"All I can do is point to the zero deaths since 2001 caused by passengers smuggling dangerous objects onto planes." - As I noted above, we have recently had a few close calls. It appears the terrorists are adapting. Personally, I'd rather we try to stay ahead of them than wait for your sentence to change to "well we had zero deaths until 2011 when ..."
"Flying is far safer than many other common activities whose risks we gladly accept, and that would remain true even if terrorists blew up a fully loaded 747 every year." - I have used this argument myself (yes I have argued your side as well). However, it does not capture the broader impact - economy etc (this may be why they continue to target planes). Frankly, I think the terrorists could accomplish their goals in many other far easier to accomplish ways but I wont help them here.
I understand your view. I just don't share it. You attacked mine by saying the scanners added zero value. I forwarded a link that while critical of the scanners also noted they were as "effective as a pat down". Unless you think pat downs add zero security, then we are back to security vs personal privacy.
That's easy. Terrorists seize/destroy planes with weapons or explosives.
So to the extent that the TSA can efficiently and effectively scan for weapons, explosives and known terrorists, they should. To the extent that they can't detect certain explosives (the theoretical binary liquid concern), it's reasonable to take measures to mitigate risk. (E.g. limit quantities when feasible)
"I should clarify that I think the TSA wants to prevent airline bombings (that is, loss of a plane) above all else."
I have my doubts about that as well. I would think that the lack of K-9 teams near departure gates is a good sign that bombings are not the concern of the TSA when it comes to airport security. Bombings are probably a concern somewhere, but the security checkpoints do not seem to do much when it comes to stopping a bomb plot.
Keep in mind that private planes are exempt from the security checks. If a terrorist wanted to blow up a commercial plane, what would stop them from chartering a private jet, bringing bombs on board, and then ramming their explosive-laden plane into an airliner mid-flight? Why even bother doing it in flight? A terrorist might just roll their chartered jet into a fully-loaded passenger plane on the runway, and blow up a plane in front of a crowd of people.
Perhaps there is some other procedure in place to ensure that no bombs can make it past the numerous ways that people and vehicles can enter an airport without going through a security checkpoint. If that is the case, what is the purpose of the checkpoint? Why not just apply whatever techniques prevent terrorists from ramming private jets into airliners to the rest of the airport, and let us keep our rights intact?
It is also worth pointing out that there are lots of other bombing targets that are not being bombed, despite a complete lack of security. Anyone can bring large packages onto the NYC subways without any harassment or scanning, yet those trains (which are packed with hundreds of people during the rush hour) have not been blown up. A truck full of explosives could easily drive onto a major bridge. Yet despite these clear vulnerabilities, and despite the fact that other countries see such attacks and more, we rarely have them here. Are airlines really more special targets for bombers than urban transit systems?
You can't crash airliner because you can't get into cabin anymore. So most terrorists can do is kill everyone on board, which is the same as to blow a bomb elsewhere (you underestimated potential harm of bomb in security line), and they already are doing that. So those rigorous checkings in airports only hurt normal people, and do nothing for security.
I think investing in explosives detection is a better approach. It is an irony that there were explosions at the airport while they are screening you completely before boarding a flight.
Nonsense. If we didn't have greater security for air travel aircraft would rain from the skies. And the sheer devastation to global economies would have no imaginable measure. Is security perfect? Far from it. But it is far better than doing nothing.
I think you might be blind to a whole layer of the infrastructure because you never have visibility into it. I do. I own a company that conducts business internationally. Passenger aircraft don't just carry passengers. Before the extensive security measures implemented progressively after 9-11 taking down a plane with cargo would have almost been child's play. Today, not so. I don't know how much you travel. If you do, be thankful there are people who did their best to ensure someone isn't shipping an incendiary device on the same plane you and your family happen to be on.
The business of attempting to create equivalency between deaths due to smoking or heat disease and terrorism is simply laughable at best. There is no equivalence and nothing prevents anyone from addressing them as the separate and unrelated problems they are.
The pre-9/11 security screening itself was less invasive and faster than it is now. Luggage, bulky clothing, and anything that set off the metal detector still had to go through the X-ray.
A better alternative would be to let people keep their shoes on, stop worrying about liquids, and not scrutinize small objects in luggage that can't be identified, but obviously aren't guns or bombs large enough to crash a plane. Yes, people have tried to bomb aircraft using shoes and liquids, but those plots were not only ineffective but likely ineffectual.
People do occasionally try to blow up airplanes and such. The tactic of hijacking an airplane to crash it into something isn't the only possibility.
If your assertion is that security checks prevent no attacks, then you're implying that no attacker has been discouraged from making an attack due to the presence of security screening. This strikes me as absurd.
There are good arguments to be made that many aspects of security screening are useless, and even that the useful aspects aren't worth what they cost. I would tend to agree with many of those arguments. But to argue that the security screening process as a whole does not prevent any attacks is taking it way too far.
Just look at how incredibly frequent hijackings were in decades past, and how rare they became after basic screening was instituted. It does work to an extent. If you want to attack it, attack it on a cost/benefit basis or attack the more ridiculous bits of it, like banning liquids or screening shoes.
I think the current level of airline security is overkill, but I'm always a little surprised to see people advocating for having none. In the late 60s and early 70s, US airliners were getting hijacked at a rate of once every week or two. Once basic security screening was introduced, it became far more rare.
Making people take off their shoes and empty their water bottles is a bit silly, but basic checks for guns and bombs are a good idea.
9/11 will never happen again because the idea of a plane hijacking for ransom no longer exists in passengers' minds. If someone hijacks a plane now, the passengers assume the hijackers have suicidal intent and will curb stomp the hijackers to death or die trying. So in that regard I think TSA confiscating scissors and pen knives is just silly. A simple metal detector is sufficient for finding large weapons like guns.
On the other hand, terrorists' only option now is to just destroy the plane and kill all the passengers onboard. Cabin doors are locked, so this involves blowing up a bomb concealed somewhere (checked luggage, shoes, liquid explosives, etc). How do you propose we detect whether someone is trying to smuggle a bomb on a plane without something like the TSA? Just keep an eye out for nervous passengers and report them?
In other words, if we abolish the TSA tomorrow and replace it with metal detectors, what's to stop someone from bringing a few gallons of chemical explosives in their backpack, mixing them in the lavatory, and blowing up the plane? TSA has always caught when I accidentally left a full water bottle in my backpack.
Put air marshals on every flight to deal with any situation aboard the plane. That leaves only one vector of attack, which is explosives. We have lots of ways to detect IEDs that are quick and reasonably cheap.
This leaves open the possibility of people carrying drugs or something aboard planes. But that's not really a threat to passengers.
the article was specifically about actual plots to attack airplanes: "No Evidence of Terrorist Plots Against Aviation in US". And that since there's no evidence of any plots, therefore we don't need a TSA. This is a crappy argument because airplane attacks are known to have occurred in the past without warning. Attack the TSA on their corruptness/ineffectiveness/ineptitude fine, but not based on "nobody wants to attack airplanes anyway", the evidence suggests otherwise on that. If "no terrorist plots" truly means "airplanes are inherently safe from attack", then the logical conclusion is that no security whatsoever should be needed.
You are doing what lawyers call "assuming facts not in evidence".
In particular, you are assuming that without the current procedures, actual security for air travel would in fact be lower. Moreover, you are assuming that if actual security for air travel were lower, the result would be an overall increase in losses due to terrorist attack. Neither of those things is necessarily true.
Firstly, the whole point of the criticism here is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the kind of security theatre we put up with (or avoid by not flying) today does improve actual security.
Secondly, why would you assume that a terrorist with the resources to conduct a successful attack and the willingness to do so would be deterred just because airport security prevented them getting onto a plane? Why wouldn't they just attack another target instead: a railway station, a shopping centre, a nightclub, the queue for security at the airport? If you prevent them from killing 300 people by attacking an aircraft, but they kill 300 people by blowing themselves up in a crowded nightclub instead, you haven't saved any lives, you've just moved the problem.
Your car analogy fails, by the way, for the simple reason that thousands of people die in road traffic accidents every year in my country, and laws prohibiting drinking and driving have been shown beyond any reasonable doubt to reduce that casualty rate. (Air bags and speed limits are more controversial, because the evidence that they are a net win is not so conclusive, but that's a topic for another day.)
Let's put in perspective why this is: a terrorist with resources can easily get weapons on a plane. You blackmail and bribe a bunch of security people, tell them it's drugs, and you're in.
But then they run into problems. They can threaten passengers, but the passengers know that if they let the terrorists take over the plane they're dying anyway, so they're going to fight to the death: this realization was enough that by itself passenger awareness prevented whatever attack was intended with the plane that went down in central Pennsylvania.
And if somehow the terrorists kill all the passengers, they come up against the blast-proof door. It's probably possible to get past that if they smuggle some truly gigantic fireworks on board, but whatever they do to get through the door is probably going to take down the plane; not exactly a targeted attack.
So at the very worst, you're looking at them killing max 120 people on a plane? Let's be generous and say they kill 300.
Let's do some back-of-the-napkin math here:
There were 9,074,185 revenue departures on planes in 2015[1]. There were no crashes. So even if a terrorist hijiacking happened every year you'd have a 300 in 9,074,185 chance, or about 1 in 30,000 chance, of dying on a plane.
In 2013 there were 10.345 motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 people[2]. So just by living in a society where people drive, you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying from a car. Not in a car, from a car. If you're in a car, your chances are probably significantly higher.
In other words, we could let a real hijacking attempt get as successful as one can get once a year and planes would be more than three times safer than cars. At that rate, we could probably get rid of TSA security completely and devote all that funding to car safety, and it would make us safer.
The problem with this post is his answer to the question "What do we do when we detect a terrorist through random screening?" His answer is "shut down all commercial aviation until the the most rigorous screening possible can henceforth be applied universally, effectively creating the same kind of havoc that occurs after a successful attack", and his whole post rests on this point, but I think it's totally flawed.
- Shutting down commercial flight is better outcome (for the defender) than the the destruction of 9/11
- There are alternative responses, such as heightened screening, tighter in-flight security, or checking passenger lists for people with known connections to the terrorist caught.
Cargo that is loaded on to passenger planes should be subjected to the same level of security as passenger luggage.
It should be more. It's more costly for a terrorist organization to put a bomb on a plane they also have to ride on. You have to find, train and forfeit one "martyr" per bomb.
After 9/11 I seem to remember something about not allowing people to put luggage on a flight they weren't going to be on. As in, if you didn't show up at the gate to get on, they would remove your luggage too. What happened to that?
50s - none involving America. 60s - 5. 70s - 14 (3 of which, as far as I can tell with any fatalities).
However, I'm not really arguing against zero security at airports. What I'm arguing against is the ludicrous increase in security procedures since 9/11.
>It is currently difficult to execute. It won't be if we had no security
It's not difficult to execute bombings on trains, and they are hugely impactful when it happens. Yet they rarely happen. You seem to be ignoring this.
* ... because the coiled, closely packed lines at TSA screening sites are the most dangerous places in airports, completely unprotected from a terrorist attack -- a terrorist attack that would serve the same purpose (shutting down air travel) as an attack on board an aircraft.*
This is a good point, but I don't completely agree with it. If terrorists can smuggle a bomb on board an airplane, they can probably smuggle tools on board that will allow them to break into the cockpit. Then (as we've seen), the plane itself can be used as a very large bomb. (Note that I am not venturing an opinion on whether backscatter imagers are a solution to this problem or whether the invasion of privacy is worth it even if they are.)
So you’re arguing that if we did zero screening of passengers and luggage that nothing much would change with regards to terrorism targeting airlines?
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