Magnifisyncopathological

The AP via ABCNews: Sharp Objects May Be Allowed on Planes

Airport security screeners are reportedly going to let passengers bring sharp objects on board airplanes again. Today's Washington Post says the Transportation Security Administration plans to announce security changes Friday.

Sources quoted by the paper say the new rules will allow things like scissors in carry-on bags. The reasoning is that such items are no longer regarded as the greatest threat to airline security. Homeland Security Department officials are said to be more concerned about preventing suicide bomb attacks at airports. Officials want screeners to focus more on finding things that can explode rather than things that are sharp.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Washington Post: TSA Would Allow Sharp Objects on Airliners

In a series of briefings this week, TSA Director Edmund S. "Kip" Hawley told aviation industry leaders that he plans to announce changes at airport security checkpoints that would allow scissors less than four inches long and tools, such as screwdrivers, less than seven inches long, according to people familiar with the TSA's plans.

Sometimes I worry about how younger people can seriously parody an organization that has crossed in and out of The Onion territory so often. How do you calibrate your satire meter in this environment?

Faced with a tighter budget and morale problems among its workforce, the TSA says its new policy changes are aimed at making the best use of limited resources.

The type of social system that both theoretically and actually makes the best use of limited resources is utterly at odds with the type of social system on which the Transportation Security Administration is based. People would rather glaze over and evade this point because they think the ends outweigh the means.

The TSA's internal studies show that carry-on-item screeners spend half of their screening time searching for cigarette lighters, a recently banned item, and that they open 1 out of every 4 bags to remove a pair of scissors, according to sources briefed by the agency.

It's been several years since I've taken a flight in this country so my first hand experience is outdated. However, given what I've heard from friends, family, and acquaintances, there are serious wait time and moron issues these days due to security.

Officials believe that other security measures now in place, such as hardened cockpit doors, would prevent a terrorist from commandeering an aircraft with box cutters or scissors.

As long as the pilot crew has the guts to stand up to someone holding a blade to the throat of a flight attendant, demanding access or the FA gets ventilated. If the captain can withstand that tremendous pressure, then the doors do their job.

However, many flight attendants do not believe sharp objects should be allowed on board. They argue that even though such items would not enable another Sept. 11, 2001-style hijacking, the items could be used as weapons against passengers or flight-crew members. "TSA needs to take a moment to reflect on why they were created in the first place -- after the world had seen how ordinary household items could create such devastation," said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which has more than 46,000 members. "When weapons are allowed back on board an aircraft, the pilots will be able to land the plane safety but the aisles will be running with blood."

CLASSIC interest group fear mongering right here! It has it all:

1. tiny kernel of truth
   
2. wild exaggeration of the danger
   
3. sloppy characterization of the threat
   
4. fantastic visual description of the danger
   
5. legitimate interest pushed at the expense of other people's freedom

It is, needless to say, simply out of the question to consider arming flight attendants or training them to punch, kick, and otherwise beat the everlovin' shit out of any asshole to presents a threat to the FAs, passengers, or aircraft. If I thought the threat of terrorism or violent passengers was great enough, I'd pay extra for a ticket on a plane with gawddamn professionals on it.

Charles Slepian, an aviation security consultant based in New York, said the TSA's proposed changes fail to take into account the safety of passengers and cabin crew. "Whenever you are serving alcohol, you have a double duty to those who are present to protect them from someone who goes off the deep end," Slepian said. "If we allow people to carry things that are really deadly weapons on board airplanes, we're inviting trouble."

Stop. Just, stop.

Jesusfuckingchrist.

Give me a house key, unsharpened pencil, or AA battery and I have a tool to permanently blind you. Give me a stereo cord from an iPod or a shoelace and I have a tool to strangle someone. Give me a CD and if I break it into shards I have a tool to slash open throats. Give me a paperclip and I have a tool to deliver biological, chemical, or radiological weapons by penetrating a person's skin. Give me an object and I have a tool with which to do what I desire.

Of course you see what I'm getting at. There are countless objects that have a structure that can multiply a human's striking, lacerating, and choking power. Sharp objects are indeed "really deadly weapons"...in the hands of a person who intends to use them that way. So are blunt objects and things that can be used as a garrote. With the standard of "it could be used as a weapon!," they've nannied their way right down to absurdity.

An absurdity which would also include banning people with martial arts skills and training from boarding a plane. I mean, let's face it: the mentality that bans weapons is a mentality that says people are not responsible for their actions. It's a mentality that sees inanimate objects as active threats, divorced from the reality that they cannot be used as "really deadly weapons" until a human chooses to use them as weapons. It is a fact that "throwing stars (a martial-arts weapon), ice picks and knives" can be, have been, and sometimes are designed to be offensive weapons. That does not negate the fact that the state has no right to regulate who possesses them. But that particular Rubicon was crossed hundreds of years ago.

So anyway; obviously then, people with latent skills that have increased their killing and maiming potential should be banned from aircraft. If we cannot be trusted to control a pair of motherfucking scissors, how can a Jeet Kune Do or Krav Maga artist be trusted to keep those skills in check? Why, it might be like a Sentient 'Flood' of Guns, arising to life on their own to injure the innocent!

Personally, I'm far more wary of someone who has effectively practiced violent take-downs, pressure points, and such. (kinda like a lot of law enforcement...) But that doesn't mean I blame or target the skill or the weapon. The individual is always responsible.

Other changes are aimed at improving morale among the agency's 43,000 employees, whose number has been cut from 55,000 three years ago. Screener turnover has reached 23 percent and many employees who were recruited to the agency in the hopes of jump-starting a federal government career have not had a raise in three years.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Yup, that's right: the honey pot has attracted flies and has bred maggots. These are your security guards and if you piss them off, I'll send my sympathies to your detention room.