O/T Homeland Security

How stupid is homeland security at airports? I get to the airport, I have 2 unopened bottles, one is an arizona ice tea (probably liter sized) and a 16 ounce bottle of water. The guy checks out my bag and pulls both out. Told me I couldn"t bring them onboard. I said even though they are unopened? He said yes. So I got ------ and said a couple of choice word. As soon as I got around the corner, there were soda machines that carried 20 ounce bottles! How stupid is that?? I just had to vent and you guys/gals are good people to talk to.

That's part of the new economic stimulus plan...making you buy THEIR sodas and dispose of your own. If they do it to enough people, consumption goes up, and production has to increase to meet demand.

It's not stupid. It's for your and your fellow Passengers and Crew's safety and if you can not understand that then you need to reapraise your self of the Laws governing the right to public transit. Many of us suffer sorrow from the lax rules of safety prior to 9/11. JC

Hopefully you poured out your unopened bottles, otherwise YOU just bought him and his friend a free drink.

TSA 'security' is a joke, playtime for BOZOs.
They make a big point of putting on a show, fools the once in a lifetime traveller that "all is well", the best security is the 'invisible, non-intrusive' type that was done in Europe for years and years.

It makes sense to me. The terrorists are clever enough to disguise hazardous materials in apparentlt factory sealed bottles. Water bottle could contain nitro glycerine and other bottles could contain dangerous materials that resemble original contents. The dispensing machines contain only products known to be safe to take on your flight. Knowlegable travelers are aware of what is and is not allowed, so will not carry these items.
It is bad that the world situation has come to what it is now and we are all paying the penalties to assure flying safety... Gene

Uuuhhhh....JC....I've nothing against inspections...but I assume you're aware that after your inspection, you board an aircraft that's almost certainly carrying some air cargo that HASN'T been inspected...
See Chicagotribune.com for a piece, about 19hrs ago per Google listing, saying airlines and air package shippers are being pressured to have all air cargo inspected by...wait..don't hold your breath..mid 2010!!!!
That'l mean (if they actually do it) it's only taken nine years or so...(the poece estimates about half air cargo is inspected, but it didn't say by whom or how carefully...
Happy flying!!

An example of the security measures requires at all public use airports are the high chain link fences. We had a situation here last week when an airplane had an engine failure and attempted to land at our local airport. The airplane was too low to reach the runway and collided with the perimeter fence at the runway end. Had the fence not been there, the landing would have been short of the runway, but on level ground that would not have damaged the airplane. Thankfully, neither the pilot nor his passenger were injured... Gene

You aren't allowed liquids in Europe either.

Homeland Security is a expensive smoke screen 99% of the time. Your tax dollar spent to make you feel good. More government money wasted on crap, while our borders from the South are wide open to anyone.

If a enemy wants to do us harm, he would not have to be real smart. And why would they play that card real often when there are simpler ways to harm us.

Homeland is like any other government run ordeal, they are indeed experts on the obveous.

Sorry for the rant, last weekend I had mandatory training at a area school to keep up my hours. A weekend day wasted on subjects that have no meaning in my home town. A couple of the classes were entertaining, just not educational, yet the area schools profit big time from it.

For all of the responses that say, in effect, that the the security proceedures are good and are needed, I say BS. It doesn't matter what proceedures you put into effect, if someone want's to bring down an aircraft their gonna do it, one way or another, be it from inside the plane or outside.

How hard would it be to stand outside that high fence, with a high powered rifle, or a missle launcher for that matter, and fire at the engines, or the plane in general. Heck why not get a small plane and do a Kamakazi flight into the larger plane. There would be no way to stop that.

If several people cam take over a plane using nothing but box cutters then I'm sure they could find something else on the plane that's perfectly legal, to use for the same purpose. Bet you can't take a "sap" on board but anyone know what kind of damage can be done with a sock filled with keys or change??? Keys are legal, socks are legal, change is legal, but they can be used to make something illegal.

Want to make sure nobody "takes over" then simply armor the flight deck and lock the flight crew in. Heck why not just make access only from the outside? Do that and then there isn't even a chance of temptation to open a door in response to a threat to anyone on the plane. Sad as it may be to consider, the lives and safety of hundreds has to be put over the life of one. If there was no access and the terriorists knew it it would pretty much eleminate that value of that threat anyway. What use is there in threatening to kill someone if they're not let in... if they CAN'T be let in? Add to that several, armed, sky marshals on each flight and that would put another layer of deterent on the situation. For that matter why not arm all of the passangers that are "of age". Who'd be stupid enough to skyjack a plane when you knew you were outgunned from the get go???


More than all of that, if there were more Americans that had ba!!s enough to even attempt to try to take down someone threatening to kill them instead of calmly accepting their fate, 9/11 wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was. if your gonna die anyway, why give them the satisfaction of taking out more than just the 200+ people on the plane. On 9/11 one plane went down because the people had enoug ba!!s to stand up for themselves and try, the rest simply accepted their fate and allowed thousands more to die....


My point though is that no matter how tight they make "security" if a true terriorist wanted to bring the plane down, none of the security measures they have in place now are gonna work. If those coming up with all of this new fangled gagetry think otherwise it simply shows the true ignorance of the people designing the security measures.

people can't follow the rules. There would be less hassle time if people would not take things they shouldn't to the airport. The people that haul your junk away from the airport have become millionaires from all the free bees.

Just stay the hell away from airports in general. The next thing will be roadblocks and a Sgt. Schultz character asking, "You"re papers please. Vere are you goink? Vas in der trunk? Step out of ze kar and open it. Take off your shooz and put your handz on your head. Vere did you say you vere goink? Who are you goink to see? Who are they? How long will you be gone? Vere iz it that they live? Vhen are you komink back? Verry vell, you may go. Remember, dis iz all for dere sekurity of der Fatherland! You never can tell when dere might some sneaky Juden around!

You think that sounds facetious? The Germans would have too...until it happened.

I guessI am the odd ball on this one but since I am in Beijing China right now and travel abroad quite offten, I say anything that just MIGHT make my flight saffer is o.k. Pretty simple for me just follow the rulles. We pack in three checked bags and a couple of carry on,s and usuall go right thru. Here lately it has been harder getting back in thru custome , really picking on purchase abroad

And just remember...this started under the previous administration, as a way to "protect" us...same way it started in Germany.

Funny how, when the previous party was in power, these ideas sounded SOOOO good...but when the parties changed, people suddenly begin to realize WHY giving up personal rights isn't a good idea. Folks forget that we change parties in power like we change socks...and once we relinquish ANY of our rights, some party in power will push that to its limits and beyond. History books are full of examples.

I usually come down once or twice per year depending on where the training courses are held, mostly by car. I give them my passport, answer questions without my usual snide remarks and only once did I get put over and that was at the Thousand Islands bridge. I opened every door on the car, emptied it of all luggage, opened every bag myself and followed their instructions. Mr. Border guard took a fast look and said go ahead.
They have their job to do and those people are scared to death something will happen on their watch.

My wife and I travelled from Canada across the USA border.My wife born in Scotland has red freckles and blonde hair. The USA border guards stopped her claiming she was on the list of suspected terriorist. We came back to Canada and told our immigration people. They advised us the USA had gone security mad but it was their country not ours. The thing that got us was the border guards were all East Indians, Pakastans Orientals and Iraqis.I think the world has gone mad.

My wife and I travelled from Canada across the USA border.My wife born in Scotland has red freckles and blonde hair. The USA border guards stopped her claiming she was on the list of suspected terriorist. We came back to Canada and told our immigration people. They advised us the USA had gone security mad but it was their country not ours. The thing that got us was the border guards were all East Indians, Pakastans Orientals and Iraqis.I think the world has gone mad.

Sounds like you've worked in customer service before.

Buzzman,

If we going to play party politics with this one.....the former party was seated when all hell broke loose and there were several knee jerk reactions. Sort of like what happens when you stick a fork in a light socket. I think these things were honestly done in order to try to protect us....but just not very well implemented.

If this pack of Liberals now running the show, are our saviors, I am sure they"ll straighten it all out. I expect it get worse before it gets better.

I also am dismayed by airport security. I would agree that measures are needed after 9/11 to make sure air travel is safe and I always co-operate with TSA. However, I DO believe that some common sense must be injected into the equation. When white-haired little old ladies start hijacking planes, then I will be the first to call for them to be strip-searched. Until then, focus on the groups that are responsible for all the terrorism.

The problem is that the "libs" as well as the ACLU will scream bloody murder at any "profiling" at security checkpoints, when this is exactly what we need in law enforcement. If your name has more vowels and consonants mixed together like a bowl of alphabet soup, you should be prepared to stand up to extra scrutiny. That is a small price to pay for living in the USA. If you don't like it, go back to Iraq or Iran or Jordan or wherever you came from and complain.

Security at the Canadian border has also gotten ridiculous, going both ways. With the computerized systems, we've got workers who have been going to Canada for years now being turned back because of a couple of misdemeanors that occurred decades ago. One guy bounced a check at the grocery store 22 yrs ago in another state. He's had to go through a local LE check, State Police check, FBI check, fingerprinted, 3 letters of references and a copy of the court record saying he was never convicted. It will take 2-3 months to get permission to enter Canada.

Meanwhile, Mexicans (and potentially terrorists) are walking across our Southern border by the hundreds DAILY. Does anyone see the irony in this? I.e. Make it difficult for the average Joe to travel but ignore the sieve-like nature of the Mexican border. We should follow Israel's example and build a doggone wall 20 ft high, with a barbed wire fence 20 ft inside the wall and in the no-man's land, put automatic machine guns. End of story, problem solved.

We decided that TSA stood for those folk's general attitude: Tough Sh*t, A**hole!

But they are what we have. I hope the effort has prevented some further mischief by bad guys.

But it does seem stupid when little old ladies are picked out for more extensive searches "at random", when almost all of the real problems have been caused by relatively easily identified young, to middle aged males of only a few ethnicities.

Politics as usual.

Looking agt your reply here and to my previous post you've got some serious issues....I too believe you must have worked in customer service at some point...As far as your train of thought, it's true sometimes the addage something is better than nothing works. The problem is that's going on the assumption that the something will actually work. Tell me, with everything that they already do, what's going to happen the next time something slips through and another plane or two goes to the ground? I can see it now, full strip search with complimentary cavity search before you can get on a plane.... Just like a lock only serves to keep an honest man honest, all the security in the world will only keep the honest people honest ...while hasseling them at the same time. Even then it wouldn't be so bad except for idiots that keep a young couple off of a plane because their chosen name for their new baby's name happened to be on a "watch list". Security NOT BAD, idiots in charge of security, BAD......Not hard to understand....

What I'm saying is, too many folks thought it was OK for us to give up our liberties under the nnalert. Then, when the nnalert get into office, these same folks are alarmed that the nnalert are taking them up on the giveaway of our rights. Unfortunately, that horse got out of the barn under the Bush administration...even though SOME of us were warning back then about the potential for government abuses.

Rights and liberties, once given away by the individual to the government, almost NEVER come back to the citizens, short of revolution. Folks who willingly gave up their rights under the Bush administration are now getting all up in arms over the fact that the nnalert are taking advantage of what they WILLINGLY GAVE UP under the previous administration.

Did they not consider that, once the rights were given up, they weren't coming back? Lesson here is, if you don't trust your rights in the hands of ONE party--whichever party--then for goodness sakes don't WILLINGLY give them up under the opposite party! THOSE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES NEVER COME BACK to their rightful owners, the citizens! Never trust EITHER party when they want to take your rights away...because it's always said to be "for your own good," and once that camel's nose is in the tent, it's nearly impossible to keep the rest of the camel out of the tent.

Just sit back for a minute and think about the whole world situation,politics and all.We are all screyyed! Hoss