www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Terror in the Skies

Here are a few looks at the latest supposed terrorist plot to smuggle liquids on a plane to blow it up. I think snakes on a plane would be more plausible! :p

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/



The August 19th Wall Street Journal cites that you have a 33 times greater risk of dying in an auto crash than you do traveling in a plane. Simply walking is eight times riskier than flying and, you are still 6.5 times safer on an airplane than you are on a motorcycle.

I get outraged every time I have to take my shoes and belt off to go through the metal detector. Pretty soon everyone will have to strip and wear special diapers to get on the planes so no one can smuggle any kind of substance on a plane.

Dr Eric

You should see the aggressive screening tactics that have been implemented at some airports like Logan International in Boston. ABC News showed a burly security guard with very hostile intent walking along a line of passengers looking for certain unfavorable responses from those about to board. If you are guilty of enough negative facial responses you get pulled out of line for more questioning. With those Soviet style tactics the airlines deserve to go belly up.

From what I understand, our current screening practices are nothing compared to the long-standing practices in the rest of the world. It sounds to me like complaining about the price of oil when it isn't anywhere near the price the rest of the world pays. We really are spoiled here in the US--a fact I am very thankful for.

Sorry Wondering, but in some countries of the world, the police or the army can kick in your doors and drag you out of bed in the middle of the night without a warrant. Or, you can live in tin shacks or on the street and beg for food. I DON"T want to be like the rest of the world. We have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights here that save guards our civil liberties. I like to believe I would die to protect those freedoms, and sincerely hope there would be many others with me.

Lawrence,

I, personally, do not believe that taking off one's shoes to ensure the safety of a plane full of people violates one's constitutional rights, nor do I believe it rises to the level of concern where I would consider talk of defending oneself by force.

The airplane industry is a private sector. If they are not able to accomodate the travelers' needs and desires then they will lose ground and become obsolete. No one is required to fly and so no one is required to take off his shoes. I find it to be an inconvenience, but one that ranks far lower on the scales than the airlines not providing lunches, only giving me a third of a can of soda, and not having decks of cards or little gold wings for children any longer.

I have to agree with Wondering.

Flying is very frightening as it is, yet for a majority of us in the U.S., also a necessary mode of transportation-whether for business, moving, or seeing family. With the added fear of aeroterrorism, it has become even more frightening.

Americans are no longer confined to living in the same geographic area for generations. We are a mobile society so I am all for anything which will make it safe for us all to fly.

Alice

Alice and Wondering,

For me it has become a major hassle. I can't help but speculate on what will be the next invasion of privacy that the airlines will foist upon travellers using the TSA and the FBI as their hired goons.

I for one will fly less from now on and I predict that these new "security" measures will only hurt the airline industry more and raise ticket prices to boot.

If I were only rich enough to buy my own plane...

Dear Dr. Eric,

I haven't flown since the end of June to attend my mother-in-law's funeral. Since that was before this last attempted attack, perhaps I don't know of what you speak?

I can tell you that I have been singled out to be frisked in London for a connecting flight, singled out to have my bag searched in detail in Athens, my husband was singled out and set aside in NY to check his bag and to be frisked, and we always have to take our shoes off.

Honestly, though, if it means my safety, who cares?

Fondly,
Alice

Deleted.

Too snarky.

I just want to get where I'm going without being hassled. I'm as white as they come (German, Serb, and Irish mostly) I don't look like a Fanatical Muslim Terrorist (the most likely of terrorists) and I don't act erratic.

Sheesh, you can't even mention the word bomb on a plane or at the airport, as in "I think that movie's gonna bomb." You'll get arrested!

I kid you not, some of these airline security people are so off the wall, that a buddy of mine flying to Chicago from Montreal, got taken into an office for additional questioning, BECAUSE he was reading a book about Al Capone. The security people asked him point blank with very serious faces, why he was reading a book about Al Capone.

A couple months ago. a friend of mine flew from Chicago to Los Angeles on a business trip and had her luggage searched top to bottom, which I understand is now regular procedure, but later on after the search was completed, the security people broke all the locks on her luggage.

There's already full searches, metal detectors etc. Now people getting pulled out of line for books there reading, facial expressions, etc, what next ? I haven't flown in years, and unless it's a small plane I don't intend to.

Don't forget, as the Jon Stewart clip I posted said, if you don't want your privates seen in the new body scans, you can put a metal plate in your underwear!

That'll get you strip searched! :p

As a spouse of a major airline pilot, I welcome the added security -- something the US has been far behind other countries. 5 years ago the idea of using the plane itself as a bomb was unthinkable -- something we'd see in a Lifetime Movie we would scoff at. IYet, there my husband was, flying 190 blissfully unaware people that morning while planes carrying loved ones were being used as weapons. It is the "unthinkable" that we need to be scared of. It took 10 years to implement the "unthinkable". Don't for a nano-second think the next "unthinkable" isn't being thought of and planned!! Anything that allows my husband to get you from Point A to Point B safely -- whether it's for your job, your vacation, a wedding, a funeral -- is OK by me! If you are frustrated with, disgusted or disgruntled by the new rules -- then, please, do my husband a favor and stay home!! Or take the train or bus -- there is absolutely NO security on those forms of transportation; you'll be happy.

Dear Dr. Eric,

And just when you were going to get the 'nicest guy' on Byzcath award, we found your 'Achilles Heel'!!! :p

Actually, my look and demeanor are also as far from being criminal, suspicious, threatening and terrorist as yours!! Infact, after telling some of my friends how I got pulled over to be frisked, they laughed: "You're kidding--They frisked YOU?!?!?!--Blondie?!?"

Infact, before 9/11, I was NEVER, EVER, stopped, searched, or had my bags looked at.

So if anyone wants to scream about racial profiling, all I can tell them from my own experience, is that it is NOT happening!

Regards,
Alice

So are many of the "homegrown" British terrorists, and will be any "homegrown" Americans they can find (as we know, there are already some out there). If whites are not inspected, they will recruit whites even more so. They are out there. Do you want them on your wife's flight? No, the likelihood is not great. Do you want to take the chance that her flight is the one they don't check, though?

Neither did they. Their beards were shaved, they were graceful, and they blended in well. If you want them to look for fanatical, erratic, Arab, identifiably Muslim men, then the terrorists will never be found. If there is a loop hole, they will exploit it. It is precisely this complaining about white blondes being searched that lets them know the loophole is not there to exploit. It does require some annoying sensitivity, but with time this phase of our lives shall pass and our grandchildren will ask us about it like we ask our grandparents about flappers or the depression.

Dear Wondering and Mrs. H.,

I agree with both of you. I rather be safe than sorry! We will have to administer a 'chill pill' to Dr. Eric before he goes to the airport next time. *wink*

Actually Wondering, you make some excellent points about white blondes. Whose to say the next suicide bomber and/or terrorist won't be a blonde Muslim girl?

I will point out only one error in what you said, however--remember Mr. Shoe Bomber?!? If ever there was a scruffy and disheveled looking fellow, it was definitely him! And thank God he was a blundering idiot too--trying to light his shoe like it was a match box! :rolleyes:

Regards,
Alice