Boy, I feel safer already

i thought looking out for suspicious behavior was Always a part of the job but i guess i was wrong. good to know they spare no expense when it comes to training our airport screeners.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/18/security.airports.reut/index.html

Stressed? they are going to check out everyone in the airport who is stressed? EVERYONE in the airport is stressed! Even when I'm traveling alone and have plenty of time between flights i am stressed, and exhausted and mostly miserable. Now add in traveling with the 2 kids and my wife and I'm going to get cavity searched at every stop

But seriously, what a novel idea, have a closer look at the people that appear to need a closer look... Glad they figured that out...

Unfortunately, the people that have pulled off these things in the past were calm cool and collected and dressed in business suits and well groomed, so this will add nothing to protect us from them.

Ultimately, our security on airplanes boils down to our fellow passengers, the knowledge of what these warped human beings do with the planes they steal and our willingness to do ANYTHING it takes to take out the ******* with the box cutter before he reaches the pilot or the bomb or whatever. This has been tested a couple of times since 9/11. If you're planning to make trouble in the air, y ou better do it without letting your seatmate notice anything or they and the rest of the folks on the plane are going to tear your head off with their bare hands.

The airport people are just doing their jobs, THATS ALL!

Could be worse--

Couple arrested for asking directions:

WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions.

"In jail for eight hours -- sleeping on a concrete floor next to a toilet," Kelly said.
...
Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened.

"That really threw us for a loop when she stepped in between our cars," Kelly said. "(She) said my partner is not going to step in front of me and tell you directions if I'm not."

Click to expand...

Read the rest of the article... Baltimore City police have some explaining to do (assuming the article is half way correct).

-Bill

cyberhobo said:

The airport people are just doing their jobs, THATS ALL!

Click to expand...

i know they are and i'm glad for it. my issue here is that if monitoring erratic behavior wasn't part of their basic duties before now, thats pretty disturbing. like the article states, now they're going to look out for people with heavy coats on in warm weather? you mean the sweaty person with the winter parka in july didn't arouse suspicion before now?! and the overall stupidity of the whole thing. why would they even make an announcement about it? what i'm saying is, for all the money spent and the hoopla about how much better it is with the tsa, this should have been part of the training from day one.

And you've got to give those guys a break, they are trying to combat a very hard problem: finding the 1 potentially very deadly attacker hidden in 10's of millions of busy travelers where the regret is a lost plane at least, another 9/11 in the mid range, and who knows what at the worst.

All the ways I could think of doing it better are invasive and non-PC (secure ID and traveler certification, passive MMW imaging, EMPing all luggage, etc.) so I don't think they'll happen before another disaster. Everyone knows - but aren't allowed to say - that all the attackers so far have had a similar physical profile so I HOPE they're trying to apply that within their PC constraints; and of course the bad guys are looking for blond Chechnyan Islamic crazies to get around exactly that profile. I hope we can survive our (US) national PC'edness.

I travel a lot and just do my best to make their job easier (clothing worn, equipment carried, courtesy, etc.) so they aren't distracted by me while a bad guy might get by them. That's about it.