James Joyner reacts to the new TSA “security” efforts:
We’re simply going to make people miserable for no apparent reason. There have been precisely three attempts over the last eight years to commit acts of terrorism aboard commercial aircraft. All of them clownishly inept and easily thwarted by the passengers. How many tens of thousands of flights have been incident free? And, yet, we’re going to make hundreds of thousands of people endure transcontinental flights without reading materials or the ability to use the restroom?
Pretty much. What we are dealing with is a country who has been force-fed a steady diet of fear-mongering regarding terrorism for years and a highly charged political climate. It doesn’t matter if the new security efforts do anything, what matters is that it looks like something is being done. No one wants to be accused of having done nothing when someone finally is successful.
What makes me laugh is that we are now going to do all sorts of new stuff to people here in the states, when the flight originated overseas.
Joshua Norton
So true. Why should terrorists make our life miserable when all they have to do is shout “Boo!” and the wingnutz will do all the work for them?
asiangrrlMN
Give me a fucking break. I’m flying internationally tomorrow, and it won’t be pretty if I can’t go to the bathroom. Seriously. What a bunch of bullshit.
And, why only for the first hour? That is such arbitrary bullshit. Seriously. Fucking airport theatre.
General Winfield Stuck
Don’t care what they do. I quit flying 20 years ago after an insane 10 years of flying in all sorts of weird circumstances daily that were job related and included getting caught in a massive updraft over NE Az in a two man piper cub that nearly suffocated me and the pilot. Then there was the time of nearly getting creamed by a low flying B 52 over KY while in a helicopter. And that doesn’t even get into flying commuter planes into tiny airports throughout the intermountain rockies in pre WW2 buckets of bolts.
No mo fly for me, unless it’s military and I have my parachute on.
eastriver
Min luftpudebåd er fyldt med ål
Kevin Phillips Bong
About to get on a flight back to Vegas, gritting my teeth during the new regime of stupid. Once I make it home I’m not going near an airport for as long as possible. We’ve become a nation of pathetic bedwetters.
ReNewMan
I’m flying back to Germany in a few days and am interested how it will be. I think it’s a bit silly how the reactions by the TSA/FAA is to not let people stand up the last hour of a flight. Couldn’t a wannabe terrorist start his attempt 2 hours before landing then? I’m also rearranging my luggage so that my carry-on can fit my laptop so they don’t try and screw me into having to check in another bag.
Then again, I’ve flown 20+ times/year the past 5 years and all I care about is landing safely…
The Dangerman
Now we’ve had 2 terrorist attacks (Fort Hood the other) in less than a year of Obama’s term. I want my country back!
/reichtard
New Yorker
Like I said in the other thread: just wait until one of these wanna-be jihadis tries to use a can of Coca-Cola as an explosive device: the TSA will ban in-flight beverages.
br
I have a question… has anyone seen an official TSA announcement of this policy yet? As far as I can tell, the only airline that is imposing this stupid policy is Air Canada. My friend flew from JFK to SFO today and said the screening was pretty much business as usual.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
The only thing we have to fear is what our government will do in the name of keeping us “safe”.
Emma
I have to travel two or three times this coming year on business trips and I’m seriously considering Amtrak — It sucks but at least you don’t have to put yourself through this bs.
Admittedly, I knew it was bs from the beginning. After 9/11 I was a favorite target of the ‘random’ searchers. Every trip, no matter what I got pulled aside. Finally, while talking to a friendly TSA guy at Miami airport, I asked if I had somehow landed on somebody’s list. He said no, it was random. After I pointed out that 100% of something could hardly be called ‘random’, he laughed and told me not to worry, that they did the same thing to Janet Reno every time she traveled.
I didn’t say anything, but all I could think of was that if the people our security forces were concentrating on were a former Attorney General with Parkinsons and an overweight librarian with an unusual name, we were in deep fecal matter.
Nothing I’ve experienced since makes me likely to change my mind.
asiangrrlMN
@br: Hm. That’s true, too. I haven’t read that other airlines are going to do it as well. I will report sometime early next week how my flight goes tomorrow (flying to Taiwan on Delta/Northwest).
@Emma: I hear you. This happened to me every time I flew before 9/11, and I knew it wasn’t random. I covered up my tats and dressed nicely, but it never stopped them from ‘randomly’ searching me. I just built it into my travel time, and ironically, 9/11 didn’t make any difference to me in that respect.
CaseyL
This is so stupid it makes me want to dissolve the entire US govt which clearly has a collective IQ of “dead goldfish.”
Jeebus, am I glad I live 90 minutes away from Vancouver, BC. I think from now on I’ll fly in and out of Canada.
Martin
From what I’ve read, the measures only apply to inbound international flights – not domestic or outbound ones.
eastriver
Let ’em keep their crappy security rules. I stopped flying 45 years ago after all manner of weird and freakish things happened to me. Start off with in 1936, crashing landing on the Brooklyn Bridge after being nearly decapitated by a rogue zeppelin. And it went downhill from there.
No mo fly for me, unless it’s a UFO and we’re over Area 51.
kid bitzer
maybe if some airline started offering no-frills, no-tsa check-in?
like: to get on this airline, you just walk on. you have to reserve your ticket in advance and all, but once you get to the airport, you just walk right down to the gate and get on the plane. no takey shoes off, no surrender water-bottle.
sure, some of your fellow passengers will be carrying guns, bombs, and rpgs. but, you know, that’s life in the big city anyhow.
i’m not normally a big fan of the “more guns/less crime” theory. but on the other hand, i’d probably risk a wild-west atmosphere back in coach if it could get rid of all the tsa nonsense.
MattR
Does Canada count? This just adds to the joy that is my trip to Toronto for the company holiday party in a couple weeks. Really no point in having a carry on at all when the flight is in the air for only 65 minutes or so.
How much longer before my pillow gets banned?
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: Hm. If that’s true, then it won’t be going to Taiwan that’s a problem, but coming back in. Of course, that’s in twelve days, so a whole lotta shit can change by then.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Truer words were never spoken.
New Yorker
As far as I can tell, the only airline that is imposing this stupid policy is Air Canada.
Because it’s not bad enough that a flight from JFK to Calgary or Edmonton costs 3 times as much as a flight from JFK to Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix, or any other major city out west.
I’ve never been on Air Canada and I hate them.
shirt
I didn’t fly much prior to all this stupid crap by Homeland Social Engineers & certainly do not fly now. Sum up all the attacks by the total number of years of lives lost by “terorist” victims then compare that number to the agragate time of life lost by each individual due to the TSA bullcrap then I suspect the TSA is responsible for more lifetime lost by several orders of magnitude.
Heck, compare it to the number of lives lost due to aviation hazzards maybe we’d be better off spending the money on airline equipment/runway/Geese avoidence improvements.
Tim in SF
It makes you laugh? I have to fly back to San Francisco in two days. I fly out of San Diego, which takes the whole security show very seriously. We decided we are going to leave for the airport three hours in advance of our flight instead of the two hours they suggest. I’m not looking forward to the stupid security placebo we will have to endure to get home. I usually find it so infuriating I have to take Ativan before I get to the airport to numb me to the all the stupidity.
The Dangerman
@kid bitzer:
It’s not the potential loss of life that would be of concern; it would be the loss of a plane. Those things are damned expensive.
It will eventually go the other way; in order to fly, one will have to check in 24 hours in advance, be given a massive diurectic, be forced to wear a paper gown (heavier weight for Rush Limbaugh, tissue paper for Victoria Secret models), and/or have the cabin filled with some sleeping gas for the flight.
The Grand Panjandrum
We’ve been force fed a steady diet of fear for many reasons since well before 9/11. What do you think those DUI checkpoints are about? They reinforce the idea that the roads are unsafe and drunk drivers are everywhere. Americans believe zero risk is possible. Guffaw!
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Tim in SF:
You can almost drive back in the time it will take you to get through security.
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN:
See, there’s your problem. If you had just left them exposed, then the guards wouldn’t need to . . .
Oh. Sorry. You said tats.
Mike
Eventually, someone’s going to board a plane with an explosive hidden in their rectum…
Joshua Norton
or have the cabin filled with some sleeping gas for the flight.
Actually, I could get behind something like that. I’m normally a fidgety person and sitting still for long spans of time is sheer agony for me. Being unconscious for most of of the time would be a major improvement.
J. Michael Neal
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I do drive from Minneapolis when I visit my parents in Ann Arbor these days. It’s about an 11-hour drive non-stop, as long as you make sure to hit Chicago sometime between 11pm and 3am to avoid traffic.
asiangrrlMN
@J. Michael Neal: Heh. Funny. Then I would have been arrested for indecent exposure!
Martin
@MattR:
You want I can slip some guncotton into one next time I fly – that should get them banned in a hurry.
Honestly, it would be so ridiculously easy for anyone halfway competent in chemistry and fully committed to terrorism to bring explosives on a plane. They can easily scan for things like guns and low-end devices like pipe bombs, but there are SO many more options out there that are just beyond a 30 second scan, x-ray, and metal detector.
Martin
@asiangrrlMN:
That’s what I’ve read.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure that charter flights aren’t subject to any of the security rules beyond what is needed to get to the plane. The charter might abide by them, but I’m pretty sure they don’t need to.
I have a friend who just this week sold his Gulfstream 2 in order to buy a Gulfstream 4 so he could get to Europe with only a single refuel. I bet he’s happy with the decision today. He just drives up to the plane and takes off. For anyone who was unsure, I highly recommend having several hundred million dollars – it really smoothes over the inconveniences of life.
ericblair
@New Yorker: Because it’s not bad enough that a flight from JFK to Calgary or Edmonton costs 3 times as much as a flight from JFK to Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix, or any other major city out west.
Yea, verily, brotha. Go price out some tix from non-real-USA Washington, DC to Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal. One hour in the air. Then price out tix across the friggin continent to LAX and see which one is HALF THE PRICE of the other one.
I’m driving these days. scAir Canada can bite me.
Punchy
I have a feeling that it dudnt matter that Air Canada, Eh? is the current airline doing this. Other ‘lines will copy it in a bullshit effort to show they’re “being safe”. I just can’t believe they expect people to sit there in seats for an hour with absolutely nothing to do, nothing to read. Peeps gunna get a wicked form of furious.
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: They actually advocated not bringing a carry-on at all.
@Martin: I just read that some domestic flights are doing the same. WTF ever. It’s all bullshit. Really wish I didn’t have to fly tomorrow.
@Punchy: Are you serious about the no-reading part? No. Not gonna happen. They can pry my book from my cold, dead fingers.
Stoic
My daughter was debating taking a plane or the train back to school 1200 miles away. I was urging her to take the plane thus saving 20 hrs of travel time. She just made her train reservation and I agree with the choice. The Military/Industrial Complex has ruled us since the end of WWII now we can add the Security Complex to the grouping. Land of the free and home of the brave, indeed.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN: Unfortunately my company advocates that I not check my laptop bag. And I don’t particularly like checking my meds.
AhabTRuler
@asiangrrlMN: Don ‘t fuck with aircrew. They can fuck your life faster than a Fed can, and with less oversight. I am not kidding.
ETA: I am seriously considering outsourcing myself to India or China.
Mike in NC
All airlines should be required to screen Adam Sandler movies. If it punishes the terrorists, that’s a twofer.
Peter J
@Punchy:
I predict a lot more people will die from arguments with other people who they decided to talk with due to not being allowed to do anything else than there will be saved by this measure.
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: Yeah. True. I will be bringing my laptop and my meds on board, but I will have a purse, too.
@AhabTRuler: Oh, I know. I make it a policy not to give shit to people in the service industry (so to speak). I know it’s not their fault that these stupid rules are being laid down. I just really can’t see the logic of having an hour cut-off for no walking around and no reading.
Mari
@Emma:
There’s a reason the TSA targets Janet Reno: like law enforcement, the TSA is loaded with wingnuts.
Wingnuts hate Reno for Waco and for the fact that she’s a Democrat. No one at the TSA is stupid enough put Reno on a watch list on the grounds that she’s a security risk. She’s on a watch list as a means for the wingnuts to exercise dominance over someone they hate.
Ted Kennedy was on the TSA watchlist for much the same reason. Don’t be surprised if Franken, Kucinich, Grayson, and Bernie Sanders get similar treatment.
The TSA urgently needs to be purged of Republican ideologues whose only real interest in the agency is using it to harass Democrats.
Peter
America: the TSA was your big response to the need for increased airline security. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were your foreign policy response to the threat of international terrorism.
America: you are fucked.
Nutella
Reid set his shoe on fire so now all passengers have to remove their shoes. The guy in Detroit set his pants on fire so will we all have to remove our pants?
CalD
Chalk up another win for the terrorists.
asiangrrlMN
@Peter: Well, so is the rest of the world if we continue our fucked-up ways.
AhabTRuler
No, they also have an interest in cashing their paycheck, too. Assholes gotta eat, too.
New joke: what’s the difference between a pig and a TSA uniform?
Punchy
I second Nutella’s thawts. Too heard this clown hid this shizzle in his underwear…..I’m fully expecting Mandatory Wedgies for every passenger before boarding…..ya know, just to Be Safe(TM)
Comrade Luke
Don’t forget, this doesn’t only make the people who are wanting to get and/or go to the bathroom upset.
How long until someone who has no idea about this rule gets up and some America First’er jumps them because they got up during the allotted “hold it” time, and he was keeping track of the time and that guy looked suspicious?
It will happen, I promise you.
ericblair
Just to summarize, because it can’t be stated enough.
Crazy Guy sits in his seat on a flight and tries to ignite some sort of device in his pants. (Get your minds out of the gutter.) Other passengers notice this and leave their seats to subdue Crazy Guy. TSA reation: Ban people from leaving their seats.
Just whose side is the TSA on, anyway?
burnspbesq
I don’t have to fly again until January 11, thank Heaven. Hopefully this latest round of stupidity will be sorted out by then.
Chasseur
bbbbut you must fly, or the airlines will need a MASSIVE bailout.
D-Chance.
So much humor to be had from the airline terror incident. From liberals more outraged at Republicans than at the alleged terrorist, to THIS:
—–
The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized and launched by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb materials into the suspect’s underwear before sending him on his mission, federal authorities tell ABC News.
Investigators say the suspect had more than 80 grams of PETN, a compound related to nitro-glycerin used by the military. The so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, had only about 50 grams kin his failed attempt in 2001 to blow up a U.S.-bound jet. Yesterday’s bomb failed because the detonator may have been too small…
—–
It’s a universal problem, even among terrorist wannabes…
The Dangerman
@D-Chance.:
Everyone will now have to fly “commando”.
Since he tried to light his underwear and all he did was end up in the Hospital with burns on his junk, this could be some jihadist version of punk’d.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@ericblair:
The problem is that these so-called patriotic passengers were actually in on this with the guy in hot pants. Their plan was for Terror Dude to set himself on fire and then these ‘passengers’ would throw themselves on top of him to act as kindling.
I wouldn’t be surprised one bit to learn that these ‘passengers’ were all regular users of Kindle.
Every passenger should be in chains. Safety first!
stevie314159
If we all have to take off our shoes thanks to the shoe-bomber, I wonder what we will have to take off thanks to this underwear-bomber?
Any clues?
Tonal Crow
The price of any open society (oh, wait: any society at all, even a police state) is a nonzero vulnerability to terrorism. How much freedom are we willing to cede for another whack at capturing the will-o-the-wisp of “perfect safety”? No carryons? No airliner bathrooms at all? Preboarding body-cavity searches?
Paul L.
@Mari:
How do you explain the TSA harassing a Ron Paul Campaigner for having too much cash that the ACLU defended?
Bierfeldt v. Napolitano
Progressives spun/defended the TSA by saying it was a Fox News sting.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: I may or may not love you. Just sayin’.
Corner Stone
@Tonal Crow: Personally, I am 100% ready to show my ass to anyone, at any moment in time.
But that has little do with flying and/or airport security.
Corner Stone
@Peter:
I can’t speak for the other 329,999,999.
But *I* am fucked.
Tonal Crow
@Paul L.: Yeah, the ACLU sure kicks tyrant ass. When did you last donate?
Martin
@efgoldman:
I just send my daughter in to undo the lines and connect them to new posts, thereby permanently stranding whole groups of people into some kind of queue purgatory and forming brand new human topologies to the world. She takes great delight in changing as many as possible and seeing if the people in line are sufficiently authoritative to set it back. It’s surprising how much power a few hundred people are willing to cede to an 8 year old girl with pigtails and a kitty Webkin tucked under one arm.
But a better victory against such individuals as you describe is to just undo each of the lines as you pass. Most of the time nobody will put them back up, and people will simply follow the line anyway. It really fucks some people up to realize that we’re generally polite and well-mannered enough to spontaneously form our own lines.
asiangrrlMN
@Corner Stone: Me, not so much, damn it.
YellowJournalism
I wonder if this nothing also counts for small children. Take various articles of amusement from a two-year-old at the end of a long flight and the whole plane will learn a new meaning for international incident.
Corner Stone
@Martin:
What’s awesome about this is watching to see how long someone will just stand in a dead-end line waiting to see when someone will come to undo the blockage.
I have a 5yr old.
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN: Ra helps those who help themselves.
Ranger 3
Speaking of irrational political freakouts… the other day someone at the Great Orange Satan referenced a sick monster who killed an 11 year old girl in the same paragraph as a drunk driver who ran into someone on the highway, the idea being that the two acts were comparable.
While the result may be the same to the loved ones of the victim, reckless driving is not the same thing as raping and killing little girls. People who drive drunk are stupid assholes, but they’re not monsters. 25 years of MADD inspired hysteria has got people thinking otherwise.
I hate the stupid so fucking much it hurts.
Corner Stone
@Paul L.: Paul, I just want to hug you. Is that OK? Can I just hug you and let you know I care about you?
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: I’m pretty sure I could love her too.
The Ace Tomato Company
oh, for fuck’s sake… What’ so infuriating is that these procedures completely misses the point.
I have a better idea TSA! How about instead of implementing useless and infuriating procedures to keep people from detonating explosives during landing, you instead prevent those explosives from getting on the plane in the first place! Oh yeah, they’re not so good at that either…
It seems every few months there’s another report showing that TSA screeners miss banned objects nearly 90% of the time.
I give it 10 years before we’re all required to be strapped down and muzzled like Hanibal Lecter before we’re allowed to fly. After all, it’s the only way to make sure people cannot figure out one of the billion + ways to turn everybody objects into weapons and/or explosives.
This is beyond idiotic…
The Ace Tomato Company
Oh yeah and with only 1 carry-on permitted, most of us are going to be forced to check baggage and pay the extra fee!
Yeah, air travel is even more inconvenient, expensive and not the least bit safer.
At least I fly so damn much, that they waive my checked baggage fees, but it’s little solace because I get to deal with these pantywastes that much more.
DaveInOz
The solution is obvious. The TSA hould ban flights from the rest of the world into the USA.
The Ace Tomato Company
I’ll shut soon, but this is true then my blood is starting to boil. No electronics allowed on int’l flights to the US?!!! Are you fucking kidding me?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10422091-1.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0
I’m curious to see how many business travelers start avoiding the US at all costs.
We “accept” that 40,000 people die each year on US roads and we manage to carry on just fine. However, every couple of years some bumbling asshole tries to unsuccessfully take down an aircraft and we completely lose our shit. Good job TSA, you’ve proven that terrorism completely works!
Fuck, even if these guys were occasionally successful, they’d have to kill over 100 US airline passengers DAILY to equal what happens each year on our roads…
Lex
Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but as of just a few minutes ago, there was still nothing on the TSA Web site about these stricter security measures.
AhabTRuler
@The Ace Tomato Company: Even better:
@Lex: Eh, that’s probably because their webmasters are incompetent too.
Anne Laurie
@Martin:
Dam’ skippy. For one thing, when you’ve got that kinda money, it’s so much easier to make them travel to see you.
Next time some humorist asks why we don’t having our flying cars, I’m telling them the TSA is storing the flying cars in an undisclosed location for fear of TERRISTSSSS! ! !
Aunt Moe
We do the same silly things on the ground where terrorism isn’t remotely an issue.
An example – flame retardant pj’s for children.
Because when mom is drunk and burns the house down – and she, obviously, is the kind of mom who makes sure her darlilns are all tucked in with flame retardant pj’s – they’ll be okeydokee.
burnspbesq
@The Ace Tomato Company:
Eedjits. Time to put the QE2 back in service on the New York – Southampton run. And how long does it take to get from LA to DC by train?
burnspbesq
To paraphrase one of my favorite Dara O’Briain routines, the entire TSA needs to get in the fookin’ sack.
Punchy
I love the bit in that article about how what’s banned and not banned will be INTENTIONALLY inconsistent and ever-changing. Nothing like not knowing what’s allowed on any given plane. Joe Public will LOVE that protocol.
gopher2b
Have these people ever flown with kids. I suppose three years olds are just going to sit there for an hour waiting patiently for the flight to end.
Also, I’ve never been on a flight that was supposed to end an one hour only to land five hours later. Nope, never.
W’s legacy will be the TSA.
burnspbesq
To answer my own question, you can leave Union Station in LA at 6:45 on Friday night and get to Union Station in DC at 1:10 Monday afternoon. For a Tuesday meeting, that is completely feasible. So fook ahf TSA.
burnspbesq
@Lex:
If TSA is anything like the IRS, everyone responsible for the website is using up their use-or-lose leave, and won’t be back until at least January 4.
AhabTRuler
Bingo!
Anne Laurie
@Aunt Moe:
To be fair, most kids go through a firebug phase, and some of them are craftier than others about getting their hands on matches, lighters, etc. Firefighters dread experimentally-oriented kids almost as much as they hate drunks with cigarettes… especially since the drunks don’t go hide in closets or under beds for fear of getting punished. Flame-retardant kiddie jammies, like child-resistant medicine caps, are a small inconvenience with potentially huge payoffs.
Ole
@eastriver
Yes of course, but why on Earth in Danish?
:-)
DZ
@efgoldman: Do you think an $800 suit is an expensive suit? I assure you that it is not. It may be more than you can or want to pay, but it is not an expensive suit. I fly at least once a month for my job, and I have to take suits. When I do, I send my boss an inventory of the clothing that I’m taking (not the underwear and socks). If I am forced to check my garment bag, my company has agreed to hold me harmless if my bag is lost, because the total value of my clothing far exceeds the $2800 that airlines will reimburse you if they lose your bag.
Tomlinson
@The Ace Tomato Company:
Yup.
What I find most amazing is how completely inept these terrorists have generally been. Assuming they ever get their act together, we’re going to need to be a LOT more resilient – or we won’t any of us be leaving the house.
Nancy Irving
“without reading materials” –
Um, did they say they were gonna ban books?
It says something about this guy that he can’t imagine a “reading material” that doesn’t have to be plugged in.
Sigh.