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Comment by finnw | Hacker News Reader

There's a simple explanation - the authorities' main priority is to prevent copycat attacks.

The most embarassing thisg possible for TSA would be an exact repeat of 9/11 - same weapons (wasn't it box cutters?) etc. So that's what they target first.

A new kind of attack is harder to predict and easier for the authorities to explain by saying "nothing like this has ever happened before, there was no way we could have prepared for it." And there's no way they could cover all possibilities anyway.

And to be fair, copycat attacks do happen (e.g. July 21, 2005 in London) so it is not a total waste.

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> There's a simple explanation - the authorities' main priority is to prevent copycat attacks

The weapons used on 9/11 were surprise and that standard operating procedure in a hijacking situation was to do as hijackers said. Both weapons were ineffective by the time the 4th plane found out.

The authorities main priority has been to be seen to be doing something.

I think that everybody agree on that. The question is: are those very very expensive scanners the only way to achieve that goal. If it is, then fine (I'm not american, so it's not my taxes that are blown), but if there is another way, then you should be worrying about your taxpayer's dollars.

Just as an aside, Ben Gurion airport relies much less on pseudo high tech, and has had incredibly good result.

(http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199--the-israel...)

Anecdotal (at best) evidence from this single person:

No, they use 'pseudo people reading skills'. I'm good at offsetting those unintentionally. Can lead to hours of fun.

And they use other pseudo tests as well, that tell me that so far none of the people there checking my laptop had any clues about - computers.

I've never been to the states (and - don't plan to), but I cannot imagine that the average TSA guy is more grumpy than the average [1] Ben Gurion security guy.

Don't make 'different' the right thing to do. There is obviously a high demand for security here, both ~real~ and in the public mindset. Replicating that world-wide would be just as bad as placing these back-scatter machines everywhere, in my world..

1: Insert disclaimer about the exceptions to the rule here

You might be right. What is surprising though is that an airport that's under such security threat like Ben Gurion airport hasn't been breached in a very long time (I think the last major problem was in the 70's). Now you're going to say that most airports are in that situation. Yes, but Ben Gurion is not any airport, and I think I don't need to explain why it is under much more pressure than most airports in the world.

Now assuming that you are 100% right, and that Israeli's security protocol is as much as a mascarade as the TSA's. Then I still believe that they put up a much much cheaper mascarade than the TSA, and that useless for useless, you might want to consider the cheapest.

That was just an aside though, I'm still convinced that their security thing is not just a mascarade.

Then I still believe that they put up a much much cheaper mascarade than the TSA

Not even close. Israel spends close to 10 times as much on security pr. passenger compared to the US. Sure the absolute number is smaller, but that's because Israeli airports handle ~1 million passengers a year compared to US' ~700 million a year

> Israeli airports handle ~1 million passengers a year

That sounds too few. Even if you only consider individuals rather than flights that means that less than one in five Israelis flies any given year. Norway, with about the same population size handles 40 million passengers a year. Now there is virtually no domestic traffic in Israel because its small size, but it also has a lot more tourists than Norway.

I just rechecked the number and you're right, sorry. The numbers I quoted where only for El Al (the largest national carrier). The total number of all airlines is a bit over 13 million. But hey what's an order of magnitude between friends :)

Well because most western nation still look up to amerika (because once the where the prime nation in the world) and copy them, other then that amerika is extreamly agressiv in pushing there policies into other nations.

So most of these stupid rules flow into other nations too. To other western government I would say stop listen and looking to amerika. If you want to look somewhere look at the countries that work well.

For Drugs look to Portugal, For democracy look to Switzerland, For Prisons look to Norway, ..., and trie to improve upon it. There is almost nothing I would copy from amerika if I would "create" a new country.

I don't know what "amerika" is, but there are a number of things I'd copy from America if I were creating a new country, including the Bill of Rights. Americans do have a degree of individual autonomy and individual rights that are largely unknown outside the US, and Constitutional protections are an important mechanism for maintaining them. Now if the government could just pay for people to get flu shots and some better trains, we'd really be on to something :)

Well on paper that is true but in reality I don't see it, look at all the indexes for pressfreedom and other things. Sure Amerika is not North Korea but its not anywhere ontop. (Does the Bill of Rights not say seperation of church and state? At the same time you are not allowed to be elected into Office as an Athist.

One thing that the US does pretty well is opening up data and code after a gov project is finished.

> At the same time you are not allowed to be elected into Office as an Athist.

Not true at all. For one, the Constitution and various Federal and State laws allow elected persons to take an affirmation instead of an oath, and Article Six of the Constitution specifically prohibits a religious test on any public office.

Second, you may find http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2009-12-can-an-a... to be an interesting read on the topic.

Third, just because atheists are not elected doesn't mean that they aren't allowed to be elected—just that most people in the US want a religious leader (or that not many atheists choose to run for office, or that religious politicians have more popular plans, etc.)

I thought there where some states where it was not allowed. If I find time later I look it up.

Anyway would anybody clame that the US is the show of stat for seperation from churge and state?

The usual response is that the volume is different from an airport like LAX.

I'm far from an expert but from what I know about the way Ben Gurion handles security, I don't see why any of their security measures wouldn't scaled.

According to[1] Israel spends almost 10 times as much pr passenger on Security than the US does. Also Israel handles 1.3 million passengers a year, compared with over 700 million in the US. So the amount of scaling that needs to be done is far from trivial both in terms of money and manpower, and might not even be possible.

[1] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay...

As someone pointed out in another thread, the 1.3 million number is wrong. The correct number is 13 million. Sorry.

You say preventing copycat attacks, I say it's a purely reactive approach towards security, which does not work.

Indeed, there are weird side-effects.

A man tries to set fire to plastic explosive in his shoes, so long queues form (in airports) for people to remove their shoes.

Intelligence comes in about liquid / gel / paste explosives, so now those long queues have to abandon any liquids / gels / pastes in bins, near those long queues, inside an airport. Those "potential explosives" are not allowed on a plane, but are allowed to be left for hours (days?) near lots of people in an airport.

It's not supposed to work, it's supposed to provide job security.

Why can't the TSA rent-a-thugs be cops or something? At least they'd be deterring crimes that actually happen.

Cops have generalist training that can be used across a wide variety of situations where you have to think on your feet. It would be a waste of that training to just chain it to a scanner week-in, week-out.

He meant the other way around. Train the TSA agents to be cops instead and have them do actual police duty instead of hanging around airports being annoying obstacles for travelers.

You want those imbeciles to have guns?

And what crimes happen in the vicinity of their screening area that could be prevented?

> You want those imbeciles to have guns?

No, he wants real cops.

In France, in public places like railway stations, the "plan Vigipirate" makes use of the military (including gendarmerie)

The main crime in screening areas, beyond violation of people's rights, is probably TSA employees stealing things.

No one is hiring cops. Listen to this week's This American Life; small-government fetishists are firing public workers, and for very good reasons.

The TSA _are_ deterring crimes. Drug related crimes (possession) has gone up substantially at airports, and there are known cases of credit card fraud, animal smuggling and child porn being found while searching belongings of travelers.

Whether or not you think that the TSA should be involved in anything past securing the ability for persons to travel is the question.

erm, isn't "catching people committing a crime" proof that the crimes are not being deterred?

Thousands Standing Around.

Somehow it seems to have worked OK judging by results. See my separate comment about 106 million flights since 9/11/01 without any successful terrorist attacks.

Let me tell you about my rock that keeps away tigers...

And how many terrorist hijackings/crashes in the US were there before 9/11?

Would you like to buy my rock?

Nice try but the TSA would confiscate this rock you are selling. The real deterrent against tigers is their fear of flying.

Great. I can't wait until the next guy hides a bomb in his rectum. What kind of device will search for that?

TSA Gerbil Agents

Isn't this video a proof that a copycat of the 9/11 would be obvious to do ?

At the time, SOP when a hijacker took over a plane was to do whatever they said. They nearly always held the plane for ransom, and it really was best to let authorities on the ground handle things. After 9/11, the entire plane's population would attack you, becuase being smashed into a skyscraper is not in anyone's best interests.

Even on 9/11 this happened. That's why the 4th plane crashed in a field. Passengers found out about the first 3, realised all bets were off, and took back the plane/

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