I know this probably doesn't belong here but I figured what the heck...

In former Jugoslavia (im sure other countries to), the airport security consisted of "soldiers" with AK's.  Not only did you get patted down but they would rumage through your stuff like it was a 1/2 off sale at Kmart.  Papers? Papiri? Dozvola? They wanted everything.  The system was designed to intimidate.  But you felt secure at the same time.  


Is it me or is the Federal Goverment just one big balloon of hot air? Lets take for example the current situation with this kid, the Quaker, who apparently snuck some box cutters, clay and some Clorox onto several commercial airliners as part of an experiment to test the validity of air safety. Once again we, the people, have been lied to. How much of our money has been spent on improving airport security? And how much more will it take to stop a 20 year'ol kid from sneaking the same weapons aboard a plane like in 9/11? Far as im concerned, the terrorists can still pull off another 9/11. Now the FAA spokesman says that air safety is not 100%. I think we need the Israelies over here to give us a few pointers.

Whats more disturbing is that the Federal Goverment is going to prosecute this young man for exposing them. Not for breaking the law God forbid, but because politically this 20 year old Quaker embarrased the "Big Bad FAA". And instead of correcting the security breach, they will come down full force on this individual and most likely make life very difficult for him for a long time. I have to give this kid credit because he made his stand against Goliath.

We need more people like him to make a stand for what is right. What he did was "test the system", like computer programmers when they test a new software (except Microsoft) product for the market. How many goverment agencies our tax dollars went to for "testing the airline security system"? God only knows. The whole security thing is a joke, the Goverment is more adept at prosecuting Americans instead of protecting Americans. Who's really the bad guy, huh?

Americans need to open their eyes and minds and stop accepting what is spoon fed through the
idiot box that brainwashes us everyday with what they want us to believe.

A goverment for the people, by the people...humbug!

Well....uhm...geee....I would like to add something usefull to this thread, but Campy put it so well, his post is hard to follow.

About all I can say is that I don't think they will come down too hard on this kid.  They have already let him out of jail - pending trial of course.  I just hope they learn from him.  We will never hear the whole story, but from what I hear, he should be treated well.  a little slap in the face has done many a people and governments well.

While I agree that "Airline Security" is a misnomer, I still have to ask myself if this kid doesn't deserve to have the book thrown at him...

I mean, a number of people have already demonstrated the lack of security by pulling the same stunt.

The media does this all the time, and publishes big a big expose everytime they succeed.

The way I kind of look at it is, did he know he was violating the law when he did this?  Yes?  Hammer him.

How many people's day did this kid delay when they had to drag him off the plane?

Yes, box-cutters not being allowed on airlines, along with pocket knives, nail clippers and scissors is a joke.

What has changed is that your fellow passengers will now beat the crap out of anyone when they try to hijack the plane.  Look at the shoe bomber.  That was post 9/11 with all the extra security.  It was the passengers that stopped him, not any security measures at the gate.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm not afraid of death by terrorism.  I'm not interested in surrendering any freedoms at all on the off chance that my airplane or building is targeted out of the many.  

The Bush administration is just using the 9/11 attacks to ram through any kind of legislation and demonize anything/anyone they want in the name of "national security."  

It took the damn terrorists forever to mount 9/11, and afterwords they got trampled and smashed and scattered all over the place, so I really doubt their capacity to do anything outside of blow things up in their own countries.

I am 32 and I seriously believe that in my lifetime I will witness a nuclear device go off because of terroism. The chances are far more for it than against it especially when there are wealty Muslims  around that are willing to pay millions to aquire one. Maybe we should do them a favor and give them what they want right up their asses. I wouldn't miss most of the Middle East, would you?

I don't know...I personally would miss the whole "cradle of civilization" bit.

It's a damned shame that Iraq is ground zero of all that - ancient Sumeria and all.

One of the bigger reasons why the whole looting and wrecking artifacts thing hurt so much.

ever wonder why it is so easy to just walk off with someone luggages at airport?  before the new security force was put into place, it was even easier to check your bags in without even having tickets.  i did it a long time ago for domestic trip.  i bought one of those online ticket where you pick and pay right at the check-in line.  i told the bell-hop people the flight number and gave them 5 bucks while i buy the ticket.  either loosing 5 bucks or waiting in long line and possibly not being able to get a seat, i chose the  easy choice.

i don't think you can do it that easily now.  however, it is still easy to just drive a car bomb and run into the airport building.  i am surprise they haven't got a 20 commandos type of assault, where they would just take over the aiport with ak47 for mass killing, remington 700 for sniper fire when the polices arrive, and some grenade.  dying is going to disney land for them, so i am sure they don't mind killing as many as possible and blow themselves up when task force enter the building to apprehend them.

i also wonder why they only do the car bombs and suicide gunmen in their own country and not interstates over here. that proves how cowardly they are.  

it also prove that gun owners in america is the first line of defense against invasion or hostile attack.  charles whittman was shot at by people with hunting rifle.  they didn't hit him because he was 400 yards or farther in an upward direction, which is hard for typical hunting rifle to hit unless it is a big game gun like those safari elephant bolt action.  but i am sure that he was slowed down or at least distracted so that police could get to him to burst cap.  

i want to find some book on that event to read about it.  i can't find any pro-gun article online.  everything i found was a typical "guns kill people and that was what happened that day" type of bs.

This is the best country to live in with out a doubt!  

Interesting thing, since 9/11, when I travel via airplane, the airline people ask me politely to either exchange seats or sit in an empty chair in front of the plane.  I guess me being a white male and a big "goombah"  makes them feel better.  So not only am I a passenger, but im a security guard for the duration of the trip  which I don't mind at all, as long as the air marshall is near by with his Smithy or Glock.  :)

Proud to serve in any capcity.

And yes, lil'Kim needs his atomic program shut down.  That pompus fat bastard living the life of luxury while millions of his own people are near the point of starvation.

I worked for an Airline from April of 2002 until June of 2003,Most of the new security directives are Eye Candy.

Sitting around wondering when the next attack will come and how we can prevent it is exactly what the terrorists want to make us do.  

I prefer to let ignorance serve as bliss.  If I get blown up by a terrorist, tough for me.  I won't change my life one bit to accomodate fear.  

Let's not get carried away with the Muslim-hating thing.  It's easy to do because it often seems that all of Islam hates us and supports terrorism, but in truth it is somewhat of our own fault that that has come about *gasp*.

I'm not going to go Micheal Moore on the whole thing, and I don't think we deserve to be attacked, but we, along with the soviets are largely responsable for the volitile nature of the region.  We introduced modern military weapons and the means to use them to people who clearly weren't ready for them.  

The Middle east, because of it lack of resources and desert climate, is a naturally slower developing region then many.  Because of that, they are still in their semi-fundamentalist stage, a stage that we too went through many years ago.  

Without the capacity to develope the knowledge and scientific facts which we use to understand our world, their religion is often their only means of understanding.  This is how it once was in Europe and elsewhere in the world.  

Thus, in my honest opinion, the only way to bring peace to the middle east is to allow them the time to develope on their own.  You can't force a civilization to become modern.  

Right...give them time, so they can develope a nuke.  I my friend prefer to die naturally. :)

"Bootstomping Iraq" is the source of the terrorism in the first place!

Remember what was it that pissed off Osama Bin Laden?  US Bases in his country attacking Iraq (After inviting Iraq to attack Kuwait)

IT was Bush's daddy's clusterfuck that got us into this mess in the first place.

I'm not saying we should give in to terrorist threats or put up with terrorists, but we need to learn how to have competant foriegn policy.  I don't think this countries had decent foriegn policy since WWII when we were helping europe-- and even then we had to talk the japanese into attacking us in order to get into it!  (Wheras if we'd just waited, the american people would have come around of their own accord.)

As far as I'm concerned, lacking any real evidence to the contrary, 9/11 was orchestrated, or allowed to happen for the specific purpose of bringing about the patriot act and our current war on "Terrorism" -- another war on a concept that can never succeed.  Its mighty convenient that 9/11 happened and now we're back in Iraq... too convenient.

George Bush has put good men and women in harms way and had them killed for a vendetta... not because it was needed.  Iraq was already put down.

Bin Laden would be pissed at the US regardless if it had bases in Saudi Arabia or not.  If we didn't he would be just as pissed for our support of Israel.

One of the best things George H. Bush did is stand up to Iraq and kick them out of Kuwait.  However we should have finished the job then.

Quoted: Without the capacity to develope the knowledge and scientific facts which we use to understand our world, their religion is often their only means of understanding. is that why we write with arabic numerals? because they are dumber now than they were a thousand years ago? they can build nuclear reactors, giant rail guns and cannons, engineer bio-terrorism, conduct poison gas warfare, calculated the movements in the heavens long before europeans did,  and send missiles into israel...and you are telling me they can't understand our world??? i think they (joe average muslim) understand it all too well. and they despise it.

That rail cannon was a joke, the Iraqis used there poison gas weapons like children with toys, and those "missiles" they sent into Isreal were old Soviet SCUDs that were sold to them long ago.  

The Governments of many of these countries have very modern and unreligious ambitions, I'll give them that, but the masses that follow them are largely duped by their leaders, many of whome have studied abroad and are hardly representative of their respective cultures.

These are a few rich educated people using there knowledge and wealth to rule masses of arabs who don't know anything but what the Qu'ran (spell?) tells them, not because they are stupid, but because they know nothing else, and without schools and libraries and so on, they never will.  

Osama for example is probably not a very religious person, believe it or not.  He's a guy, who like Hitler did on a larger scale, is good at cultivating unrest and twisting it to his own purposes, when all he really wants is power.  

As far as Arabic science which came before our own, that was largely due to the fact that while they were developing these things, Europe was embroiled in endless war.  The colonization of the middle east by outside nations also brought about their stunted grouth.  

So, what I'm saying is don't mistake the intentions and reasoning of their leaders for that of their people.    

Homeland security?

Quoted:… red-blooded American…

I’ve been thinking, they should fill first class with able-bodied fathers of young children. I’ll guarantee, as long as those guys are alive, nothing is going to get into that cockpit.

Quoted: …gun owners in America is the first line of defense against invasion or hostile attack.

That’s why the Japanese never attacked our mainland sixty years ago.

You folks need to check out New American Century and report back.

J

Yesterday's Daily News had an article regarding this mess with the breach of airport security...TSA spokesperson  said..."we have professional companies that do these tests...we don't need a renegades...."  LOL!!!  

I say...fire the so called "pros" and give the kid a break!

The kid won't get a break because he committed the worst crime of all-- he humiliated the state!

You point out that the emporer has no clothes, and the emperor will off your head.

Our government has long since ceased being a legitimate government and is a pseudo-benevolent occupying force.  As long as the constitution is not the highest law of the land, we are not the country it described.

The only thing keeping our government in check is the risk of rebellion... and that risk is pretty low.  Hell the elections are a joke-- the machines are compromised and they can just decide who they want to win without our import.

Americans going and chosing between two members of the same party is no different than Iraqis getting to vote only for saddam hussien.  And now that we have third parties, we conveneintly have computer voting to insure the third parties never get any votes.

This countries government is a total scam-- it is just like any banana republic, expect that in those countries the people recognize the corruption.  Here we go rah rah and refuse to see it.

Excuse me for the rant.

Here is one for you'all!I worked as a contract A/C fueler for a certain airline at a certain midwest airport.Seems there were baggage handlers who were stealing guns,vidio recorders,Gateway computers(because of the box)and anything else of high $$$$ value that could be sold on the street quickly.(fleamarkets).The way they did it,they used bicycle and garment boxes(we all used them for moving stuff around),there was a BFI dumpster RIGHT NEXT TO THE FENCE,the thieves would simply drive the bag cart next to the fence and toss the goods into the dumpster.They got caught only cause they got greedy and stole too much,folks complained and made enough noise.Needless to say they were caught the certain airline did'nt want the pubicity and it was pretty much swept under the rug,BTW,the thieves had rented a self-storage garage(the biggest they could get) was full almost to overflowing.

Were talking about sneaking things onto an airplane, not taking it off...but good post anyway...it just shows you the quality of personnel the airlines hires to take care of its patrons...I think a bunch of chimpanzees would do a better job....