Today I finally came home for a night in my own bed. However, the trip from Orange County, California earlier today had me believing I might not ever get back. As you know, thanks to some more Islamist terrorist freaks, the airports are a zoo, you can’t carry your toothpaste onto the plane, and you better have time to make travelling a few hundred miles an all day (at minimum) event. As I reflect on the day’s events I can’t help but question whether or not my absolute security is worth the price to my freedom.
How wonderful is a country where you can’t travel from one city to next while having a Gatorade? I know it is a small price to pay for personal safety but is it going to end anywhere? Having our mail searched? phone calls listened to? emails indexed and databased? making it impossible to fly? giving up our Gatorade? There has got to be a more strategic and less invasive way to go about all of this.
Support them or hate them, I don’t really care, but it is generally considered fact that the Israeli airlines are the most secure in the world. Many feel this is because they specifically use profiling to identify and investigate “high risk” passengers. Today an Indian (not even Middle Eastern) was walking through the airport and everyone was staring at him (tho trying not to). It made me think about whether or not this is really fair.
Profiling in this way, I decided, clearly is NOT fair at the individual level. That I think is undisputable given the vast majority of Middle Easterners are, of course, no threat to a plane full of people. Yet statistically speaking, there is probably no denying the fact that if resources are limited and you can only search so many people, expending those resources on the highest risk group of people is the most likely way to find a plot like that uncovered recently.
Perhaps the freedom of some should take a hit for the personal liberty of the rest of us? I really couldn’t decide, I’ll let you know if I figure anything out, but I damn sure want my Gatorade back on the airplane.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Now I hear in London (and under consideration here), consumer elctronics may be banned on flights. I spend 6 hours a week on an airplane… no iPod, no computer, etc. just won’t work.
August 11th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Since I was coming out of the biggest mess of all on Thursday morning, Seattle International, I concur that there is a problem. At one point, I was the last guy in the line that held 20,000 people. They found no bombs, spent millions of dollars, and made everyone of us miss our flights to go later on a standby. I propose that every passenger be given a very big knife and instructed to whack off the head of anyone who pulls a bomb out of their carry on. The passengers who were heroic in Pennsylvania didn’t suffer as much when their plane went down as I did standing in line Thursday for 4 and one half hours to finally be inspected. The terriorists have already won.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Nice dad, good call. I’m glad someone besides me who considers themselves to be “conservative” sees this clearly. Terrosists have won when I, the average American, live a less happy life because of their BULLSHIT. This is all political crap. I think that if we did save one plane full of human lives it would be worth it but THAT WON’T HAPPEN. I dare a suicide bomber to sit next to me, when I have one good sharp folding knife (like I used to carry in the hardware store everyday), and pull ANY suspicious looking object out of his bag. In reflection, seems like gun control to me, take more rights/freedom away from good people and life becomes more dangerous.