RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] airport security

["McNutt, Justin M." <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

 

Hindsite is 20/20 we can all agree about that. We can say woulda, shoulda, coulda about a great many things in history. I can only hope we have all learned from our mistakes.

 

I do not disagree with you on anything you have stated above, however, I am not sure whether Bush could have even sold an attack on Afghanistan before the attacks if he had followed Clarke's recommendations, and really it doesn't matter, Bush never seems to care about selling what he thinks is right. The problem I have now is to his decision making process on determining what is right.

 

Back to the original topic though, the state of airport security today is directly related to the chance that someone might try to copy what happened on September 11th. What worries me more now is not whether someone will sneak an explosive on an airplane, or hijack an airplane and fly it into a building again. It is pretty clear that it will be much harder to pull that kind of attack off again. No the bigger issue now is what form the next attack will come in and what are we doing to head off that attack? 
 

Good point.  At that raises another issue:  Why are we bothering with worrying so much about whether or not the passengers are capable of those kinds of threats.  Explosives and such can be found with metal detectors and other such sniffing devices, but even firearms are not a big problem on a plane (breaking the skin of a plane is usually not the catastrophe everyone thinks it is)...

 

IF...

 

...the planes we re-designed to make the pilot and copilot less accessible in the first place.  Just make a new plane with the cockpit area isolated from the cabin.  At LEAST put a good strong locking door in there and KEEP IT LOCKED.  Arm the pilot and copilot (many are ex-military anyway), set them up with a toilet and some rations, and you don't have to worry about hijacking any more.  If someone starts some shit in the back, the worst that can happen is someone radios the pilot and he figures out where HE (or she) wants to land the stupid plane.

 

Point is, it has been shown time and again that the real problem is not armed passengers.  The problem is their access to the flight controls.  Deny them that access and a lot of the rest of this crap goes away.

 

--J 

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