Seeking viewpoints on profiling of suicide bombers

I have an airport badge and the bg investigation took 2 weeks, post 911, to get the badge back.

I see they hand out an airport badge to every Tom, Dick & Harry in violation of HSPD 12. That makes me feel muuuuuch safer...NOT!!!

LOL, stop being logical, you'll only confuse the people who don't comprehend common-sense.

The only logic is that terrorist would infiltrate one of the few ways to get a gun in the cabin of a plane, especially the ones who specialize in suicide. The other choice is air marshals, but there aren't as many of them as there are pilots. Originally Posted by DFW5Traveler

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Quote:
Originally Posted by DFW5Traveler
I have an airport badge and the bg investigation took 2 weeks, post 911, to get the badge back.

I see they hand out an airport badge to every Tom, Dick & Harry in violation of HSPD 12. That makes me feel muuuuuch safer...NOT!!!

HSPD refers to GOVERNMENT employees and their contractors, thank you very much. I work for a private industry, different rules apply when the private sector is paying the bill.

LOL, stop being logical, you'll only confuse the people who don't comprehend common-sense.

The only logic is that terrorist would infiltrate one of the few ways to get a gun in the cabin of a plane, especially the ones who specialize in suicide. The other choice is air marshals, but there aren't as many of them as there are pilots.

Have you actually seen how they/we reinforced the cockpit doors? The terrorist in the cabin cannot get into the cockpit. I do have an aviation background. Please don't speculate on things you don't have an intimate knowledge of, it makes you look like an

HSPD 12 Abstract

There are wide variations in the quality and security of identification used to gain access to secure facilities where there is potential for terrorist attacks. In order to eliminate these variations, U.S. policy is to enhance security, increase Government efficiency, reduce identity fraud, and protect personal privacy by establishing a mandatory, Government-wide standard for secure and reliable forms of identification issued by the Federal Government to its employees and contractors (including contractor employees). This directive mandates a federal standard for secure and reliable forms of identification.

The $25 and a few days was undoubtedly a criminal record check. I have no problem with a less than 100% safe solution because I agree that there is no such thing. However I do object to those who criticize the government blithely asserting that you can just have the FBI rub a background check on everybody and assume that will solve the problem.

The reality is that people demand more security than the government can provide. That real solutions are devilishly hard. And if this was an easy problem, it would have already been solved.

However I do object to those who criticize the government blithely asserting that you can just have the FBI rub a background check on everybody. Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Isn't that sexual harassment? I thought only TSA agents could "rub" your background?!! j/p

Yeah, I know HSPD 12 refers to employees and contractors.

However, I think most trusted traveler program would have to be in line with the concepts of HSPD 12.

If the trusted traveler program doesn't fall in line with this, I would be very wary.

Actually, here's the atom bomb: Prior to 2001, the last passenger plane hijacked in the US was more than 20 years earlier. None since that time, and as PJ points out, no terrorist has been discovered by TSA. Kind of makes you wonder why we are doing this... Here's the redacted list (US only) from Wikipedia:

May 1, 1961: First U.S. Airline flight hijacked to Cuba. A National Airlines Convair 440 flight from Marathon, Florida to Key West was hijacked by a man carrying a knife and a gun who demanded the flight divert to Havana. The aircraft, piloted by Captain Francis X. Riley, was thought to be lost at sea for several hours before authorities learned it had been hijacked.
November 24, 1968: Luis Armando Pena Soltren, Jose Rafael Rios Cruz and Miguel Castro coerced the pilot of Pan Am Flight 281 out of New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on a scheduled route to Puerto Rico to divert to Havana, Cuba.[2][3] Passengers were evacuated from Cuba by a U.S. State Department aircraft. There were no fatalities.
March 17, 1970: Eastern Air Lines Shuttle Flight 1320, carrying passengers from Newark to Boston was hijacked around 7:30 P.M. by John J. Divivo who was armed with a .38 caliber revolver. Captain Robert Wilbur Jr., 35, a former Air Force pilot who had only been promoted to captain six months prior, was shot in his arm by the suicidal hijacker. With a .38 slug in his arm and bleeding profusely, he flew his aircraft safely to a landing while talking to the tower, telling them his copilot was shot (but not himself) and needed an ambulance. His copilot, First Officer James Hartley, 31, was shot without warning by Divivo and collapsed. Divivo then turned the gun on the captain, causing his arm injury. Despite being fatally wounded Hartley recovered sufficiently to rip the gun from Divivo's hand, and shoot the would-be hijacker three times before lapsing into unconsciousness, and eventually death. Although wounded and slumped between the seats, Divivo arose and began clawing at Captain Wilbur, attempting to force a crash. Wilbur hit Divivo over the head with the gun he had retrieved from the center console.[5] The pilot was able to land the plane safely at Logan International Airport, and the hijacker was arrested immediately.[6]
November 24, 1971: A man who became known as D. B. Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727-100 aircraft flying from Portland, OR, to Seattle, WA, received US$200,000 in ransom, and parachuted from the plane. The actual name of the hijacker remains unknown. The hijacker revealed what appeared to be a bomb to a flight attendant and demanded the ransom and parachutes. The flight landed in Seattle, and FBI agents provided the ransom money and parachutes. Cooper then released all passengers and one flight attendant. After refueling, the aircraft took off again and flew toward Reno, NV. Cooper opened the aft stairs and jumped from the plane with a parachute during a heavy rainstorm. The aircraft was forced to land with the aft stairs deployed. The FBI believes Cooper most likely did not survive, but the case remains unsolved.[8][9][10]
January 12, 1972: Braniff Flight 38, a Boeing 727, was hijacked as it departed Houston, Texas bound for Dallas, Texas. The lone armed hijacker, Billy Gene Hurst, Jr., allowed all 94 passengers to deplane after landing at Dallas Love Field but continued to hold the 7 crewmembers hostage, demanding to fly to South America and asking for US $2 million, parachutes, and jungle survival gear, amongst other items. After a 6-hour standoff, the entire crew secretly fled while Hurst was distracted examining the contents of a package delivered by Dallas police. Police officers stormed the craft shortly afterwards and arrested Hurst without serious incident.[11][12]
January 28, 1972: TWA Flight 2, Los Angeles to New York, was hijacked by con man and bank robber Garrett Trapnell while over Chicago. Trapnell demanded $306,800 in cash (to recoup the loss of a recent court case), the release of Angela Davis (as well as that of a friend of his who was also imprisoned), and clemency from President Richard Nixon. The FBI was able to retake the aircraft during a crew switch at Kennedy Airport; Trapnell was shot and wounded, no one else was hurt. Trapnell's hijacking came after a string of domestic incidents and resulted in an overhaul of flight procedures by the Nixon Administration, procedures that remained in place until the September 11, 2001 hijackings.
November 10, 1972: Southern Airways Flight 49, was hijacked by three men and flown to multiple locations in the United States, and one Canadian city. At one point, the hijackers threatened to fly the plane into the nuclear reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, if their demands for $10 million in cash were not met. While stopped for refueling at McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, the FBI shot out the plane's tires, prompting the hijackers to force pilot William Haas to take off. The hijacking came to an end when the plane landed on a partially foam-covered runway in Havana, Cuba, and the hijackers were captured after attempting to escape.
September 10, 1976: TWA Flight 355 was hijacked by Croatian separatists. Some passengers were allowed to deplane in Canada before the hijackers continued on to Iceland, then France, where they released the remaining passengers and surrendered to authorities. One New York police officer was killed while working on a bomb which the hijackers had planted at Grand Central Station.
March 13, 1978: United Flight 696 was hijacked by a lone American immediately after takeoff out of KSFO. The aircraft landed in Oakland and the release of cabin crew and passengers was negotiated by the flight crew. The fueling was cut short by the hijacker and Flt 696 took off only partially refueled. Flight 696 landed in Denver to take on more fuel for Cuba. While waiting for the fuel, the cockpit crew jumped from the cockpit to escape the hijacker. The hijacker surrendered to the FBI within minutes of the crews escape. No fatalities but the three cockpit crew-members suffered fractures and torn cartilage from the unassisted 2 story leap.
September 11, 2001: American Airlines flight 11 , United Airlines Flight 175 , American Airlines Flight 77 , United Airlines Flight 93, were hijacked on the morning of September 11th. Two planes were deliberately crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one was crashed into the Pentagon and one did not reach its hijacking destination because the passengers attacked the hijackers and crashed it into a field in Pennsylvania. Both towers of The World Trade Center collapsed; in total 2,976 victims and 19 hijackers were killed and over 6000 people were injured. It is to this day, the worst terrorist attack ever to occur on US soil.

. However I do object to those who criticize the government blithely asserting that you can just have the FBI rub a background check on everybody and assume that will solve the problem.
. Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Here is a typical Republican.

Typical GOP voter, "I'm scared, let's start TSA. I want the government to protect me''

Me, " I thought you babies said the government can't do anything right?"

PJ, "Well let the private sector do it, they do everything better!"

Me, ''How will that work PJ?''

PJ, ''Well we run them through a background check by the FBI!''

Me, ''Isn't the FBI part of the government?''

PJ, ''WTF do you know?''

Rudyard,''WTF,ad nauseum, ad nauseum!''


Typical GOP voter,''You guys quit arguing , All we want is to pay lower/no taxes and to be 100% safe.''

The reality is that people demand more security than the government can provide. Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Or another way to put it is they demand more than they are willing to pay for.

That real solutions are devilishly hard. And if this was an easy problem, it would have already been solved. Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Haven't you heard TTH, to fix any problem all you gotta do is cut taxes on the wealthy!

Here is a typical Republican.

Typical GOP voter, "I'm scared, let's start TSA. I want the government to protect me''

Me, " I thought you babies said the government can't do anything right?"

PJ, "Well let the private sector do it, they do everything better!"

Me, ''How will that work PJ?''

PJ, ''Well we run them through a background check by the FBI!''

Me, ''Isn't the FBI part of the government?''

PJ, ''WTF do you know?''

Rudyard,''WTF,ad nauseum, ad nauseum!''


Typical GOP voter,''You guys quit arguing , All we want is to pay lower/no taxes and to be 100% safe.'' Originally Posted by WTF

Typical WTF post. He can't compete intellectually with what is really said...so he makes up his dialog to argue against.

Typical WTF post. He can't compete intellectually with what is really said...so he makes up his dialog to argue against. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

Nothing from your prior post suggested that you wanted an ''intellectually'' stimulating conversation on this subject matter.
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Oh , I guess I could join in your John Wayne type jibberish about saving the city folks from themselves but really what is the point with debating a man who see's God when he looks in the mirror?

The reality is that people demand more security than the government can provide. . Originally Posted by TexTushHog

This sums up the problem in a nutshell.

RK if you want to show your intelligence on this subject matter, start from here, not the peanut gallery. The peanut gallery is for shit talking, hopefully witty shit talking.

The reality is that people demand more security than the government can provide. That real solutions are devilishly hard. And if this was an easy problem, it would have already been solved. Originally Posted by TexTushHog

This sums up the problem in a nutshell.

RK if you want to show your intelligence on this subject matter, start from here, not the peanut gallery. The peanut gallery is for shit talking, hopefully witty shit talking. Originally Posted by WTF

While RK and I are on opposite sides of the political spectrum I have found his arguments to be coherent although not necessarily persuasive lol. In this particular case I do believe that he has made a similar point about no security scheme being perfect.

The techniques used by the Israelis would be a huge deterant for anyone planning misdeeds. Originally Posted by DFW5Traveler

Jus' a-wondering...what kind of tax rates do the Israelis have? Is this a case of getting what you pay for?

http://www.worldwide-tax.com/israel/israel_tax.asp

somewhat more than the US at the very high end. It really is a matter of policy not taxes w.r.t security

...somewhat more than the US at the very high end. Originally Posted by discreetgent

And much higher than the U.S. in the lower-to-middle income ranges. The Israeli tax system is far more regressive than ours, as is the case in a typical social democracy such as France.

You have to remember that Israel started out as a socialist country (mostly). The Labor party was in power from 1948 to 1977. The social programs are more extensive than in the US and as is typical in countries like that taxes are higher. Doesn't really change the security part of the equation other than Israel spends far more percentage of GDP on security than we do and airport security is a drop in the bucket relatively speaking.

Indeed.

Although the Israeli defense budget (something like 7-8% of GDP) is higher than that of any other wealthy nation, social spending accounts for most of the budget. In that regard, Israel has much more in common with a typical European social democracy than with the U.S. As discreetgent notes, airport security is a very small percentage of total outlays.

In this particular case I do believe that he has made a similar point about no security scheme being perfect. Originally Posted by discreetgent

We all agree on that.

My point was not about perfection, it was about knowing that the so called private security would be nothing more than a private firm accessing info from a government agency.......and at the end of the day RK and PJ will never admit that in fact that is a transfer of wealth.

To them, Private security good! Government security bad! When in actuality the taxpayers will pay either way.

We lose hundreds of thousands of folks to car crashs each year, yet nobody checks to see if you're sober before getting in your car...we lose three thousand folks once and we got TSA forever! Makes no sense to me.