Hacker News Reader

Comment by NotHereNotThere | Hacker News Reader

I always have a hard time interpreting these statistics.

I understand the numbers of terrorist-related deaths versus non-terrorist one are staggering as displayed above, but if we stopped funding these security measures at airports (scanners, staff, etc), what could the number go up to?

Are these 3000 deaths so low because of the security measures? If we were to remove/loosen security measures at airports, how could we even estimate the impact in number of terrorist-related deaths?

Are these fears of possible ramp-up of terrorist attacks (if security measures are loosened) unfounded?

View on HN

These 3000 deaths approximately zero relation to security measures.

The US government was informed about the 9/11 hijackers and the Boston city Marathon bombers etc. But, they get 99.99% false positives, so such information is basically worthless unless it results in conviction. Further the 9/11 hijackers used weapons no more deadly than what people are still allowed to bring on aircraft. If there where enough terrorists to matter they could have repeated 9/11 any time in the last 10 years. The most 'useful' security measure from 9/11 is a 'secure' door that locks which directly relates do another crashed aircraft making even that if anything a net loss. http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/europe/france-germanwings-plan...

That said, like the 'war on drugs' it has nothing to do with the actual 'threat' it's all just politics.

The only real improvements in security since 9/11 in my mind are that cockpit doors are now reinforced and passengers know to fight back.

Everything else is just a show of force to make people feel better.

If you clicked on my link that door has already cost 1 aircraft so it's not a pure win. http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/europe/france-germanwings-plan...

Passengers fighting back only works if they know there is a problem and the attackers are in the passenger cabin. Once the attacker is past that door they can ignore them.

Agreed. There is always going to be risk. Especially if the pilot has gone rouge. But the chances of passenger(s) taking over a plane like on 9/11 had drastically decreased because of awareness and those doors.

>Especially if the pilot has gone rouge

What have you got against pink pilots?

I feel every seat should have a switch to allow passengers to vote. A majority vote should either open the pilot's door, or put an emergency autopilot in charge which will try to land at the nearest airport.

I think the best option is to remove pilots in the first place. If physical access does not let you take over the aircraft then there is little meaning to attacking aircraft vs other random crouds of people.

US military drones have actual weapons and they are not hacked so that part seems to work well.

That door combined with the airline allowing someone to be alone in the cockpit. I don't know if it's a regulatory requirement or just a practice but U.S. airlines don't leave a pilot alone. I think this practice predates the adoption of reinforced doors and is a sound one, whatever ability you might have to get through a non-reinforced door is going to be hard to follow if a suicidal pilot goes into a nose-dive.

And it's not exactly like they need weapons either, a determined person trained in unarmed combat will easily kill/maim someone just using their hands.

and they probably could easily buy 50% of the seats in one airplane...

To my mind, it is not about funding or not funding security at airports/borders/etc. It's about if terrorism poses enough of a threat to be worth compromising our standards of governance. We can fund and support security in these zones without suspending our civil liberties and we should.

Moreover, it's not actually about fighting terrorism. I'm sure some individual TSA agents (the ones who don't get their jollies from groping ten-year-old boys [1] believe they're doing the Lord's work, but most of this policy is just about keeping people's necks under a boot and harassing minorities. People fleeing war-torn countries with suitcases are not going to fly planes into the World Trade Center, as certain media outlets or politicians would have you believe, but we keep enacting policy like that. Not because those in power actually believe it, but because they simply hate Muslims. They hate people whose religion is different, whose skin color is different, whose gender is different, whose sexuality is different.

[1] http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/29/tsa-punishes-boy-who-left-...

It isn't really an either/or sort of situation. The question is more that are we actually doing things to help?

It seems that having some border control is prudent. Just having it in place reduces violence, if I remember correctly. It is kind of like closing your front door and having a lock does quite a bit to reduce property theft.

Outside of taking prudent measures, I'm not sure it helps at all, especially considering most terrorism is homegrown. In fact, there is a chance it makes some relations worse and more likely to produce radicalized individuals - at least as much chance of increasing other terrorism if we stop the screenings completely. If terrorism is indeed the evil we are fighting, perhaps some of the money might better spent to take care of some of the social ills. After all, these are the things shown to help reduce homegrown terrorism.

Time and again, many agencies have shown enraging incompetence despite a lot of funding. No I have no links, I just read the news for 10 years now.

(Let's not even get into 9/11 because numerous reputable sources have proved beyond doubt that the intelligence agencies had a lot of actionable info months or even years before it.)

And don't pull the card "you never hear about the prevented attacks" too, because the US government is very quick to flaunt and brag about their over-funded agencies catching the occasional boogeyman.

I guess look at the numbers before the security measures were introduced

Reply on news.ycombinator.com