new security measures by TSA

Well, you did say this:

I think the many parts of the world that have NOT "proven time and again that they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt" -- such as, oh, where deskslave happens to be living -- have the right to be offended by such an inaccurate broad-brush statement.

 

I'm going to guess this guy is not affiliated with Al-Qaeda, didn't possess enough of whatever he had to do anything other than burn himself up, and when this is all confirmed we can point at him and say, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

 

I'll admit that particular statement was a little harsh, and probably over the top. But I was in a foul mood upon hearing about this particular round of shenanigans this morning. Moving on ...

 

He can still do any of those things an hour and 2 minutes before the flight is due to land.

How does this make anyone any safer? What is the actual benefit? Not the touchy-feely kind of safety. The actual, tangible, measurable benefit?

Unless you want people to travel on airplanes in wire cages, you have to accept some degree of danger. It's an infinitesimal degree of danger, and these additional measures make it ever so slightly more so. But the only way it's going to be absolutely fool-proof is if no one's ever allowed to get up, or have a carry-on bag, or go to the toilet. And that just comes up ever so slightly short in the feasibility department.

And what, pray tell, was setting off what appears to have been a firecracker going to accomplish on that plane? In the current climate especially, there was never any chance that he was going to accomplish anything.

 

Get ready for these measures to be applied to US domestic flights in the next 12 hours, flying within the US will suck every bit as bad as flying to the US from outside the borders.

The TSA can't gear up the extra manpower fast enough, delays will be inevitable as everyone gets patted down at the gate.

 

Well, anyone who's done any amount of flying since 911 has long since realized that U.S. air security is largely a joke. It's a national embarrassment, of course, that we never seem to take these things seriously unless someone comes close to bringing down a plane (or, in the case of 911, much worse). The new procedures won't make anyone any safer.

 

Damn straight. There's no way this stays limited to international flights. Frankly, why should it? If you buy their simplistic logic for international flights, why stop there?

And as others have noted, why the hell are we always fighting the last battle? This Nigerian goes for his ankle-bomb at the 1-hour mark so now that's the magic hour we need to lock down by any means necessary? Use your brains, morons, and come up with some intelligent guidelines and regulations are aren't just reactionary bullshit based on the last plot.

"Better safe than sorry"? Geez, let's just go right to the wire cages and the full-on police state. There's no way to live in an open, free society without being vulnerable. And the danger remains infinitesimally small.

 

According to CNN, a "disruptive passenger" is causing some kind of problem on the same AMS-DTW Northwest flight today. The plane's being held in a remote area of DTW. Great.

ETA: the crew requested emergency assistance upon landing. All passengers (except presumably, the disruptive guy) have been allowed to get off the plane.

 

Locked himself in the bathroom of the plane. Also Nigerian, says AP's twitter.

 

According to Homeland Security's Janet Napolitano in an interview on CNN this morning, they only put marshals on a random assortment of flights.

 

But all of the regulations are implemented after the fact. We're reacting instead of thinking ahead. Guy turns his shoe into a bomb, now everybody's shoes come off. Somebody has an explosive gel, now your toothpaste gets confiscated. Someone works on a device under a blanket in the last hour of a flight, now take off your blanket an hour early. When are people going to start thinking outside the box here?