hangar at one airport, there were no problems.)

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Comments

[mike-fang.livejournal.com]

A transcript from an e-mail forwarded to me:
Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard -- she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.

In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know -- but that our government has not yet shared with us.

He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.

Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East ) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.

Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months.

Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try to hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.

For example:

1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.

2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is reactionary.

3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates.

Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (i.e.., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.).

The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas.

(cont'd)