tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10438070.post5866639262383666867..comments2023-10-17T05:07:52.056-05:00Comments on Thunder Tales: Feeling Secure?Ed Rasimushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13667325554289268659noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10438070.post-79908348931570532782012-05-16T11:56:19.155-05:002012-05-16T11:56:19.155-05:00It is my misfortune to go through it several times...It is my misfortune to go through it several times a month. They are constantly tightening the screws on their flawed approaches to catching a subset of the threats.<br /><br />The demand that you completely empty your pockets before entering the cyberporn kiosk says it all -- $200k apiece for a machine that apparently cannot tell a weapon from a napkin?<br /><br />A trip back from Shanghai last year was an interesting study in contrast. It was my first time there, so I arrived 'way ahead of my flight, figuring that a Communist country would have a fairly intrusive approach to security. <br /><br />What I actually encountered was commonsensical and magnetometer-based. The lines were short, too, both at security and at passport control; their secret appeared to be having enough booths with enough staff to handle the expected number of passengers. <br /><br />What's more, they were reasonably nice about it all -- quite the contrast to the clumsy authoritarianism of some TSA checkpoints. <br /><br />Meanwhile, back in the States, we have tragicomic episodes like this:<br />http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/10/national/a151154D43.DTL<br /><br />Not sure which makes me feel safer -- that a baby (but not the parents) was on the no-fly list, or that someone who had been put on the no-fly list (even by absurd mistake) made it onto the plane before anyone twigged to it. Not when making the reservation, or checking in and obtaining the physical ticket -- on the plane. What are they using to process all that information they demand -- a Rolodex and an abacus?Ad absurdum per asperahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07538158536245681117noreply@blogger.com