The only thing needed to protect ourselves from terrorists of this sort was the knowledge of what the terrorists were capable of. Before 9/11, it was inconceivable that this was possible, and the procedure was to let them have their way until they let the hostages go. The assumption was that the terrorists wanted to live to see their plan succeed. But on 911, before the 4th plane could damage anything, the passengers found out what was happening and saw to it that they failed. Any terrorists who now try the same sort of trick will fail, even with the same security measures in place before 9/11. All of our new security measure are simply window dressing, to make it seem like we're doing something, and to scare the PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. into reelecting our current politicians.

Damn, and I was going to stay out of this.

Yeah. Me too. *sigh*

Flipper appears to work in Halifax (his IP address, 142.176.14.228, reverse maps to a machine at
Halifax Regional Water Commission). I think we're having our chains yanked. Those darn
Canadians... :-)

AFAIC, this thread is closed.

During the blitz in WW2 G.B. fired heavy artillary during air raids. It was utterly useless and never downed a single german bomber. It did make a big noise and comforted the civilian population. In all conflicts the aggressor is always by nature one step ahead of the defender. Poland had mounted lancers facing panzers because they worked very well during hundreds of years on the great european plain, oftentimes with Poland herself the aggressor. We have nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs fail miserably against terrorist cells. We are playing catch up, and in many ways the government is making noise like those british cannons. It is to be expected. What we must never do, is unquestionably surrender freedom to our own government or corporations to deny external forces that same role. Posters to this thread and similar have stated their opinions, insults and inappropriate language sufficiently. Take it elsewhere.

Something i have not seen in any statistics is the cost in lives of all of this security that is for our own good. We have added even more cost in dollars and time to the safest way to travel all in the name of making flying safer. As flying becomes more expensive and down right unfriendly more and more people are going to drive which is substantially less safe. Are there any statistics that show how many more people will die because they didn't fly?

And i know that peoples perceptions have a great deal to do with the "value" of increased security. As an example, my sister in law worked for a banking transaction company and she was part of the disaster recovery team. She and one of her coworkers were required to go to another data center several states away for a disaster drill. Now this was before 911 and my sister in law and her coworker were not allowed to fly on the same airplane because of safety concerns, but they were allowed to drive together to get from the office to the airport. When i asked her about it being more dangerous for the two of them to be in the same car than on the same plane, she replied that when several people in the same company die on a plane crash it makes national news. So management decided that this was a perceived threat that the company could avoid whether or not it made sense.

It is just a matter of time before we will be flying naked, which should prove to be either entertaining or really really scary...

Well, I believe the statistics indicate that approximately 3,500 people in the United States die in automobile accidents every month. Let's assume (I'm just making this number up, it's not even an educated guess) that the number of people on the road or the amount that people drive increases by 1%; this would increase the number of deaths on the road by approximately 35 per month. Multiply that by 12 months to get 420 deaths per year, then multiply that by the time since 9/11 to get approximately 1300 additional deaths caused by the inconvenience of the TSA security measures over the past three years. At this rate, the death toll from the "security" measures will exceed the death toll from the 9/11 terrorist attacks by the end of 2008.

According to what I can find, the annual number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents has remained fairly constant at 40,000 to 42,000 since 1991; however, the number of deaths per mile travelled has gone down by approximately 20 percent, from 1.9 per 100 million miles travelled to 1.5 per 100 million miles in 2003. This seems to indicate that the roads are safer but people are driving more miles. With between 40,000 and 42,000 deaths per year, it's likely that an increase of fewer than 1,000 deaths per year would be lost in the noise, at least for the first several years. Maybe after ten years it will be possible to identify a trend but right now I doubt if we could do more than speculate on whether the "security" measures are causing an increase in the annual death rate from motor vehicle accidents.

http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/03may/02.htm

www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ mi_m3724/is_6_66/ai_105408443

and a perhaps politically-motivated opinion piece:

www.writingshop.ws/html/scare_tactics.html

and an article by Brock Yates taking a different point of view:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/051603A.html

states "Keep in mind that while the number of fatalities increased, NHTSA reports that Americans drove 48 billion more miles in 2002 than the year before. " At an annual death rate of 1.51 per 100 million miles driven, this equates to an additional 720 deaths caused by the additional miles driven. Of course, I have no way of knowing how many (if any) of those additional miles can be attributed to the "security" measures and how many resulted from other causes.

Someone once said "The gazelle wakes up in the morning knowing it has to outrun the fastest lion. The lion wakes up knowing it only has to outrun the slowest gazelle." In a courtroom trial, the DA is in the position of the gazelle - he/she has to make sure there are no holes in the state's case - and the defense is in the position of the lion (they only have to find one hole in the prosecution's case - at least, in theory).

Generally, in warfare, the terrorists are the lions (they can attack anywhere and anytime they want) and the people are in the position of the gazelle.

The key to good security lies in finding a way to make yourself the lion and not the gazelle. This doesn't necessarily mean thumping your chest and throwing your weight around; it means putting the terrorists on the defensive. (A good example, IMO, is the technique, described in another thread, used by Israeli screeners to identify terrorists by asking increasingly detailed questions of potential suspects, until eventually the terrorist comes to the end of his/her prepared story and has to start improvising.)

The fact that some posters find it difficult to discuss this topic in a civil manner, does not mean that the topic is not worth discussing. Flipper may be a Canadian; I certainly am. I believe that Canadians, and Brits, and Frenchmen/women, Germans, and many other nationalities are dying unnecessarily as a result of the "security" measures which have, by and large, been forced on us by the US, and therefore I believe it is a topic worth discussing.

Having said that, I am now making a sincere effort to avoid repeating arguments I have made in the past, or descending to personal attacks.

Ha Ha!

Saw a post on another forum. This guys wife, her mother and grandmother were flying together. TSA said that 3 females travelling together was "suspisious". So they Bra Searched the guys wife only. He posted a pic of his wife and it would seem that there was another motive for the search, judging by the pic.
Dave

The TSA can get away with just about anything now. It's good to be the king.