Airport Security
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that employs contradictory language. If someone were to ask me to give an example of an oxymoron I would have to say airport security. Yes airport security has become an oxymoron for the reason that it really doesn't exist. Sure we have spent billions of dollars lining the pockets of companies that sell us elaborate machines that are supposed to be able to pick out people that are carrying illegal objects, but the truth is they don't even do this well. Let's look at a recent problem at John F. Kennedy Airport, in New York City. With all this elaborate machinery on-site, someone was able to walk through the wrong door. What does this prove to you? I know what it proves to me, it proves that there are doors that lead to other areas that are not even locked or guarded. But before we get into airport security too deeply, let's check out the new body scanning machines.
Plane On Strip First of all, just the idea of the machines have stopped many an elderly citizen from traveling by air. Why is this you might ask? The answer is humiliation. Many elderly citizens with things like adult diapers, different types of pads, safety pins and prosthetic devices, are ashamed that this will become public knowledge. We are told that these machines are able to pick up devices that are being hidden on the human body. The way they work is to take an outline of our naked bodies below are clothing. Supposedly these photos are never saved and never sent anywhere, because the machines lack that capability. Is this true? Many news agencies have been reporting on the fact that the machines, which run on windows XP which has been known to have been hacked on different occasions, have the facility to save pictures to a hard drive and also to send them using standard computer technology. Have these pictures been saved and have they been sent anywhere? We have no way to know the answer to those questions, what the different news agencies state is that they have found documents under the freedom of information act that show that what we are told that the machines not being able do this, is not true. New evidence is coming out that seems to indicate that the machines themselves cannot detect powdered substances. If this is true, and it seems to be, this puts the machines at a large disadvantage. Another problem with the scanning machines is that the ones in this country put out radiation. Every time a passenger is put through the machine they receive a tiny dose of radiation, if the machine is adjusted correctly. While admittedly the dose is extremely small, if the machine is maintained correctly, we are trusting that these machines are receiving the proper maintenance. Even if they are, why should we have to be a radiated? It is being said that some scanning machines in other countries do not put out radiation at all, since they use a different type of system to create a similar image. If this is the case, why are we being forced to use inferior machines?
Terminal When we talk about airport security, we have to have a much broader scope than just checking passengers, yet this doesn't seem to have sunk in very well in this country. Airports are not only composed of the passenger terminals. They are composed of many other areas where maintenance is performed, food is brought in and planes take off and land, just to mention a few. Even in the terminals that are supposedly secure, there are ways for people to get into areas where they shouldn't be. It sort of reminds me of a bomber that put on an Iraqi military uniform and was let into a barracks, which he blew up and killed over 40 Iraqi policemen. The way terminals are set up, if someone walked into one wearing a Port Authority policeman's uniform, he probably wouldn't be stopped. The people that clean the terminal and those that clean the planes come from many different walks of life. Who is to say that one of these people is not a terrorist? When a person goes for a job at a US airport, a cursory background check is performed. From what I understand, which could be incomplete, the background checks are used to weed out criminals so what is looked for is a criminal record. If this is true, that would mean that a terrorist could easily obtain one of these jobs if he or she was never arrested previously. While this may not be true for famous terrorists, it would seem to be true for the run-of-the-mill terrorist soldiers. It might even be possible for several food vendors to be terrorists and working in collaboration in one terminal. We tend to think in terms of explosives when we think about terrorists, but there are many other ways that terror can be caused. Are we really ready to detect some of these other methods. What if the terrorists decided to take out a terminal rather than take out a plane? It could be done by a vendor releasing poison gas for example, or a cleaning person releasing some substance.
Takeoff Terrorism might even be caused by some maintenance worker causing some type of damage to one or more planes that wouldn't show up until the plane was in the air. Security is something that has to be complete. If you want to protect an airport and planes from terrorist action, you have to somehow detect the identities of everyone going into that airport and regulate their movements based upon their different clearances. You cannot have even one single person getting into an airport, other than the passengers that are going to be screened, who hasn't passed ample clearances and even those people should have their movements regulated by what they need to do. An example of this might be a caterer who was allowed to drive out on the airstrip and load food onto a plane. This caterer should not be able to access any other places at the airport. Another system that should be put into place is one that can verify that anyone who comes to the airport is the person that they are supposed to be. We certainly don't want people who have false IDs and are pretending to be others, to get access to parts of the airport, yet we never hear anyone installing this type of security, since it would require everyone who works at the airport to be screened by some sort of machine, when they first report to work. Just as we now have biologically controlled guns that will only activate when the correct person uses them, airport employees should have biologically controlled identification cards, so that no one else can try and use their card to gain access anywhere. Every security measure, no matter how small, usually slows down the airport operation, but maybe changing the way things are done, or even when they are done, can speed up the process. Every security procedures that we take at an American airport, must also be followed in a foreign airport that is sending planes to the United States. This means that we have to rely on others to be as careful as we are. Piling duplication and useless measures of security upon passengers is not the answer. While security must be complete, overkill does not help anyone. I have heard that even body scanners can be beat by those in the know. Unfortunately for us, in a way the terrorists have already won. They have done this by taking away our freedom to travel, since many of us will no longer fly. |
