Israel has basically 1 major airport, and 2 minor airports. They further are based heavily on profiling. I don't expect the Israeli model would fit well to the US, which has 19 airports with more traffic than Ben Gurion, and a much more dynamic set of threats.
In both law enforcement and journalism, we are no longer willing to fund proper investigative work.
They won't come out directly and ask if you're Jewish, but they will ask you where you were born, where your parents were born and what their last names were.
If you're Jewish you're in the "low risk" bucket. If you're not, you get extra scrutiny. I wouldn't be surprised if an Arab from Palestine gets a lot of scrutiny.
"quick chat"?
Would this would be a "quick chat" where they can ask anything they want, lying is a felony, and choosing not to answer would get you locked in a back room for "secondary screening" until ten minutes after your plane leaves?
And let's not go overboard on the "ask anything they want." These would be educated, skilled individuals. Asking inappropriate questions would not be per procedure. It is in everyone's interest to have safe flights, and if you're being difficult just to be difficult then tough shit, that's what you get.
While it probably would be a good thing to drop the security theatre and to have better training there are going to be a bunch of Americans who resent the idea that someone is asking them a question before they board a plane.
And if that was the extent of it, fair enough. Unfortunately, sometimes it's a little less "you don't get to fly" and a little more "I'm sorry sir, but we're going to have to detain you for several hours of invasive questioning".
>These would be educated, skilled individuals. Asking inappropriate questions would not be per procedure.
Maybe in CandyLand, this would be the case. Here on Earth, things do not always occur according to ideals.
Maybe in CandyLand, this would be the case. Here on Earth, things do not always occur according to ideals.
The US Government does not share this idea with you. It's much better to sweep it under the rug, because to admit to fault would hurt the public's confidence in The System(tm).
I'm pretty sure TSA was created with the same thoughts.
How about a combination of you paid for a ticket and freedom of movement is a basic human right?
I'm not against reasonable and proportionate security, for air travel or anywhere else. But the kind of arguments some airports and airport security organisations have been making in recent years boil down to giving up all your legal rights to anything and not being guaranteed a service you've clearly paid for or even any sort of compensation if they deny you passage on some arbitrary grounds. (Sorry, one of our staff felt you raised your voice to them and we have a Zero Tolerance(TM) approach to that kind of thing -- look, it's right there on page 74 of the impractically long agreement you couldn't possibly have read before the web page timed out when you bought your ticket.)
If you'll pardon the pun, that kind of reasoning would never fly under normal legal conditions. Courts in almost any jurisdiction would throw out a contract where you paid for something but weren't guaranteed what you paid for or some sort of reasonable alternative or compensation if for good reasons it wasn't possible to provide it. And if it wasn't provided and not for a good reason, you would probably be entitled to compensation for any consequential losses as well. I don't see any reason that airports, airlines, or for that matter government-mandated security organisations, should be held to a lower standard, or not held to any standard at all, just because someone mentioned words like "air" or "travel".
How about a combination of you paid for a ticket and freedom of movement is a basic human right?
Who would be left to fly once we got rid of all the jerks?
> It is in everyone's interest to have safe flights, and if you're being difficult just to be difficult then tough shit, that's what you get.
Why don't we work on making car travel safe first, since that would actually be a net-win on saving lives? Why are safe flights so much more important than the 50,000 people that die on the roads each year? More people die from driving in one week than from one plane crash.
2013 called, they want their "If you got nothing to hide"-argument back.
Good point, but it's sadly not that different than the way things work now. The difference would seem to be the TSA wouldn't need a provocation, whereas technically now they sort of do.
Rank Airport Passenger numbers 1 Ben Gurion Airport 13,134,070 2 Eilat Airport 1,400,067 3 Sde Dov Airport 658,741 4 Ovda Airport 136,791 5 Haifa Airport 68,968 6 Ben Ya'akov Airport 15,782
Meanwhile in the US, Birmingham is the #72 airport, and the one closest to Israel's #2.
Harrisburg, PA is #105, and closest to Sde Dov.
Lincoln, NE is #204, and closest to Ovda.
Source: http://www.faa.gov/airports/planning_capacity/passenger_allc...