Airport security

[Randy]

Should the government use invasive pat-downs and body scans to ensure passenger safety or are there better methods?

If you ran an airport by your own rules, how would you ensure the safety of everyone?

 

[Jazzy]

Should the government use invasive pat-downs and body scans to ensure passenger safety?
You forgot the metal detectors and bag searches. I feel all of what they are doing is necessary. Travellers may not like it, but then again, I don't think they'd like having a bomb on the plane with them either.

If you ran an airport by your own rules, how would you ensure the safety of everyone? Make everyone get naked and do cavity searches! Just kidding

 

[DrLeftover]

Security?

Oh, yes.

JANUARY 2, 2014

U.S. customs officials last week destroyed 11 rare flutes by a respected Canadian musician who was returning home via New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. But the agency isn't apologizing for the incident -- it says the flutes were an ecological threat.

Officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection identified the instruments owned by flute virtuoso Boujemaa Razgui as agricultural products that risked introducing "exotic plant pathogens" in to the United States, a customs official tells Foreign Policy.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/02/us_customs_not_sorry_for_destroying_11_rare_flutes_of_renowned_musician#sthash.4UeLPJv3.xRIGQKNA.dpbs

 

[Jazzy]

Update: In an e-mail exchange with NPR Music, a Customs official says no musical instruments were involved in the CPB's actions -- a claim not offered to FP. The story indicates that fresh bamboo was found in the luggage separate from Razgui's 11 flutes. - See more at: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/1/2/is_2014_the_year_scotland_finally_gains_independence#sthash.4UeLPJv3.JcBBevc2.dpuf

 

[DrLeftover]

As of yesterday, the Huffington Post was saying that the flutes were said to be bamboo and were destroyed.

01/03/2014

When Razgui returned to Boston's Logan International Airport to look for his instruments, he was put on the phone with a supervisor from U.S. Customs and Border Protection who he says told him the bad news: His instruments had been destroyed because they were considered "agricultural products."

"CBP [Customs and Border Protection] Agriculture Specialists at John F. Kennedy International Airport discovered fresh green bamboo canes approximately three to four feet long inside of unclaimed baggage," a Customs official told HuffPost in an email. "Fresh bamboo is prohibited from entering the United States to prevent the introduction of exotic plant pathogens. The fresh bamboo canes were seized and destroyed in accordance with established protocols."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Miscellaneous And Processed Products Import Manual" says that bamboo must be treated, dried or cut lengthwise before it can be allowed into the country. But Razgui said his instruments were not made from bamboo, but dry reeds. (The Customs official maintains the instruments were made from bamboo.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/03/boujemaa-razgui-customs-destroy-instruments-flutes_n_4537957.html

 

[DrLeftover]

February 7, 2014

Award winning Jewish author Phyllis Chesler was questioned and had her bag searched at New York’s JFK Airport as a result of a TSA agent’s suspicions over the fact that she was reading a conservative newspaper.

The incident happened on Wednesday afternoon after Chesler’s flight to Florida was delayed due to the recent ice storms.

As soon as Chesler pulled out a copy of The Jewish Press, a popular English language weekly with a conservative political bent, a TSA agent eyed her with suspicion, approached the author and asked to see the newspaper.

After the TSA agent scrutinized the cover of the newspaper and showed it to another security official, Chesler was ordered to open her luggage, which the two agents then proceeded to rifle through.

http://www.infowars.com/tsa-agents-interrogate-jewish-author-for-reading-conservative-newspaper/

if this turns out to be true, and Infowars isn't as given to making stuff up as some others, the agents should be fired

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

I hate the TSA with every fiber of my being. my last flight going from kalifonia to Florida I and my wife refused the scanner. And the gestapo agent yells WE GOT ONE HERE! I just cant stand those pricks.

Anyways Israel has a system that works without violating personal space and privacy.

 

[DrLeftover]

But, you see, to Our Dear Leader and his people, if Israel does ANYTHING it has to be wrong and stupid and racist and ....

 

[Evil Eye]

Anyways Israel has a system that works without violating personal space and privacy.

How does it work?

 

[DrLeftover]

They watch the passengers and send those that fit various profiles to special screening.

And they are not shy about doing it.

Ben Gurion Airport is considered one of the world's most secure airports, with a security force that includes both police officers and IDF soldiers. Airport security guards operate both in uniform and undercover to maintain a high level of vigilance and detect any possible threats. The airport has been the target of several terrorist attacks, but no attempt to hijack a plane departing from Ben Gurion airport has succeeded.

http://telaviv-airport.com/

More, from 2003:

For weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, there was no shortage of advice on how ravaged U.S. airlines could remake themselves in the image of El Al, Israel's national airline and the gold standard for aviation security. Thanks to stringent security checks, frequent passenger grillings, and unabashed profiling, El Al has not had a terrorist hijacking since 1968.

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2003-08-24/el-als-security-vs-dot-the-u-dot-s-dot-approach

 

[DrLeftover]

oh, Jesus

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/370937/airport-security-confiscates-toy-story-dolls-gun-andrew-johnson

 

[.Xstinct]

oh, Jesus

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/370937/airport-security-confiscates-toy-story-dolls-gun-andrew-johnson

You got to be kidding me.

 

[DrLeftover]

You wish they were kidding.

With his trademark cowboy boots, cute waistcoat and red neckerchief, little Woody from Toy Story hardly looks like an imposing figure.

But the cowboy doll was apparently branded a terror risk at Heathrow Airport – because it was holding a miniature six-shooter.

A bemused air traveller has claimed on a social networking site that the figure was examined at Heathrow by security staff - who then subsequently confiscated the doll’s tiny firearm.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2556586/Reach-sky-Overzealous-Heathrow-security-officials-confiscate-Toy-Story-cowboy-Woody-DOLLS-miniature-gun.html