Airport Security- Keep as is or cut back?

Article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11610326

I would prefer to keep the current checks. It certainly makes me feel safer. I just think the airports could do more to reduce the waiting time.

What do you think?

Article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11610326

I would prefer to keep the current checks. It certainly makes me feel safer. I just think the airports could do more to reduce the waiting time.

What do you think?

This is a no-brainer. Securty must be kept as 'tis. My gripe is that there is no standardisation !

Must be consistent.

I was advised at NCL in May that if I didn't have trainers or boots on, I didn't have to take my shoes off. No sign of any shoe checking going on at LHR (but that was through the priority channel) and at the gate as an UC pax was waived through the secondary security check. But shoes checked coming back through security at IAD but not at T5

When I flew in 05, was given a secondary security check which quite honestly was as useful as a chocolate teapot... she opened my bags, looked in the pockets, patted my coat that was covering everything up in the main section of my bag and said move along. I kinda then made life difficult for her by suggesting she really ought to be checking my mobile phone and mp3 player actually worked.... Cue very stony glances from her and her fellow security guards...

(edit to correct typo)

Security just done for appearances sake does nothing for real security - it just keeps some of the punters happy.

It is mainly there so people can say it's there - so they don't have to take any blame if something happens.

Security just done for appearances sake does nothing for real security - it just keeps some of the punters happy.

It is mainly there so people can say it's there - so they don't have to take any blame if something happens.

Yep, 'cept to say it's pretty clear when something does happen, they DO get the blame, often rightly so. So you have to wonder why there isn't a more serious attempt to figure out how to do it - OK, I don't wonder, I have a good idea why ...

Put it another way ... if the premise is that we need effective security to prevent X (whatever it may be), if we know the security isn't effective, then neither keeping it, nor doing less of it is really the right answer. Do it right - analyze and solve the issue, don't have a process born of an accumulation of practices and knee-jerk reactions which you then become too scared to question in case something goes wrong. For more reasons than we can print here, this will take forever. I am glad the discussion got kicked off, that is for sure.

1) Get rid of the practices that don't make sense. Why does a laptop have to come out? I wasn't aware the X-Ray machines couldn't see my laptop when it is my flight bag !

2) Start profiling.

Couple of Responses

Laptops & X-Ray Machines

The X-ray machines can see into your laptop bag but given the internal gubbins of a laptop they obviously want to get as good a look at it as possible and other things in your bag could mask them or indeed in combination with the cables etc in the bag can make it look like there is something suspicious. Thus they asked me to take it out of my bag but said it was ok to keep it in its neoprene cover.

UC Pax Waved through Secondary security

Last time I flew in February there was a lady with a clip board checking BPs and names on a pre printed list. I was indeed waived through (and yes was in UC) but the chap behind me was chosen for secondary and he was also in UC.

After the Richard Reed attempt, I was travelling to Munch and came across the shoe check for the first time.

As a bit of a joke, I said to the guy studying my shoes "good job we haven't had a pant bomber"...then look what happened.

My rather contravertial view is that the style of airport security we have now is an absolute nonsense - it's all about making people feel secure, and shutting stable doors after the horse has bolted.

The way it is applied to flight crew as well doesn't make any sense - you just have to read some of the comments on PPRune to see how miss-guided it is.

Every security system is as weak as it's weakest link - and in airports, if you know what you're doing, it's very, very weak indeed.

Let's face it, ho wmany actual events has it prevented?

I guess the other side of this, is how many more might there have been without it? Don't know.

But, there has to be a much smarter way - profiling is just the start - not racial profiling, religious or anything like that, more gneralised risk assessed profiling...

Of course, the radical view is "if you stopped causing the reasons for terrorism, you'd stop the terrorism" - a longer game, but worth some of our esteamed leaders thinking about - oh wait, they're only interested in the next 4-5 years.

I think we should keep parts of it, but do away with the knee-jerk reaction additions - shoes, liquids, pants (well, they never did react to that one!!!).

I read a very interesting article in the Guardian about two years ago, about airport security, and in particular, liquids. The gist of it is, no one knows whether taking liquids on boards is a security risk or not.

If a passenger arrives at security, and the scanner detects a gun, which is banned, he or she will be taken away, searched, and more than likely arrested.

If a passenger arrives at security, and the scanner detects a half litre of liquid, which is also banned, they will be given a telling off and the water confiscated. If they were really intent on causing harm, there is no follow up with that passenger. There is no follow up. Because no one has a clue about what that rule is for. If it's to stop a terrorist atrocity, then why aren't offenders treated as such?

So us passengers are left with the feeling that taking liquids on board isn't that serious at all and that it's just another complication added to the flight process.

How many people have accidentally carried more than 100ml through security yet were not stopped or checked?

How effective are background checks on air-side workers and delivery-men? - How do all the bottles of liquids get into duty-free, the lounges, the food outlets?

I wonder how carefully security checks a colostomy bag? Does anyone believe that a doctors note means anything after Glasgow and now Yemen?

We are not supposed to ask uncomfortable security questions - but is that really to stop giving the bad guys ideas or as a sop to peoples fears? No way would anyone involved in AQAP be able to out-think our brilliant airport security "agents".

One ends up asking who are the real terrorists - who really causes, accentuates and emphasises the fear?

Is it prevention or just job-creation?

Edit to add:
In view of recent events, check the date on this article.
Was the Yemen demonstration simply a reaction to TSA announcements of "100% screening"?