Airline security - again
No apologies for returning to this one, having moaned about it here and here a few weeks back.
Anyway, the Jerusalem Post has an excellent item on the model used at Israeli airports.
It quotes Shabtai Shoval, president and founder of Suspect Detection Systems:
"The Western concept of searching for weapons is fundamentally flawed," Shoval states definitively. "If a person has the intention to carry out an attack, then the means is secondary. Someone who wants to carry out an attack will figure out a way to do it, whether it's with one thing or with another. The person is what is important; the weapon is marginal. In fact, the person is the weapon!"
OK, so Shoval has a business to run, but I'm inclined to agree with him.
The whole item is well worth reading, but if anyone reads no further, note this: "Numerous air marshals are present on all El Al flights". I'd heard they had an armed bod on all their flights, but 'numerous' is a new one on me..
No apologies for returning to this one, having moaned about it here and here a few weeks back.
Anyway, the Jerusalem Post has an excellent item on the model used at Israeli airports.
It quotes Shabtai Shoval, president and founder of Suspect Detection Systems:
"The Western concept of searching for weapons is fundamentally flawed," Shoval states definitively. "If a person has the intention to carry out an attack, then the means is secondary. Someone who wants to carry out an attack will figure out a way to do it, whether it's with one thing or with another. The person is what is important; the weapon is marginal. In fact, the person is the weapon!"
OK, so Shoval has a business to run, but I'm inclined to agree with him.
The whole item is well worth reading, but if anyone reads no further, note this: "Numerous air marshals are present on all El Al flights". I'd heard they had an armed bod on all their flights, but 'numerous' is a new one on me..
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mate of mine was an air marshal during uni,having served a few years in the army.
Their airport security is second to none and yes there is more than one marshal per flight.
Having been to Tel Aviv airport I can assure you that it took more time than anywhere else though.They take it as a fact of life.We should.
Do the Americans use air marshalls on their flights? I agree that is someone is determined enough to carry out an atrocity, they will do it.
And no-one's messed with El Al in a long time....
Ellee - I found this on wikipedia. Looks like the Yanks had all off 33 air marshals prior to 9/11, but 'As of August, 2006, this number is estimated to be in the thousands'.
A good friend of mine is a police officer in Alabama ,when he was a patrol officer they had a phrase that they would use to justify stopping an individual
"he was walking hinky"
It means something about the man told you he was up to no good, no rational reason just a gut instinct that is rarely wrong, probably why he spends more time arresting young black males rather than little old ladies.
ps
issue every passenger with a big f*** off knife, arm the pilots with pistols and nobody will succeed in hijacking any aircraft
Ellee, of course the Americans have air marshalls on their flights and have done for atleast 20 years. They have direct radio contact with the pilot.
Around five years ago, or slightly more, the Aussies invented a bullet that would kill a person but would not pierce the skin of the plane. So they can shoot a terrorist and no doubt would take a great deal of pleasure in doing so.
I find the British incredibly backward and scary in their security arrangements, especially given that Britain is the centre of terrorism outside the ME. Personally, I would not fly on a British flight.
peter are you PCF in disguise?
the last para hints at the light side
We could severely discourage muslims from flying on all Western flights by instituting Doberman air marshals roaming the aisles at will. They could have those little jackets that say: "Working CANINE AIR MARSHALL. Please don't talk to me or try to distract me. Try to give me a treat and I will take your hand off."
Their little jackets could be in the livery of the airline.
This would keep the islamics off our planes. Could also be used, in larger number, to keep them out of our airports.
Verity I would go further
make anybody who isnt prepared to renounce Mohammed travel in a cage , trussed up like a chicken Guantanamo style. They probably just shouldnt be allowed to fly full stop, however, I am a social liberal.
rigger
I am serious about arming pilots, it makes perfect sense to me, for some reason this country has an irrational fear of weaponry in the hands of the general public,
I am in favour of people having the right to carry firearms at all times. Criminals generally do not try and attack people if they think they may be shot, that is why the USA has a lower burglary rate than the UK, switzerland is also pretty safe, this may be due to the fact that a burglar over there knows he will in all likelihood bump into an irate householder armed with an assault rifle.
Peter Hitchens, in the states in which private gun ownership is legal, there is far less crime. As they say in Texas: "An armed society is a polite society."
In Texas - and I assume, New Hampshire, Colorado, etc - you have the absolute right to kill someone who has broken into your home. All they have to do is step over the threshhold and you are free to blast their brains out. Even criminals, who as a class are in the lower percentile intelligence-wise, can figure this out. The police will also advise you to make sure you shoot to kill. Dead men can't make up stories that you invited them in and suddenly went nuts.
I too do not understand how an entire nation allowed itself to be disarmed by the deeply evil Blair. Violent crime has risen to a level undreamed of a mere 12 or 15 years go. Wait until you get super gambling casinos and the destruction will be complete.
Just out of interest in the way a society which accepts that everyone has a right to self-defence works, I called the police when I lived in Texas because there had been a persistent prowler in my yard late at night. They turned up in around five minutes and the first question they asked was: "Where do you keep your gun?"
I showed them the top drawer of my bedside table and they said, "Yeah, well, better take it out for tonight and leave it on top where you can reach it fast."
Both officers said, "If you shoot, make sure he's over the threshhold."
If you kill an intruder in Texas, you will be asked to go down to the police station the following morning and sign a statement. Meanwhile, the guy who was going to steal your possessions and possibly harm you and your family is lying in the morgue. It doesn't get much better. The assumption in Texas and other gun-owning states is, you have a right to defend your life, your family's lives and your property and the police will help you.
In Britain, they hector, "Don't take the law into your own hands!" Why not, I'd like to know? It's my law. English Common Law. The law belongs to me, not the organisation known as "the police".
Strange that Tony Blair has armed protection, isn't it? But not you?
verity
Certain states in the US are bringing in "stand your ground" laws
florida was the first to do so, prior to these laws a victim had to flee an attacker before drawing, no longer, from now on in states like Florida, if you are threatened by a criminal you can draw and fire without warning, and suprise suprise the crime rate has dropped.
If you look at the history of populations who have been disarmed by governments you may care to note that in every case genocide has been the next step.
Usually caring socialist genocide.
peter hitchens - Texas never went in for that poncy stuff. In Texas and other gun-owning states, you have never had to warn anyone that you were going to blast their brains all over your kitchen cabinets if they are in your home. The mutual understanding is, they already know that.
Nice that Florida and other states are catching up. Too bad all 50 states will never get this realistic, but the majesty of America is, you can live in a state that has capital punishment if you so choose.
I have to agree,I get well teed off with all this reasonable force bull.if they're in your house you shouldn't have to wait until they've stabbed you to shoot em.
I agree rigger
as soon as they cross the threshold they should belong to you, why the f*** should I or anybody else have to wait and see what the dirtbags intentions are.
The odd thing is most people n agree on that then we keep electing (i didn't) all these failed social workers who disaree
I would love it if somebody broke into the home secretarys house and raped his wife, we might get some action then.
As long as you keep re-electing preachy, ignorant little social workers to make your laws, you are going to suffer. As long as the Conservatives run a Wannabee Tonee, they are not going to get elected.
People are looking for an alternative to social workers, not clones.
I absolutely guarantee you: If Rudolph Guiliani came over to Britain and ran for PM, he would be in by a landslide. As it happens, he will probably run for the US presidence, to the same effect. As long as the Conservative Party fails to understand this, they will continue to lose. People will always prefer the incompetents they're familiar with to incompetents who may prove to be even worse,if tried.
We need a catastrophe to shake the country awake
The London Transport bombings weren't enough of a catastrophe to wake the country up? The news that 24 muslims had spent a year planning to hijack 10 planes over the N Atlantic wasn't a kind of wake-up call?
What will it take, Peter Hitchens? I ask this question in all seriousness.
Verity - I'm on the verge of finishing Melanie Philips' 'Londonistan', and will post a review as and when. Although the prose style is a bit Daily Mail (unsurprisingly) she makes a number of telling points. I think you might find it an interesting read.
I'll look forward to it, Croydonian. I do read her site and think she makes incisive points which no one ever actually answers, although they start throwing bits of bread at her and shouting "Mad old bat!"
I have always enjoyed the lucidity of her thinking and I like her writing, too.
By catastrophe I mean a total breakdown of society
as in New Orleans, only on a bigger scale
Peter Hitchens, your New Orleans reference is too provincial. You only know what the BBC told you.
People in New Orleans know it didn't break down, because all the intelligent people - including the 67% blacks entrepreneurial population - had, quite properly, buggered off with their families in their cars or on planes (some of them private), when it was certain that Katrina was going to hit NO.
Actually, Katrina didn't even hit NO. Just the fringes, and even that was too much for the corrupt administration of NO and Louisiana to cope with.
There was absolutely no breakdown of civil society, because civil society had taken responsibility for itself and gone, hours ahead.
What you seem to be talking about, Peter Hitchens, was the Dome, which had the dregs in it. Every society has these people who don't think it's their responsibility to help themselves. There was absolutely no "breakdown of society". The teat-suckers stayed on because no one told them to lift one foot in front of another and go to a place of safety.
I certainly look forward, Peter Hitchens, to a breakdown of civil society in Britain because it is long overdue, but to compare it to an intelligent middle class response to Katrina ruins your case.
The rich and the very rich in New Orleans are mainly black. Through generations. Doctors, dentists, owners of hardware stores and restaurants are black and white. They made their arrangements. The Dome was populated with the dregs.
Those dregs were eventually evacuated to Houston, to live in the very superior Astrodome with air-conditioning, restaurants, private rooms and so on and guess what, they're still there a year later and are outraged that the city of Houston, which so generously received them, are going to start charging them rent.
Peter Hitchens, I love your scenario, but I do not want it overlaid with the BBC's snide, diversionary lefty agenda about New Orleans. If there's going to be a civil insurrection in Britain, I like that scenario.
But it has nothing to do with your British perception of a vast state and a large city on the other side of the Atlantic which has a legal system you do not understand.
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