it could happen to your in fant child or grandchild -- Airport fun

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

I have gotten a number of replies. Most say it is ok to do random checking
and if it selects a baby --  fine. How young a baby -- 1 month? What is the
training of the people who inspect the baby? What if they drop it? What if
they panic the mother and she reacts -- arrest her?

I have no problem if their are people trained to handle small infants, who
have a clean bill of health, who wear CLEAN gloves and who are sensitive to
the parents concerns. None of this seems true.

What do we do when some person carries a bomb in their -- you know where--
or swallows it etc etc.

Why don't we ban forks on planes and certainly glass wine bottles and ball
point pens etc etc. All good weapons.

Dave

Ps I could not buy a safety razor inside SFO yet I can carry one in past
security!!


------ Forwarded Message
From: Russell Nelson <nelson () crynwr com>
Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 23:07:13 -0500 (EST)
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] -- it could happen to your in fant child or grandchild --
Airport fun

Dave Farber writes:
> I purposely deleted the from on this one NOT by request. I find such
> behavior less than tolerable. What have we started to become? Does this
type
> of behavior really insure our safety!!??

If anyone is stupid enough to think that terrorists are going to try
flying an airplane into a building again[1], then yes, this type of
behavior really *does* ensure our safety.

There was an analysis posted some time ago which pointed out that
profiling is not better than random checks given iterated tries.  If a
terrorist group can find someone who doesn't fit the profile, then
they have an increased chance of getting past random checks.  The
total probability of finding a terrorist goes *down* if you use
profiling.  Hence ... random checks, even of babies.  Now, it's kind
of STOOPID to check babies in the same manner as adults (removing
booties instead of shoes.)  On the other hand, is that lump in the
baby's diaper, um, something brown, or plastic explosives?

So these checks aren't *really* going to stop someone from bringing a
weapon (does a ceramic knife show up on X-rays?) on an airplane.  What
they are *sure* to do is cause fewer people to fly, hurt the airline
industry, and generally introduce inefficiencies into the American
economy.  In addition to the direct costs of searching people, there
are the indirect costs of wasting people's time searching them,
concentrating power in the government, causing fewer people to fly,
and reducing our Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom from search
(you've got a knife) and seizure (surrender that knife to a government
agent or you can't fly).

No one will ever hijack an airplane and successfully fly it into a
building again.  See this: ^_ ?  It is a crude representation of my
baseball hat.  I will eat it if I am wrong.

--
[1] Think: there was a *reason* why all four airplanes were chosen to
crash within minutes of each other.  That Flight 93 didn't was due to
ground delays at Newark.  This type of attack stopped working about an
hour after it was first tried.  Source of that time period:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/completetimeline/timeline.htm

-- 
-russ nelson              http://russnelson.com | You can ignore economics,
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok | but economics isn't going
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | to ignore you.
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   |


------ End of Forwarded Message

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