I relative of mine just got back from the USA and one thing that really amused him was the level of security at the Hoover Dam. As he said, what do they expect you could fit into a car that could do more harm than leave a stain on that thing.

Bob

The Hoover dam supplies a huge chunk of electricity and most of the water for the parched West. In my opinion I would have four anti-aircraft missile batteries located two on each side of the dam, 24/7 radar controlled to prevent any aircraft from hitting the dam. Evidently the engineers have done some mathematics and don't like the results.
JJK

Years ago, a friend of mine was in line at an airport going through a lengthly check of passengers boarding the aircrafts. The fear at the time was airplanes being hijacked to Cuba. Anyway, my friend looked at the guy next to him and asked him "which restaurant he wanted to eat at in Havana later that evening. They were tackled to the ground and taken away to be questioned. Evidently joking about such things was highly frowned upon.

Perhaps have any defenses just a little further away from the dam than mounted on the sides. Otherwise that 'stain' car will be heading their way on the chance that the battery might do more if they took it with them.

Having overt defenses can be a red rag to a bull. Like kids in a playground, you end up describing the countermeasure for the countermeasure as the next argument in working out who will win. (recalling 'anti anti anti bullets'). Hopefully there are some covert defenses there already.

Spot/DSE just read your post and in case someone is thinking
we have a bad guy with us he is talking about a device that quickly
helps to get his chute open.

I wonder if other passengers think you don't trust the plane landing!

Removing my shoes could be a health issue, my dog even runs away.

I grew up in Montreal, about 60 miles away from the U.S. border at upstate New York. Though there are a few border checkpoints, most of them small 1 or 2 man operations, the largest checkpoint - Champlain, NY - has ALWAYS - & I mean for the last 40 years - been notorious for having absolutely no sense of humor when it comes to the nuances of language used with border agents. Both sides have their proclivities- things you especially can't say to them - but the U.S. agents have always been highly sensitive to "bomb" language. I once had a U.S. border agent ask me, "jokingly", if I was carrying a bomb. I laughed and repeated his question, since I thought he was joking around with me: "Am I carrying a bomb?" (laughs from me); Border agent: "Are you saying you're carrying a bomb, sir?" Pulled over & interrogated me for 2 hours. Morons, plain & simple.

My point is that the bizarre and mostly useless nature of airport security in the U.S in the last 6 years is nothing new to anyone who's ever had to cross a land border into the U.S. as a foreigner anytime over the last 40 years. We knew it was stupid & pointless then. Only getting worse now.

Reid C

I'm still chuckling...
I had 3 big pelican cases, and had zip ties for all three. Took em' to TSA at Sky Harbor/PHX after checking in.
Told the TSA officer that I needed to see him zip tie my cases after running them through the machine.
This obese guy was sweating hard anyway, and then his supervisor started yelling at him for agreeing to zip tie the cases after running them through the machine. Apparently SkyHarbor wants the case zip tied, and then the TSA cuts them off and then rezip-ties them (except that the TSA guidelines in their book says differently).
Kid puts my case on the belt, it goes up, and a different supervisor starts yelling at him for putting it on the belt incorrectly and it has to be rescanned.
They then rescanned it with it on the belt properly, and the machien wouldn't return a reading. So they put other bags (not mine) on as a test. Those too, wouldn't give a reading. So, they restarted the computer. After it rebooted, every bag they put through was showing a "Loading error."
By now, I've waited nearly 20 mins. Three very large managers (looked like they'd eaten a few hundred too many burgers) were sweating just like the kid they were all three yelling at, and then a senior supervisor came down. He sounded even more stupid than the three keystone cops that were trying to reboot and recalibrate the machine. Now the line of bags is getting really, really long. I'm still waiting. Senior supervisor wants to know why I'm standing near all these bags. I reply, my employer demands that I wait until I see the cases with zipties going down the conveyor belt before leaving the secure area. He wants to know why. My response, "Well, you know how you guys have 'watch lists?' So does my employer, and SkyHarbor is on our watch list." He asks who I work for. I reply "The New York Times."
He orders one of the three goofs to hand inspect my camera boxes and zip tie em' so I'm "not delayed any longer than I already have been." He then asks if I have a business card. I reply that I don't, but do show him my Press/Media ID with my picture on it.
He then offers to walk me to my gate so I don't have to wait in the security line, since I was delayed so long at their machines. My cases were very lightly inspected (wipes only), zip-tied, and sent on their merry way down the belt. I got a pass to go around everyone in security lines (they were long).
Aside from watching the Laurel and Hardy act by three managers/supervisors, all the commotion due to their machines being broken due to a computer failure, and then the senior supervisor walking me through security at the mention of the New York Times...my bags were barely inspected at all, and one of them contained three small explosive charges in the automatic cutting devices found on most parachute rigs. I've never gone through TSA inspections so cleanly with those devices.

Ahh....SkyHarbor. One of the worst airports in the USA for damaged and stolen goods, and the TSA was more fun to watch than most Saturday Night Live skits.

The other thing, D, I was thinking - and yes well worth a U-Tube shorty! - if these guys do this lifting and sorting of baggage all day and all week long .. . er .. how come they are . . er . . large? I'm getting the picture that maybe this ISN'T their full time employment? What do they normally do? OOps!!

Grazie

Hmmm as one of the unfortunate million mile flyer club, I'm LOL at that Spot. I need to have my girlfriend (graphic designer) whip me up a NY Times biz card and pass! That could save me a lot of time! My boss gets field stripped at almost every airport. Not sure why. He has no explosives like you...only hair care products, makeup for the slightly aging man, and ab rollers that they keep taking. haha

As far as the bomb word, that's been a no no for decades and obviously words like that or gun or terrorist are only spoken at airports these days by infrequent travelers. I almost got shot in Russia (UFA, Siberia 1989 to be exact). When I walked up to where the bags were, there were 4 very young military personnel, with automatic weapons, standing in a circle around my suitcase along with our translator. She said "Derek...why is your bag ticking?" I was thinking that was a good question. I opened my bag and saw my metronome ticking. I picked it up and they all aimed their rifles at me. Oh I forgot to mention it was a home made one my friends gave me (blue box with holes poked in it with a switch and a red flashing light!) so, all I could think of about 5 seconds later was thank God she knew how to say and explain metronome very quickly in Russian!

So, yes it's a pain to take off our shoes, jackets, belts, throw our water bottles away so we can buy new $4 ones 1 minute later, etc., but at least we are not likely to get gunned down here. :o)

The things I have watched TSA let pass compared to the things they decide to search or confiscate have made no sense to me at all in the last couple of years. I do not feel any safer than I did before all of this "extra security" in recent years.

OK off to make my NY Times badge! D

Derek,
With your boss, you should be able to gain access to a Time/Warner Media pass, or an HBO or similar access pass? Not only will it speed the process, but most airlines have accomodation rates for overweight/too many bags.
It'll do wonders.
Grazie, the VAST majority of TSA employees are unemployable elsewhere. Social misfits that apparently lack the skills to flip a burger, and live pathetic lives playing World of Warcraft when not manning their posts; they receive 5 hours of training (even if they can't speak more than 200 words of English) and then are set upon the public to protect lives and billion-dollar aircraft. But what they lack in quality, they surely make up for in quantity.
A short film? It would cost a lot of money to do. Turn on a camera anywhere around the TSA or their equipment, find yourself in jail. Even after the fact, so a lipstick cam documentary would equally offer you a new home.

I read the article and especially noted this part:

{The folly is much the same with respect to the liquids and gels restrictions, introduced two summers ago following the breakup of a London-based cabal that was planning to blow up jetliners using liquid explosives. Allegations surrounding the conspiracy were revealed to substantially embellished. In an August, 2006 article in the New York Times, British officials admitted that public statements made following the arrests were overcooked, inaccurate and “unfortunate.” The plot’s leaders were still in the process of recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers. They lacked passports, airline tickets and, most critical of all, they had been unsuccessful in actually producing liquid explosives. Investigators later described the widely parroted report that up to ten U.S airliners had been targeted as “speculative” and “exaggerated.”}

Too bad at the time the news media largely touted this as a "win for Bush and the Republicans" despite his and his party's consistently sinking poll numbers because the Bush administration went on National Media to falsely claim that they were instrumental in foiling the plot with no one including the New York Times calling them on the false claim.

ABC's Good Morning America's Kate Snow after interviewing Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute who said: ""having a national security scare is actually good political news for the president and the White House and the Republican Party." Kate Snow added:
""Ornstein and other analysts say it's a tricky time to be a Democrat," because "they want to look tough on terrorism, too."

August 14 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

"I think you have to give him [Bush] credit when they foil a terrorist plot," adding: "I think that the fact that Bush was touting this today was testament to the notion that things may have turned in his favor."

Bridget Quinn asked Rice University political science professor Paul Brace if the recently foiled terror plot "could somehow help Republicans," adding that "people might say, 'Well, all right, maybe we're a little tired of the old administration, but you know what? They've kept us safe.' " Brace claimed that the issue of terrorism is the "only area" in which Bush "gets a majority approval" and added that it "is an issue that plays well for the president and, I think, Republicans."

August 13 edition of the NBC Nightly News, NBC Washington correspondent Rosalind Jordan presented a segment examining the question of whether the arrests would "provide Bush with a boost in his ratings, given that "no matter what the president's overall job-approval rating, he's always polled best when it comes to homeland security." - a lie.

August 13 edition of George Stephanopoulos cited polling that illustrated that more Americans trust Democrats than President Bush regarding efforts to combat terrorism. However, Stephanopoulos asked ABC News chief White House correspondent Martha Raddatz if "the White House believes that the London plot is enough to turn those numbers around." Raddatz answered that the unveiled terror plot in London "certainly plays well into their strategy to focus again on national security."

In the Baltimore Sun entitled "Arrests may boost GOP, analysts say," despite the fact that they could only find one analyst to cite and continuing on to claim: "Republican efforts to portray themselves as stronger than the Democrats on national security might have gotten a real-world boost with the unraveling of an alleged terror plot in London." West then quoted Pew Research pollster Andrew Kohut's agreement, asserting that the terror plot "puts a focus on the strong suits of the Bush administration."

And on and on.

And for those 80 percent of the population who when polled are consistently duped by the news media into thinking they are not virtually all working directly against the public interest there is the Nexis database search of all news media reporting well worth the subscription price to consistently prove it to yourself.
John

Please, let's keep Bush-bashing out of this. Okay, so his numbers are in the 30's; fine. One of the things I actually like about the guy is that he absolutely doesn't give a s**t about poll numbers. Whether he is remembered by history as a Churchillian hero who stood up to Islamofascists or a Nixonian doofus who couldn't pronounce "nuclear" cannot, by definition, be known by anyone at this time.

But getting back to the airport thing: my wife tells me I glower and grit my teeth when I go through the security gauntlet. I can't help it; I don't think the TSA screeners are idiotic, the process is. Like the original article mentions, I think the most significant change in airline safety occurred the day after 9/11--passengers knew that to be complacent was to be dead.

Never pack Play-Doh and Christmas Lights in your carry-on.
Why? In their minds they have C4 explosive & detonators.
How many times can you tell them that it’s Play-Doh?

Reminds me of the Nazi SS in some way…”show us your papers”
Show us your ID…step aside…strip down…etc.

Just traveled over the holiday, and they gave me a hard time over my Visine Eye Drops !!! Called the supervisor over the mysterious liquid..

Mike M.

I can understand the "No Bush Bashing " rule, but saying he may be a "Churchillian Hero" should be just as much of a NO NO Here as any bashing.. Equally insulting to me...

Let's not forget that at the time Churchill's popularity wasn't all that great either.

And visine drops, when ingested, are a nasty piece of business. Did you perhaps request a seat near the galley?

I may have mentioned this here before....

It was long before 9/11 and I was flying out of Albuquerque for a shoot. As carry-on, I had my camcorder and a case full of 35mm film for my still camera and a shotgun mic along with some other audio stuff. I asked them to hand-check my carry-on because I didn't want to chance running the high-speed film through the x-ray. They opened my case and saw the shotgun mic and asked me what it was. Not thinking, I said, "it's a shotgu...." I didn't even get to finish "shotgun microphone" before two guys literally lifted me off my feet and hustled me into a little room. It took me 30 minutes to convince them it was a microphone even though it said "Audio Technica Shotgun Microphone" on the box. They wanted me to turn it on and make it work. I couldn't do that because all the batteries for the camcorder were in my checked luggage, so I really had nothing to plug the microphone into. Anyway, I eventually convinced them that it was indeed a mic, but, by that time, I had long since missed my flight. Flying used to be fun.

I'd feel a lot happier boarding an aircraft if the money spent on security was spent on aircraft maintainance. After all you're more likely to not make it to your destination due to a missing bolt than the actions of some nutter.

Latest snafu at Sydney Airport. The aircraft emergency oxygen bottles were being topped up with nitrogen meant for aircraft tyres. I guess it's a good thing they didn't get it the other way around or there'd be some spectacular landings. If you're wondering, yes, oxygen and nitrogen bottles are a different colour and yes the couplings are different. Nothing that stopped a little Australian ingenuity from 'fixing' the 'wrong' fittings on the new nitrogen cart.

Bob.

Please, let's keep Bush-bashing out of this. Okay, so his numbers are in the 30's; fine. One of the things I actually like about the guy is that he absolutely doesn't give a s**t about poll numbers. Whether he is remembered by history as a Churchillian hero who stood up to Islamofascists or a Nixonian doofus who couldn't pronounce "nuclear" cannot, by definition, be known by anyone at this time.
==========
Actually the post was "media bashing" and if they have anything to do with Bush being "remembered by history" they will rewrite it like they did when Ronald Reagan died when they elevated him to "world's greatest president" in one short week of his death. That was the result of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project headed by noted Right Wing Pundit Grover Norquist. He knows the media like the back of his hand.

Reagan's current approval rating is now much better than it was when he was actually president. Just goes to show you that if the media repeats falsehoods over and over again they become "the truth". It works very well on the public. Noted physiologist Ivan Pavlov proved that.

Not that the article RIredale linked from the NY Times was bad. Indeed he said some things that are worth noting:

"maybe we shouldn’t expect too much from a press and media that have had no trouble letting countless other injustices slip to the wayside." ............."How we got to this point is an interesting study in reactionary politics, fear-mongering and a disconcerting willingness of the American public to accept almost anything in the name of “security.” Conned and frightened, our nation demands not actual security, but security spectacle."

He is referring to the Bush administration / Republican policies of illegal warrantless wiretaps of American citizens, the elimination of Habeas Corpus to challenge one's detention, the wholesale tampering with judges and the judiciary branch of the government by the Bush administration, the caging lists and other manipulation of votes to get Republicans elected, the exposure of the name of a CIA agent working on WMD covert surveillance just to discredit her government offical husband who refused to lie about Iraq to the public for the Bush administration, the firing of US attorneys who refused to lower themselves to the level of the other tampered with judges these people have corrupted, the use of torture on others while professing outrage when it is done to Americans, making people disappear, pulling the US name from the International Criminal Court before the Iraq invasion, violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by developing of small tactical nuclear weapons while trying to falsely claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons to justify attacking them, violating the Geneva Conventions while claiming other countries are violating them, destruction of public records, just to name a few.

It is just that the NY Times has been very complicit in making it so just like the rest of them in the media business. They have just hired one of the architechts of the Iraq invasion by the way - William Kristol

John

Worst experience i've had didn't even happen to me, but i still felt awful about it. I was waiting in the ticketing line, not even the security line, and a woman checking her bags got pulled aside to be searched. One of the officers decided a strip search was necessary and escorted her to a booth. Now, let me describe the booth .. it was basically a metal pole frame, about 1 metre square and under 2 metres tall barely bigger than a phone booth, with curtains draped over the top bars. The curtains weren't wide enough to overlap. This was set up right in the middle of the concourse instead of being off in an alcove somewhere. Two female officers went in there with her. With all the movement going on making the curtains flap around the poor woman might as well have been standing out in the open.

Fortunately all of us in line had the good taste to turn around and look the other direction. I still feel horrible for that woman though.