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Chris Russell

Wed Feb 17 2010, 03:27PM

... not Russel!
Registered Member #1 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052

I don't think that's what he meant. His wife knew they were not supposed to have a knife on the plane, which is why they told security about it, so that it could be placed in the checked luggage. Instead, he just said "meh" and let her take the knife on board. Seems to me he would rather the security guy did his job and put the knife in the checked luggage. I'm sure Nicko and his wife know they aren't about to go stabbing other passengers or hijacking the plane, but the guy at the scanner had no reasonable way of knowing that. All those extra security procedures in place to protect the passengers on that flight were completely nullified by the ineptitude of one guy who couldn't be assed. Hopeless indeed.

Given the choice between an overly strict security policy that is universally enforced, and an overly strict security policy that is randomly not enforced, I'd have to say the first is the lesser of two evils. The second one means that eventually more incidents will happen, at which point the general populace will gladly sign off on even tighter regulations, rather than rightfully demanding that existing regulations be enforced.

Nicko

Wed Feb 17 2010, 05:42PM

Registered Member #1334 Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615

Blackplasma wrote ...

"Hopeless"? Nicko, do you mean you would prefer to be held up, a scene to be made, and attempt to argue through special provisions? I think in this situation you were blessed not to have an immature or a power-tripping guard.

Which is it? I thought we were tired of airport security being invasive and rude? Or do we want them to throw up a fuss and be anal and "not hopeless"? I ask, because if the process were any less "hopeless" than now, I guarantee you won't like it at all.

Que? I thought it was quite clear - we reported the knife, but they just didn't care. Just waved us through.
Personally, I agree with Chris - if they just enforced the current laws, it wouldn't be so bad, but to use the failure to enforce current processes as an excuse for ever more draconian policies is dangerous territory in itself...

ragnar

Wed Feb 17 2010, 09:11PM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

Nicko wrote ...

Que? I thought it was quite clear - we reported the knife, but they just didn't care. Just waved us through.
Personally, I agree with Chris - if they just enforced the current laws, it wouldn't be so bad, but to use the failure to enforce current processes as an excuse for ever more draconian policies is dangerous territory in itself...

Thanks Nicko, you were quite clear on that and I did see. I can be very hard-nosed about this subject, and I hope not to appear ignorant, but I'm more concerned that the opposite occurs:

1) a misguided control is legislated then poorly enforced,
2) everybody forgets / acclimatizes, "it's not so bad",
3) now-obscure control is used out of context as a tool by the state,
4) misguided control then strictly enforced to justify use out of context,
5) queue legislation of next misguided control...

I do like Chris's analogy of 'poorly-enforced' vs 'well-enforced' Dracoism, but I feel ANY energy invested in pushing to enforce overly-strict, liberty-stripping controls is a waste of energy that could be better spent pushing to revoke overly-strict, liberty-stripping controls!

I liken this concept to the common non-rebuttals to impending internet censorship in Australia: "But it can be circumvented easily"... "It won't be able to stop P2P traffic"... "You can't filter everything without false-positives"...

The implied (but undesired) response is an uncircumventable, P2P-blocking, false-positives-littered filter! Better instead to recognize the fundamental illegitimacy of the whole concept. If the status quo is flawed, any compromise is still polishing a turd

Proud Mary

Wed Feb 17 2010, 10:33PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

The media have taken to calling these imaging devices "X-rays" to explain the technology to a non-technical audience, but those installed at UK airports use millimetric waves.

As for capacitors, those that are deemed to have so-called "dual use" as slappers, are already subject to export restriction, together with krytrons, sprytrons, trigatrons and associated technology.

radiotech

Thu Feb 18 2010, 01:23AM

Registered Member #2463 Joined: Wed Nov 11 2009, 03:49AM
Location:
Posts: 1546

How about an invisible ink made of a barium compound used to write a discourteous slogan on your undergarments.

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