That reminds me of this little gem from a couple of months ago. Even
before 9/11 I looked forward to flying about as much as I did a root
canal, thanks to overbooked flights, crowded terminals, scarce parking,
lost baggage, lousy food, and sardine-can seating. Nowadays I don't fly
unless it's utterly, totally unavoidable
_____________________________________________________

Terminal Futility

Routine airport security won't thwart jihadists, but it does
inconvenience and endanger the rest of us.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 6, 2005, at 1:02 PM PT

Is there anyone reading this column who would agree with Mark O.
Hatfield Jr., spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration,
that in the past year "the average peak wait time at [airport]
checkpoints has dropped a minute ... to about 12 minutes"? This is what
he was cited as having said, in a New York Times report of a
confidential document from the Department of Homeland Security. The last
time I was at Dulles Airport, the line for security began at the
entrance to the terminal and wound itself in several rope-line
convolutions, like a clogged intestine, for about 40 minutes. I had
allowed the usual two hours and was checking no luggage, but this and
other banana-republic conditions almost made me miss my plane. Nor was
it a "peak time." In any case, a passenger cannot know what a "peak
time" will be. Only the TSA knows how many people are booked on how many
flights at a given hour and can make provision of enough machines and
personnel. Or not, as the case may be.

So, Hatfield was telling me something that I didn't know. The rest of
the report, however, contains things that everyone does know to be true.
We learn that there is no real capacity to detect explosives, for
example. And we learn that, "If, say, a handgun were discovered, the
terrorist would have ample ability to retain control of it. TSA
screeners are neither expecting to encounter a real weapon nor are they
trained to gain control of it." Who hasn't worked that out?

I think I had also noticed that there are not enough plastic bins or
tables to line them up on, and that "X-ray machines that examine
carry-on baggage sit idle as much as 30 per cent of the time." The time
elapsed between Sept. 11, 2001, and today's writing (1,364 days) is only
slightly less than the time between Pearl Harbor and the unconditional
surrender of Japan (1,365 days). And airport security is still a silly
farce that subjects the law-abiding to collective punishment while
presenting almost no deterrent to a determined suicide-killer.

There is one mercy at least: One no longer sees people smiling and
saying, "Thank you" as their wheelchairs and their children are put
through pointless inspections. But the new form of servile
abjection-standing in sullen lines and just putting up with it-is hardly
an improvement. One sometimes wants to ask, "What's my name?" or, "To
what database is this connected" when someone has just asked for the
third time for you to put down a bag and produce a driver's license. But
I think the fear of making some inscrutable "no-fly" list may inhibit
many people. There has never yet been a hijacker who boarded a plane
without taking the trouble to purchase a ticket and carry an ID. Members
of the last successful group were on a "watch list," for all the
difference that made. The next successful group will not be on a watch
list.

Flying from London to Washington the other day, I was told that I was no
longer required to take my computer out of its case. Apparently, there
are scanners that can see though soft cases as well as through the
hardened lid of a laptop (and apparently the United States hasn't
managed to invest in any of these scanners for its domestic airports).
On the other hand, I was asked if I had packed my own bags and if they
had been under my control at all times. This exceptionally stupid pair
of questions-to which a terrorist would have to answer "yes" by
definition-is now deemed too stupid for U.S. domestic purposes and
stupid enough only for international travel. This makes as much sense as
diverting a full plane that carries a notorious Islamist crooner, the
artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, from one airport to another.

Routines and "zero tolerance" exercises will never thwart determined
jihadists who are inventive and who are willing to sacrifice their
lives. That requires inventiveness and initiative. But airport officials
are not allowed to use their initiative. People who have had their names
confused with wanted or suspect people, and who have spent hours proving
that they are who they say they are, are nonetheless compelled to go
through the whole process every time, often with officials who have seen
them before and cleared them before, because the system that never seems
to catch anyone can never seem to let go of anyone, either.

While people are treated as packages, we learn from the same New York
Times account of the still-secret Homeland Security document that "air
cargo on passenger planes is rarely physically inspected today."
Imagine, if you will, the wolfish grin of an al-Qaida fan who reads that
sentence. I sometimes don't want to mention all the other loopholes, in
case it gives ideas to the wrong people, but just imagine for a second
that we imposed our current airport rules on trains, or the subway, or
the tunnels and bridges .

What we are looking at, then, is a hugely costly and oppressive system
that is designed to maintain the illusion of safety and the delusion
that the state is protecting its citizens. The main beneficiaries seem
to be the pilferers employed by this vast bureaucracy-we have had
several recent reports about the steep increase in items stolen from
luggage. And that is petty theft that takes place off-stage. What amazes
me is the willingness of Americans to submit to confiscation at the
point of search. Every day, people are relieved of private property in
broad daylight, with the sole net result that they wouldn't have even a
nail file with which to protect themselves if (or rather when) the next
hijacking occurs.

Last month, cigarette lighters were added to the confiscation list.
There's probably some half-baked "shoe-bomber" justification for this,
but I hear that at Boise airport in Idaho there's now a lighter bin on
the way out of the airport, like the penny tray in some shops, that
allows you to pick one up. Give one; take one-it all helps to pass the
time until the next disaster, which collective punishment of the
law-abiding is doing nothing to prevent.


http://slate.com/id/2120330/

Think of the most beautiful response to 9/11 - I would say that it would
be to completely ignore it. Rebuild the towers in exactly the same manner
as the were before, make no changes whatsoever to our style of life. If it
happens again - ignore it again.

Think of the most beautiful response to 9/11 - I would say that it would
be to completely ignore it. Rebuild the towers in exactly the same
manner as the were before, make no changes whatsoever to our style of
life. If it happens again - ignore it again.

Washington has done far more to kill off the airline industry than
al-Qaeda ever could have hoped to. With it now - counting all ground
time - taking longer to fly commercial than drive any trip under 500+
miles, why the hell would anyone pay to be treated this way to get
from, say, Cleveland to Pittsburgh, when they could be at their final
destination sooner if they drove it?
Domestic air travel is a CONVENIENCE industry. More hassles and more
indignities to using it, fewer customers and it goes broke - as it
should.

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