Did anyone happen to see the news release about back ground checks for anyone and everyone who buys an airline ticket? This was on AOL news I think Thursday. This is a test program at several airports beginning now and running for a couple of months to test the software. If all goes well, EVERY ticket buyer will have a quick background check done at the time of purchase. This will include police and credit report header (number of credit cards and rating and amount of debit if known). Dropped were the checks of medical records and complete credit roport.
If I am mistaken about this, someone please correct me. But this is what I think I read.
Looking for suicidal people? If you're going to kill yourself, why not run up your credit cards? Alternatively, if you have someone in a serious financial bind, they might be willing to take a "package" in their luggage for a large quantity of money, thinking it's only drugs.
Why don't we just repeal the entire Constitution? It would simplify things, and maybe George Bush will quit trying to do things to promote terrorism so that he can be re-elected.
Sounds like you're saying of the present administration approximately what Voltaire once said of the Catholic Church: "If the devil did not exist it would have been necessary to invent him."
As with your Auto and Home insurance if your credit report is less than ideal your rates will be higher. In this case you are more prone to be a threat via suicide or as they used to tell us in the military a threat as a recruited foreign agent. DOOM! Da! DOOM! DOOM!, DOOM! Da! DOOM DOOM! DOOOOM! (theme from Dragnet, sorry it was the only way I could think to get it done.) So all the Joe Friday wanna be's out there have another excuse to harass us poor Citizens. They could not even tag the guys that hijacked the airliners on Sept. 11th and they had all the flags you could want up but they were not stopped. America what a country!
Wow...it IS getting worse. I'd never thought that US laws became more restrictive than German laws. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. (E. Burke) From my remote point of view, the latter appears exactly to what GWB is trying to do to you guys. I cannot imagine that most freedom loving Americans will simply shrug and accept that.
I'd like to know what Republican voters think about that...paging Mark Simpsom
*bleep* ;-).
Cheers,
Tom
P.S. Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both...but you know that!
IMHO the reason that the media ignored the possible culpability of the handlers is that our government used "smoke and mirrors" to redirect the public's attention from the airlines to Al-Qaida. If the public had focused it's attention on the airlines some extremely embarassing questions would have been asked including:
Why was there no security for the air crew in the cockpit?
For the last 20 years, as I recall, Israel has requied locked security doors between the cockpit and the main body of commercial airliners to discourage hijackings. As the second favorite target for terrorists why didn't the FAA require US airlines to have the same kind of security?
Who approved the policy of "Instant Surrender" for all aircrews during a hijacking?
This is the most stupid policy to handle a hijacking that I've ever heard about. If I had known that US airlines had trained their personnel, with at least the tacit approval of the FAA, to instantly surrender their aircraft to anyone who declared they were a hijacker, I'd never have flown again. The past history of other hijackings shows that hijackers routinely kill a number of hostages at the onset to prove that they are willing to carry out their most extreme threats. The stated policy of instant surrender looks to me like an invitation, on the part of the airlines, to kill the passengers and leave their air crews alone.
Why wasn't there a plan in place to handle the "suicide hijacking" of an airliner prior to 9/11.
With the constant suicide bombings in Israel and the prior warnings of US intelligence that terrorists could use aircraft as "flying bombs" why was there no policy in place to handle a hijacking when it finally occurred? A policy of scrambling jet fighters to escort hijacked planes and herd them around city centers would have prevented the majority of the damage that occurred on 9/11.
In addition most new aircraft have installed "fly by wire" controls. It should be relatively simple to setup a secret radio code, useable by the FAA, which would place the "fly by wire" controller into a mode where it would automatically land at the nearest airport while ignoring the on board controls. This type of system would of had the potential to prevent all of the losses incurred on 9/11.
And Len was responding to someone who questioned why the airlines baggage checkers didn't stop the hijackers. There was no reason for the baggage checkers to stop them, because at that time it was perfectly legal to bring boxcutters or pocket knives onboard.
I agree with you Ray 95%. 5% of me says that the airlines have been trying to get by on the cheap for... well sense forever. The airlines "contracted" out airport security... to the lowest bidder. Just like at NASA, "It hasn't happened before" attitude locked them in a way of thinking that helped the hole thing along.
I find it kinda funny that we will no longer have a rocket hobby because of box cutters. Who would have thought.
It does seem really dumb not to have a lockable cabin door.
And the doctrine of "appeasement" was even dumber. The attackers saw the vulnerability and took advantage, undoubtedly stringing the victims along as far as possible with some sort of "cooperate and we'll let you survive" line...
(Without this fundamental error in doctrine, the attacks could not have taken place... yet the calls for "More Security" seem to address everything _except_ the one big mistake that set up the whole disaster.)
I learned an interesting fact a few weeks ago. There are folks working for Uncle Sam that aren't military OR police but are REQUIRED to carry firearms at all times. That includes schools, planes, gov't buildings, etc.
Mark Simpson NAR 71503 Level II God Bless our peacekeepers
Since you asked, I find the whole post 9-11 hysteria and accompanying bad legislation to be disgraceful. I had a very enlightening discussion about 9-11 with a fellow countryman of yours. He said that we should live our daily lives as if nothing happened on 9-11 because if we alter our way of life, we have lost to the terrorists. I agree. I have no fear of flying or doing anything else since 9-11. (While I typically vote Republican and NEVER vote Democratic, I have been known to vote for an occasional Libertarian, BTW)
Mark Simpson NAR 71503 Level II God Bless our peacekeepers
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