Dragaera

fingernail clippers (wasRe: Defender always wins?)

Fri Feb 11 02:01:06 PST 2005

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:52:55 -0700, you wrote:

>On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 02:14:02PM -0800, lazarus wrote:
>> Our airline security is a joke.
>
>This is not exactly true.  It does exactly what it was intended
>to do; stop the casual, spur of the moment attacks.  Not that
>I think there are a lot of them.
>

Actually, I don't think a casual, spur of the moment attack has ever
happened.  We hyped up security in the wake of 9/11, most definitely
not a casual attack.

>A determined, resourceful, suicidal attacker could still do
>what they want, but that is true of a lot of things.
>
>I could be more specific, but let's be honest, I don't like visits from the
>feds.

The only reason we're safer now is that the paradigm shifted.  Before
9/11, everyone knew the best way to survive a hijacking was to sit
still and wait it out.

Now we know that's not going to work.  I pity the next person who
tries to take over a plane with knives.

The biggest, most gaping hole in our airport security is the workers
in the airport.  I had the opportunity to chat with one of them a few
months ago.

I asked her if they had to go through all that security crap every
day, just to get to work.  She said no, they had monthly "surprise"
checks.

Of course, they would be told the day before that the "surprise" check
was coming, so they could head in early and still be on shift at the
right time.

So a terrorist goes through screening, completely clean.  Once in the
airport, he meets up with an accomplice who works at a kiosk or
something, and has a load of explosives.  Bags are switched, plane
goes boom, and we all panic once again.