[geeks] [rescue] Airport Security and Rescues...

[Mike Meredith]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:31:28 -0500 (CDT), Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Ian Finder wrote:
>
> > The moral here: ALWAYS FedEx your stuff,  and F the TSA. They also
> > scratched a brand new Macbook during examination, and dropped a mac
> > plus I brought in my carry-on.
>
> #ifdef RANT
>
> What do you expect?  They're government goons.  If they actually had

The timing is amusing ... BA & BAA have just opened Terminal 5 at
Heathrow. Which has turned out to be a baggage nightmare :)

And of course both BA & BAA are private companies. Admittedly BAA have
limited competition, but it's there.

> countrymen for sitting for this asinine security theatre.  If even a
> third the people traveling would just say "No" to this stupid crap,
> the government would either have to rethink this idiocy or we could
> just watch the airline industry grind to a screeching half.

What I can't understand is what makes things more secure by taking your
luggage away from you ? I've never been happy when my luggage is taken
out of my sight. And that doesn't happen when I travel by train. Sure
current aircraft aren't well designed for everyone to carry on their
luggage, but that's a problem that could be designed away.

Security is accomplished by inspecting the luggage and including the
security of knowing that some luggage handler isn't making off with
half your luggage, it's *more* secure to inspect it in front of you.
Besides which if you discover a bomb, you don't have to go looking for
the terrorist.

If you want to see some real unhappiness with being separated from your
luggage, hang around some photography forums. They *really* don't like
being separated from B#10,000-B#100,000 of equipment :)

--
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
  'I find film very seductive ... like a woman my parents would not
like me to date. She's expensive, inconvenient, and you really can't
know you'll get what you want. But you'll be certain you'll want a
cigarette before the night is out.