If we genuinely WANT to minimize the risk of terrorist activity, then EVERY flight that enters US airspace should be operated by the US military under strict US military security procedures. No exceptions, no profiling, no mickey-mouse stuff.
Alternatively, we should accept that terrorists will occasionally take down airliners. Innocent people will die. That is the nature of terror. That is the nature of human zealotry. It always has been and always will be.
The purpose of terror is to instill fear, and to use that fear to curtail the freedom that westerners take for granted. Perhaps it is time to remind ourselves that such freedom has a high price indeed.
In the meantime, it seems to me that the Detroit episode underlines the need for us to reinvigorate domestic passenger rail service. “Bad guys” and “injuns” conducted “terrorist attacks” on trains for generations with little or no observable impact on travel freedom.
As our “buy local” movements prosper, aren’t we healthier and happier when spend less time in the air and more on the ground?
christopher says
Prior to 9/11 the airlines handled security through private firms. Since then, the Transportation Security Administration, a federal agency has been responsible. (In fact when I first learned they were taking over I was surprised security had been private. To me it’s obvious that security and law enforcement are government functions.) We do have to be smarter about it though. Too often we hear on the one hand that a firearm or explosive got through while some passangers had to surrender their nail clippers.
somervilletom says
I didn’t say “federal agency”, I said the military. Even that won’t be perfect (Fort Hood provides an example).
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p>My friends in the security industry just laugh when I ask them about how secure the TSA provisions actually make air travel.
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p>Here’s their favorite starting point. If you want a terminal to be “secure”, you establish a security perimeter around the terminal. A long way around the terminal. Dogs. Barbed wire. Electrified fences. Multiple checkpoints, each a long way away from the protected target. That sort of thing.
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p>A dedicated terrorist will occasionally penetrate even the best security system. That’s why we should focus on creating fewer dedicated terrorists.
christopher says
Some of your specific proposals sound good, but I’m a little leery of overmilitarizing civilian life. I guess multiple checkpoints are good for making sure nothing slips through the cracks, but I also remember when I’ve travelled internationally and being asked for my passport for the fourth time I feel like asking, “You do realize I would not have made it this far if I hadn’t presented this three times already, right?”
somervilletom says
We seek a level of security in air travel that only the military can provide. I think that most Americans feel, like you and me, that such a military presence is unacceptable in in day-to-day civilian life. I think that the result will be to essentially end all but the most vitally necessary air travel.
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p>For domestic travel, the upshot will be to reinvigorate passenger rail service. International travelers are, basically, out of luck.
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p>As grim as this scenario is, I find it preferable to the current sham and con-game of ever-escalating increasingly intrusive measures that accomplish nothing except purposefully disrupt commercial air travel.
jconway says
Whats my incentive to travel on a service that takes longer and typically costs more money? I used to have a conductor hat and play with train sets, but that still doesn’t make me enthusiastic about modern rail travel. Unless it is demonstrably and significantly cheaper than flying I really don’t see how it could ever take off.
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p>As for security, as Nate Silver pointed out we had three bombers out of 10,000 flights since 9/11. All 3 were stopped, all three were incompetent. To me the system worked because the man was apprehended and stopped.
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p>Also for the record to all the righties out there-using their own metric that the GWOT is successful if there are no attacks on our soil here is a simple scorecord:
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p>Terror Attacks on US Soil Under President Bush: 1
Terror Attacks on US Soil Under President Obama: 0
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p>I think Obama>Bush then
stephgm says
Why do we have greater fear of terrorists in airplanes than we do of drunk drivers and teenagers in automobiles? Statistically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?
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p>(Btw, it is good to see significant improvement in highway safety: 41,259 dead on US roads in 2007; 37,261 dead in 2008. 13,041 fatalities from alcohol-related crashes in 2007; 11,773 dead in 2008.)
neilsagan says