Airline Pilots Allowed To Dodge Security Screening 285
OverTheGeicoE writes "Wired has a story about TSA's known crewmember program, which allows airline pilots to bypass traditional airport security on their way to the cockpit. Pilots will be verified using a system known as CrewPASS that relies on uniforms, identity cards, fingerprints, and possibly other biometrics to authenticate flight deck crews. Once they are authenticated, they can enter secure areas in airports without any further screening. Participation at present is voluntary, and applies at Baltimore/Washington (BWI), Pittsburg (PIT), Columbia (CAE) and now Chicago O'Hare (ORD) airports. TSA is hoping to expand the program nationally. Bruce Schneier thinks this program is 'a really bad idea.' Pilots are already avoiding scanners and patdowns at security checkpoints (video). Is the new program just a way for TSA to hide this fact from the flying public?"
How is this a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't a pilot who's convinced to pull off a terrorist attack just, well -- do it? They are at the controls and all...
Re: (Score:2)
He just might have to kill off the rest of the flight crew to pull it off. Kind of like you-know-who did you-know-when?
Re:How is this a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't they carry guns in the cockpit?
http://www.tsa.gov/lawenforcement/programs/ffdo.shtm [tsa.gov]
The guns are meant to be used against "bad guys" but they work just as well on pilots, co-pilots, etc. Once the rest of the crew is dead, and the door is already secured, fly the plane into whatever you want. No need for box cutters. Profit (just kidding).
Re:How is this a problem? (Score:5, Funny)
Kind of like you-know-who did you-know-when?
No, I don't know when Voldemort took over an airplane!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, you fools got it all wrong! Motherfuckin' Snapes on a Plane!
Re: (Score:2)
But with the new cockpit doors, the rest of the place has no access to the pilots. Right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How is this a problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Captains don't tend to be dumb. Keep the door shut, stewardess dies. Open the door, everyone dies. Either way the stewardess dies. You can't really blackmail someone if you don't have anything to offer.
Re: (Score:3)
Honestly, if Terrorists blew a hole in the side of the plane and killed half the passengers but the captain still managed to land it safely, he wouldn't really have all that much to worry about. All he has to say is he was trying to prevent another 9/11 and he'd get off the hook, and he'd be right. Whoever's in the back is a small number in comparison to how many people could potentially be hurt or killed by the plane being rammed into a building or heavily populated area.
Re: (Score:2)
Or he could just use said pistol... let's just hope nobody thinks of that.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, the pilots could be required to not carry anything through security that passengers cannot carry and are issued a gun at some point after they go through security. They return the gun at the end of their flight. There would be some security infrastructure regarding the inventory of guns, but perhaps it would be less than required to correctly "id" the pilots.
Re: (Score:2)
No they wouldn't. There are a lot of ways. here is one less imaginary way:
Co-pilot goes to take a leak,or pilot just point to nos straight up. no one getting into the cabin then.
Re: (Score:2)
>> just point to nos straight up.
Which would last for about for about 15 seconds... then the aircraft hard stalls, the nose goes straight down and every stewardess and trolley ends up in a mangled heap in the cockpit.
Re: (Score:2)
And the plane crashes. You example is exactly why I chose to point it up.
That's not the issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is whether a terrorist can impersonate a pilot long enough to bypass the screening process.
Once you introduce multiple avenues for clearance, you introduce vulnerabilities.
Re: (Score:2)
If he can do that, why not just keep on impersonating, then crash the plane?
Really? (Score:2)
Hi! I'm Captain Jack! You probably didn't know that I was scheduled to fly this airplane what with you and the co-pilot being employed by the airline. But trust me. See my uniform? Obviously I'm a pilot and this is a plane and so forth. So don't bother calling security that there's some weird guy in a pilot's uniform trying to talk you out of the cockpit. Just give me the controls and I'll take over. You can have yourself a nice rel
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, now I have figured it all out. The terrorist have just changed tactics:
They started impersonating TSA agents a few years back without anybody noticing. After all, those are the ones terrorizing people these days.
Re: (Score:2)
What?!? There must be some kind of screw-up, let's see. Here it is, right on the schedule [PUNCH]!
Or get there early and just take the plane. The fighters probably can't scramble fast enough to stop it before it reaches the nearest downtown area.
Or, as was found in one airport, dispense with the whole thing and just jiggle the doorknob to the security area.
You've never flown, have you? (Score:2)
Talk to anyone who flies regularly. They'll explain the situation to you.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't need to, I talked to the people nobody notices who vacuum the planes out before the flight.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes it will, tons of lovely publicity for the cause. Then as the fighter jets scramble, it plows into the middle of downtown wherever, 15 minutes from the airport by air.
Dude! Take from everyone else who has already told you... that shit won't work. Like someone else said, the plane would never make it past the gate, assuming you could even get to the plane in the first place. It's not like you can just show up with a pilot's uniform and board a plane. That hasn't worked since Leonardo DiCaprio did it in a movie! You don't even have to RTFA to know that it will not only deal with various forms of ID, but will also use biometrics.
The other reason your plan sux is becaus
Re: (Score:3)
You might have missed it, but that was actually my point. There's no reason to screen the pilots at all once you determine their ID. It wouldn't matter if an impersonator did or did not have weapons and it doesn't matter if they get screened or not, the outcome is the same.
I'm actually in favor of just doing away with the TSA, but failing that, at least don't harass the pilots.
Re: (Score:2)
Hi! I'm Captain Jack!
Hi, Jack!
Re: (Score:2)
The issue is whether a terrorist can impersonate a pilot long enough to bypass the screening process.
Once you introduce multiple avenues for clearance, you introduce vulnerabilities.
That's the thought in TFA. While true, for it to be a useful one has to posit that the TSA is at all competent in screening out the baddies. That's demonstrably false. Further, there is nothing in the current screening system that would prevent a 'fake' pilot to get into the secure area. He / She couldn't carry a bomb, but if they had the appropriately forged credentials they could carry a firearm. You can carry incendiary bullets in a .38 caliber pistol although I doubt they would do all that much.
Th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You don't have to get on the plane; you can just carry weapons/drugs/whatever to a stash on the other side
If that's what you want then you don't need to bother with a fairly exclusive club of pilots. Instead one of your people gets a lowly tech job as a baggage handler, for example, or fuel truck driver, or just as a sales clerk at the Pizza joint inside the secure area of the terminal. Those jobs are dime a dozen, and nobody will notice the new guy.
Once you have your man on the inside many possibiliti
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I guess that's why they still have to go through bio-screening?
sheesh, calm done and think.
Why does a pilot need a bomb?
No, you are showing an ignorant view of security.
Re: (Score:2)
"Hello, my name is Achmed bin Farteen. Your wife and son are with me. Would you like to speak to them?" <hands the wife the phone long enough to convince the pilot that he really does have the pilot's family with him.> "I will begin torturing your family by <insert fiendish plan here> unless you carry this package through security for me and leav
Re: (Score:3)
But their identity is all that matters (Score:2)
The rest of the screening is stupid. The reason is that the pilot has hands on the controls and can crash the plane, if they wish. What's more they can get a license to have a gun in the cockpit, and many do because you get a pay bonus. So a pilot can kill everyone on board if they wish, you HAVE to trust them.
That means there's no point in screening them for weapons and so on, because who cares? It is a waste of time. All you need to do is screen their identity. Make sure that the person is who they claim
And that is the logical failure. (Score:3)
And that's the logical failure of your argument. You hear "pilot" and you think "has hands on the controls".
Meanwhile, a terrorist can impersonate a pilot to get through security (or get licensed by a small airline) and move multiple bombs through security to hand off to other terrorists on other flights.
The TSA introduces 1 weakness into the system and now every single flight is more vulnerable.
Re: (Score:2)
No it isn't stupid. Maybe the pilot wants to live and would never crash their own plane, but would be happy to carry some explosives or a weapon through security to hand to some already-screened, whacked-out passenger on the other side who is planning to board an entirely different aircraft and cause it to crash. Maybe the pilot is getting paid money to act as a courier. Who knows. But they don't have to die to cause a serious problem for others.
If a single person can walk through without screening, then they can hand any unscreened material they want to someone on the other side who will do the actual deed.
And of course, the pilot doesn't even have to think it's a bomb or weapons. The terrorist could pay the pilot $500K to smuggle "drugs" past the checkpoint. The top of the explosives can even be covered with white powder that looks like cocaine. Or even real cocaine. So the pilot is thinking he's getting 10 years of salary (in cash!) just to smuggle in one box of drugs. Shouldn't be hard to find some down-on-his-luck pilot in some small regional airline to take the bait.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I wouldn't mind if they jumped line and went through security ahead of me. after all, I need a pilot to get where I'm going. or the family next to me does.
But avoiding any screening at all defeats at the very least the sniffers and x-ray machines I get to put my laptop and cell phone through. Am I really that much more likely to try and sneak something bad onboard than a pilot? I look exactly like a pilot, minus a uniform I can steal from a dry cleaner every day the week and twice on Saturday. I can get
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, various studies have shown that 8-15% of doctors have substance abuse problems, so they would flunk a pee test. Rather than suffer the embarrassment of making them flunk the pee test, we just don't make them do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Security, meatspace or computer based, is a game of minimums. The weakest link defines it. Not the average, not the best part. The weakest link is the definition of how secure your system is. If you build a castle with three walls and leave the fourth side wide open, take a wild guess where the enemy will attack from.
The more sides you have, read: the more angles of attack exists, the more hassle it becomes to keep things secure. Even things that supposedly create more security can actually lower security.
Re: (Score:2)
The change s a stronger link then the current situation.
A) Background checked
B) Monitored
C) Recognized by co-workers
D) Biometricly screened when the get on board.
E) history of work.
If all passengers where that thoroughly screened, then customers could also just use the bio-metric scanners and be safer then they are now.
Re: (Score:2)
Again, security is a minimum game. The combined security of two systems is always lower than the security of a single system, unless at least one of the two combined systems is 100% secure. And that is simply not possible.
That the current system is worse actually only means that it would be more sensible to put crew through the same security system as the rest of the passengers.
Re:How is this a problem? (Score:5, Informative)
My wife and my step-daughter have BOTH been fondled at airports. I have had to boot laptops. My step-daughter was asked to go through the electronic nudie-scope on her last flight, and told TSA no.
Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it isn't happening, and it definitely doesn't mean people shouldn't be incensed about TSA's abusive, degrading, demeaning security theater. If that makes me a "malcontent", so be it.
Re: (Score:3)
You may be okay with your family being molested by government thugs, but I'M NOT, and I really don't give a shit how much safer this crap makes you feel. It's fucking illegal, dimwit. Read the 4th Amendment -- the TSA does NOT have the right to x-ray and fondle me or my family without probable cause. Just because you are too much of a freaking coward to stand up for yourself when some yahoo pulls a box cu
Re: (Score:2)
Couldn't a pilot who's convinced to pull off a terrorist attack just, well -- do it? They are at the controls and all...
Yes, this is absolutely retarded to complain about, and I say that as someone who complains about the TSA all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I guess I must be retarded, because I can't see how getting one blackmailed pilot through security with a bag of bombs is better than blackmailing a security guard, TSA agent, or cop guarding a gate to the airfield and bringing a whole truck full of bombs in.
But I guess since some pilots were discussing what they would do in this hypothetical situation, that makes it the most likely thing, and terrorists wouldn't think of any of the easier and more effective methods. I'm too retarded to understand ho
Re: (Score:2)
That is not the problem.
The issue is Mr. Terrorist could rent/steal/make a pilots uniform and get through the checkpoint then change into his terrorizing clothes before his flight.
Re:How is this a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not really preventing pilots from carrying guns on planes. It's preventing people who look like pilots from being given special security breaks and dealing with the costs associated with preventing that while reaping only minimal gains from not scanning pilots.
This essay: https://www.schneier.com/essay-130.html [schneier.com] by Schneier does a fantastic job at explaining the problem. The basic synopsis is:
1) Security is a system, and for all the easy changes you make ("Let's not screen pilots, that makes no sense!"), you actually need to build tons of other systems (Databases to validate pilot IDs, training for security personnel to access those databases, hard to forge ID cards to identify pilots, etc).
2) Because of those things you didn't think of in (1), and because security is a zero-sum game, all the dollars you spend building security systems to deal with pilots and all the minutes that you save not screening them could have been spent doing more impactful things that make everyone safer and reduce time at the security checkpoint for less money.
Basically, with limited resources and the hidden costs of not scanning pilots, is it worth it to not scan pilots? Probably not.
Mod parent up. (Score:3)
And you left one thing off.
And the consequences of FAILING with a false positive (terrorist mistaken for authorized pilot).
I think the problem here is the same as with the TSA in general.
People hear "pilot" and they think "person flying the plane".
Which assumes 100% verification of every pilot, every time, at every location. Including 100% verification of NON-pilots.
Once you get pas
Re: (Score:2)
And the consequences of FAILING with a false positive (terrorist mistaken for authorized pilot).
How about the costs of scanning them. Say they are improperly rushed through because they need to get to their plane? How about instead developing a system to preclear trusted people, which we deploy first with pilots, then flight attendants, then certain trusted members of the population?
Wouldn't work you say? That's what they do in Israel.
Re: (Score:3)
Say they are improperly rushed through because they need to get to their plane?
That's basically what this CrewPass thing does.
Wouldn't work you say? That's what they do in Israel.
Really? I'd like to see a cite for exactly how they do it, I suspect you are glossing the details. But you know what? Even if true and pilots in Israeli don't get searched there it isn't likely to be feasible here. All of the Israeli airports combined do about the same number of passengers per year as O'Hare does alone in 4 months. The scale of the comparison isn't even close.
Re: (Score:2)
Really if the terrorist can impersonate a pilot he has no need for a weapon at all. As we saw on 911, the aircraft IS the weapon. It's silly to bother checking the guy you're handing the plane to for weapons. Concentrate instead on making sure you're handing the plane off to the right guy.
Re: (Score:2)
This essay is Oh so wrong. Schneier is smart but not always right.
We do not have the resources to properly scan everyone, so we end up doing a very shoddy and useless job. If instead we had some very good one way filters with no false negatives then we can spend substantially more resources on the truly suspicious cases.
Don't take my word, compare with the best security system in the world, the one with the most threats and the least attacks: the Israeli security system. They do not scan every one.
Re: (Score:3)
The other systems (databse & biometrics) are already built and in place, Bruce Schneier just doesn't know about them (he's a mathematician, not an airport security expert).
See http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/08/counterfeit_pil.html#c569857 [schneier.com] and the same commenter's post 2 down.
Re: (Score:2)
If the pilots don't like this idiocy at the gate, then they should stand with us and do something about it. The uber-wealthy elites with their private jets are already exempt unless I'm mistaken. Pilots are getting a pass now. Airline personnel and anyone else who has a strong interest in real, efficient security will too. They're no
Re: (Score:2)
It has already been done. There was the EgyptAir Flight 990.. EgyptAir Flight 990.. [wikipedia.org]
From the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder. [twf.org]
0150:05.89 I rely on God.
0150:06.37 what's happening? what's happening?
0150:07.07 I rely on God.
0150:07.11 [sound of numerous thumps and clinks continue for approximately fifteen seconds]
0150:08.20 [repeating hi-low tone similar to Master Warning aural start and continues to the end of recording]
0150:08.48 I rely on God.
0150:08.53 what's happening?
0150:15.15 what's happening, Gamil? what's happening?
Ultimately you have to be able to trust the people on the flight deck. That didn't do the people on Air France Flight 447 [telegraph.co.uk]. Considering that NTSB investigations put most of the blame on pilot error [planecrashinfo.com], they ultimately have the responsibility for your safety. What sense does it make to run them through a nudeo-scan 5000 or a metal detector at all? there's also hundreds of
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but you're trying to stop people who are pretending to be pilots. Terrorists might think of this, you see.
Well gee, then it sounds like having screening specific to identifying pilots -- like they are doing -- would be a million times more useful than making them go through the passenger screening which is designed to keep weapons and bombs off the plane, which a terrorist-pilot would have no fucking use for!
Re: (Score:2)
You think the Tards Standing Around are going to be capable of doing that?
You could probably get a reasonable pilot outfit from the nearest rental place and walk right on through.
How so? (Score:2)
Why would it be "a million times more useful"?
Why NOT run the pilots and crew through the regular security? Including checking their bags?
Because once you create a group where you do NOT check their luggage
Re: (Score:2)
Why would it be "a million times more useful"?
Because it actually addresses the potential threat of a terrorist posing as a pilot -- that they could take control of an airplane and use it as a cruise missile. You know, the thing we found out on 9/11 was a lot worse than just having the plane get blown up?
So, 20 terrorists want to take down 20 planes.
1 terrorist spends the time to get listed as a pilot for some minor airline.
Then that 1 terrorist moves 100 pounds of explosives (and detonators) through security without being checked.
The other 20 terrorists buy tickets and travel without weapons.
Once past security, the "pilot" hands the bombs off to the 20 terrorists.
Or, 1 terrorists saves a lot of time getting a pilot's license and instead gets a job as a baggage handler. That terrorist opens a gate for a catering truck with 1,000 pounds of explosives.
And all that would have been avoided if the pilots had to go through the same screening as everyone else.
You know, at least the Maginot Line was actually big enough f
And does what? (Score:2)
Yeah, allow me to repeat myself.
Hi! I'm Captain Jack! You probably didn't know that I was scheduled to fly this airplane what with you and the co-pilot being employed by the airline. But trust me. See my uniform? Obviously I'm a pilot and this is a plane and so forth. So don't bother calling security that there's some weird guy in a pilot's uniform
Re: (Score:2)
You nailed it, thank you.
TSA is only in the business of producing a big show for the flying public. Terrorists are not part of their target audience, and they couldn't care less what terrorists might think of the play.
Re: (Score:2)
You nailed it, thank you.
TSA is only in the business of producing a big show for the flying public. Terrorists are not part of their target audience, and they couldn't care less what terrorists might think of the play.
Are you suggesting that we stop screening passengers before they go onboard an aircraft? Bad idea. Someone needs to screen passengers. You might not agree with the TSA's methods and ways of working, but its a job that has to be done. I'm sure they will be open to suggestions for improvement.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm sure they will be open to suggestions for improvement.
Greetings, visitor from a parallel universe.
I hope your stay is pleasant, and I recommend you avoid air travel, Microsoft, and American beer.
Re: (Score:3)
There is plenty of good American beer.
They can carry guns? Oh no! (Score:2)
Yeah, the pilot will put the gun to his head and hold himself hostage.
"Drop your guns, or the pilot gets it." "Oh that poor man, can't somebody help him."
As the pilot drags himself to the cockpit and takes over the control from the pilot, the pilot would force the pilot to crash the plane into a building.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the pilot will put the gun to his head and hold himself hostage.
No, the pilot will hand the gun to a terrorist who's going to use it to... well, I don't know, some kind of terrorist crap.
Why is this a bad idea? (Score:2)
1. Compromise the pilot via blackmail, family hostages, etc
2. Profit!
Of course the pilot is flying a big bomb, so they don't have to bring a weapon with them through security if they want to do damage. There's no real reason to screen them...so maybe this -is- a good idea after all. Hey, wait!
Re: (Score:2)
That's useful to steal documents or overlook something. Not so useful to fly airplanes into buildings. What makes these nuts dangerous is not only are they not afraid to die, they're committed to certain death. That takes it up a notch and completely bypasses numerous assumed limitations.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need the pilot to be willing to die. Just to be willing to move some packages into the secure area where you the terrorist nutjob take them onto a different flight.
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno if I should mod you insightful or tell you to stop giving the nutjobs ideas.
It's actually scary how shortsighted the responsible parties are if a few /. posters can come up with a ton of scenarios how to use this to blow up planes. And I guess it's safe to assume that none of us actually think about ways to do that day and night and have the plan to blow shit up.
I still say every security company has to hire at least one role player for their Red Teams. They come up with so completely whacked out wa
Anybody ever watch (Score:2)
'The Event'" on NBC last year
Something more useful (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Considering the pilots I know, I'd rather test them for ... other substances.
Oh no! (Score:2, Funny)
Simple theater (Score:5, Interesting)
I work at an international airport. There's only one gate between the street and the runway. The 'guards' routinely flag us through from over 100 feet away if we so much as hold up something that looks remotely like it might be a badge. I've held up credit cards, library cards, and once, the Queen of Diamonds. So why in the hell should I submit to a full body X-ray operated by someone without a medical degree, or submit to sexual molestation if I refuse that? Is that supposed to make me feel safe?
Tye ionly reason I dn't like this (Score:2)
is that if security is equally inconvenient, more consideration will be placed on it's effectiveness, and efficiency. That why I think lawyers and judges should have to wait in line to get into the court house.
Re: (Score:2)
The judges are already overworked. We don't need them wasting time in line. The lawyers on the other hand......
One last question... (Score:2)
Does El Al screen their pilots?
Re: (Score:2)
Ohhhhh, that's a really bad joke.
I like it!
Good (Score:2)
Why am I apparently the only one that is happy that that the TSA are finally starting to back off a little?
I'm looking forward to the day when the TSA go away entirely and flying goes back to being as easy as pre 9/11 days.
I mean how many actual terrorist attempts (even failed ones) on aircraft have there been since 9/11 compared to the number of flights that happen daily? If not actually 0, its so small as to be statistically insignificant risk per flight. Isn't the continued perceived threat of terror com
Re: (Score:3)
They're not backing off. They are removing the only people from the list of "those who get pestered by them" who could sensibly debunk the whole theater.
Face it: Pilots know how airport security works. Pilots and everyone working at airports will all tell you the same story: The whole security theater is a big machinery to create jobs and revenue for companies that have good ties with certain parts of the political circus. You DO NOT want to piss those people off with the same security theater that they cou
Re: (Score:2)
In a nutshell, the more people pissed off at TSA, the more likely it is that they will eventually go away. To me, this looks like "divide and conquer", not "the first of many concessions to common sense."
Also avoiding radiation (Score:5, Informative)
Airline crews are limited to flight hours as a means to limit the radiation they receive to stay under OSHA limits. It is one of the careers that receive relatively high doses over their careers. Doses are cumulative (think about how people develop skin cancer supposedly from sun burns as a child).
For these reasons pilots try to avoid even small doses of radiation where they can, and walking through a body scanner several times every day they work over several years would add up.
Examples of industries with significant occupational radiation exposure:
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/53939/radiation-exposure/ [theenergycollective.com]
OMG What? (Score:2)
You're telling me that the guy who determines whether the airplane stays in the air or not might be carrying a weapon? SCARY!
What a non-story... (Score:3)
I guess they are considered like all other airport employees having security clearances and working behind the TSA security veil... There are thousands of people going in and out of the "secure" areas every day in any airports through the world each day without seeing such security screening.
They do simple background checks on these employees. I can't see any reason to threat crew differently.
Re:Great for smuggling, especially narcotics (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, for the crew. If you, the crew, have to go through the same tired, intrusive screening 3, 4, 5 times a day...you'd get pretty damn tired of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you could probably get a disgruntled crew member sooner or later who debunks the whole security theater 'cause he can't take the shit anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
And you know this how?
Not saying they have, but we here on the outside cannot say that definitively.
Re: (Score:3)
And you know this how?
If the TSA had actually achieved anything at all, don't you think they'd be shouting across the media to publicise that fact?
Re:how about not screening *anybody*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, we can to a high degree of certainty. It is as much in the nature of a disliked government agency to crow from the rooftops any small success it might have as it is for water to flow down hill.
They haven't crowed.
We do know that two terrorists slipped right through the TSA since 9/11. Both were stopped by the passengers.
In baseball, that's called an Ofer
Re: (Score:3)
While I detest the security theater at airports these days, your argument has a major hole. If the present day security has dissuaded someone from attempting a terrorist attack because they couldn't think of a way to bypass the security, then that's a success, but not one that the TSA could ever know occurred. Perhaps only those people who think of a way through are willing to try it.
The normal way to measure the deterrent effects of security is with statistics. Terrorist attacks are too infrequent for t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Because it is impossible to hijack a plane and crash it into a building while you are rolling on the floor with laughter.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's see... the TSA somehow slowly should justify their existence. They cost a shitload of money every nanosecond they exist, so some kind of justification would be great.
If any of those TSA goons had ever caught anything but a cold, rest assured it would have been the news of the day. For as long as they could possibly convince the networks to carry it. Because then, no matter what gets spend, see, we stopped a terrorist, and human lives have no price tag, do they?
One, just ONE case would have been enough
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And getting the passengers in there swiftly would also mean I waste less time standing in the line 'cause that granny in front forgot she has a metal hip and keeps beeping the friggin' detector.
What? Oh, security, one of the passengers could be a terrorist and smuggle something in to blow the thing up, right. Answer me this: Why can't a pilot do the same?
They already control *A* plane... (Score:4, Interesting)
Each pilot would normally have control of one plane, but each pilot that gets a special pass through security could, if they were inclined to do nefarious things, brings weapons through and deliver them to terrorists inside the "secure" area who had already passed through security (since they aren't pilots) but who would each board other planes.
Immediately after 9/11 -- with the reports from the planes of weapons including not only box cutters, but also guns -- there was a lot of speculation that this is essentially what happened with the terrorists in those attacks, that weapons had been brought through by one or more airline employees who were permitted to bypass the screenings that were in place for passengers entering the secure area of airports. That was one of the reasons given for federalizing airport security and eliminating the exceptions to the screening requirements.
Re: (Score:2)
It's still a second angle of attack. It opens a second venue someone could get in. So far, he has to get through the security screening. Now he can choose between security screening or getting a pilot to do it for him (or becoming a pilot himself).
Nothing is 100% secure. If it was, it would not matter. Agreed. But even if both systems are 99% secure, combined their security drops to 98%. And while a very mathematical example, I guess it should be possible to see what I actually mean.
Re: (Score:3)
The US government could F up a cheese sandwich, and make it cost $20,000.
It's not like you had to choose, they are perfectly capable of doing both at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Understood? It's not his job to understand anything. Actually, I'm pretty certain that it's easier to do that job if you don't even try. Saves you the headaches. His job was to keep you from carrying weapons on the plane and that he did.
Don't expect too much from a TSA agent. Also, try to limit your vocabulary when talking to them to two syllable words. Some get really pissy when they don't understand you.