Wirehead Studios

Am I the only person that thinks these 'terror alerts' and related stuff have gone a little overboard?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/01/14/airpo...o.ap/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/01/14/airport.evacuatio.ap/index.html)

Guy gets interrogated and an airport evacuated because of a flute! And then, even after they have decided that the flute was NOT a bomb, they still didn't let him take it on the plane.

There's also a warning in the article about carrying 'suspicious' items.

Portland Transportation Director Jeffrey Monroe said passengers should make sure their carry-on bags don't contain items that could raise a security alert.

"There are a lot of unique things people travel with that do not seem problematic," he said. "When looked upon by a security officer, they may look suspicious."

Right. So what exactly is suspicious? A flute? A gameboy? A spindle of CDs?

Come on...learn to recognize the REAL threats and stop wasting my tax dollars on airport evacuations for flutes. Waste it on some intelligent guards instead.

I had a round container of beef jerky in my luggage.

Was before Sep 11, but i was still delayed for longer than normal.

Question you have to ask, is it better to be safe than sorry? I think we need to take some lessons from Isreal and how they handle security at airports.

soon , everyone will have to go into a plane nude , this way they will be certain that there are no weapons on board , but even then the terrorists will find a way to get there knives on board  <_<

prolly in their butthole..

What amazes me is how people want it both ways.  They get the ultra-ridiculous security at airports, then complain about flattening Afghanistan and Iraq to get rid of the terrorists and complain about US military casualties and foreign civilian losses.  If you don't want tight security then quit bitching about going to war to try to remove the threats that are inducing that need.

Here are some rather "politically incorrect" and also very insensitive ways to solve this problem.  While I don't necessarily condone them, you cannot argue against their effectiveness.

1)  Kill every Muslim in the world.  If you eliminate Islam, you're guaranteed to get rid of all Islamic extremists.

2)  Close the US borders to all foreign travel.

3)  Institute a "zero nation tolerence" policy for terrorism.  That is, any citizen of a country commits a terrorist act against the US it is an automatic declaration of war on the host country, to be followed by nuclear bombardment.

Sounds brutal, doesn't it?  The problem is how to implement effective security without annoying people to death.  One might wonder how other, less wealthy countries handle threats to airline security.  Go to Ecuador sometime.  Basically you line up on the tarmac and there are two armed guards with MP5's or AK-47's by the loading ramp.  Your luggage is hand-searched on the way to the cargo hold, and you're frisked on the way up to the plane.  They don't have problems with security on the planes, and they don't have people bitching about invasive security as nobody is about to complain to the guard with the submachinegun handy.  Basically don't do anything stupid and don't piss of the guards and you don't get detained.

I think the problem right now is the current security at the airports in the US are very much  incompetent.  The solution isn't more X-ray equipment and expensive neutron scanners, it's more effective people and less red tape.  Get good security people, train them well, pay them well, and do what's needed.  Worry less about people bitching about being searched if you're serious about airline security, and use some common sense about what you're doing and what you're looking for.

#3 doesn't sound like a bad plan, except for maybe waiting for a terrorist attack first. The way I see it, the root cause behind international discord is the existence of an international state in the first place. :)

This is pretty much what I think. Stop wasting my money on incompentent, low-paid, poorly-trained morons. I'm all for security, but at least do it RIGHT.

I concur.  I think it's rediculous that they wouldn't allow him to take the flute on the plane even afterward as well.

There must be something about beef jerky as well.  I just recently mailed out a package of air-sealed beef jerky, and I was questioned about the contents of what I was mailing.  (I had to fit it in the loose paper-like packaging.  I couldn't get it and the other part of the package to fit in a smaller box/folder.

I wonder how people manage to ship modeling clay anymore.  A brick of the grey stuff looks just like C4.

games: For most people it IS a weapon just to be naked. Truly, when you'd lay eyes on em, you'd die from sheer disgust.

Or perhaps that's just me.

Also, 2 out of 3 of your solutions, Pho, are not so much politically as morally incorrect :]

Well, quite correct, but remember we're living in a time when morality is viewed as an archaic relic from days when people were suffering under the shackles of religious oppression.  It's not needed anymore.  We live in an "enlightened" world where we have to worry more about hurting people's feelings than actually real harm.  After all, if someone wants to hurt you then YOU must have done something wrong to make them want to.  We all have to be more "sensitive" and "tolerant" so that we don't make anyone angry at us and want to hurt us.  [/sarcastic_melodrama]

fe3r the 31337 fl00t of d00m!!

Okay, so I'm a total n00b to this forum, but I still feel this needs to be said:

Bravo, Pheonix.  Very, very well put.  It is rare for me to find people who not only share my opinions to that extent, but are also that capable of summing up one's feelings on a matter in actual words.  I've never had to express my opinions in this matter for the most part, but had I, it would ideally sound a hell of a lot like that.  So, bravo.