TSA calls a halt to child patdowns

I think that we should just have bomb-sniffing dogs run free around the entire airport. If they smell bombs on you, they start humping your leg and barking a lot.

What if I like to have sausages in my pants??

Uh...that came out dirtier than I intended. Maybe I should think of a way to re-phrase that.

I prefer having a sausage in my pants, if only because the alternative sounds unpleasant.

I'd basically be happy if we rolled back to 2005'ish levels.

I'd be happy with pre-2001 levels, plus the reinforced cockpits and air marshals. Those are the only two things that have made a difference, and they're both relatively cheap and easy. You'll notice we haven't had a successful plane attack since 2001, no matter how hyped the scare has been.

Better trained staff would be nice too.

edited 18th Jul '11 8:22:01 AM by deathjavu

"I'd be happy with pre-2001 levels, plus the reinforced cockpits and air marshals." - deathjavu

This. Didn't the perpetrators use ceramic knives, which got past the metal detectors? The key is to protect the pilots from hijackers while they are still on the plane.

Also, we should give the flight attendants tasers and train them on how to use it, and also how to hog-tie a threatening individual until the plane lands.

Not this. If you put tasers on the plane, in the hands of every flight attendant, then it will be much easier for a trained terrorist to get them and then use them against the passengers/crew. Air Marshals are at least trained to deal with violence in the cramped quarters of an airplane; I'd be surprised if 10% of flight attendants had anything close to that sort of training, and even if most of them had martial arts classes, they probably don't know how to use them on an aisle barely wide enough to walk down comfortably.

A terrorist who got his hands on an attendant's taser would be able to (likely non-lethally) suppress a grand total of 1-3 people for approximately one minute depending on the make. And still has no way of getting into the cockpit.

edited 22nd Jul '11 8:43:22 PM by Pykrete

I'd be more worried about accidents with the tasers than them being grabbed.

Not worth it for the marginal increase in safety.

I bet you the reason why security's gone so over the top is because some corporate giants out there are making huge bloody fucktons of money off of it.

Exploitation of the government as usual.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:28:50 PM by annebeeche

I believe celticwhisper was implying something along those lines, anne. Check his posts in this thread.

If that were indeed the case, I would be 0% surprised.

Well, they've continued adult patdowns. heh

Oh, shut up.

edited 18th Jul '12 5:27:29 PM by majoraoftime

...yea, just announce it to them. i understand stopping them, but why announce it?

http://epic.org/2012/08/white-house-pulls-down-tsa-pet.html

This is the best place I could think of for this. It looks like, judging by this, that the TSA isn't going away anytime soon, even though it's, IMO, a ridiculous smokescreen to make people feel safe, despite the fact that it's accomplished absolutely nothing.