So when there is a bomb on a plane...

[statman]

from explosives that someone hides inside a 'body cavity' - either from inserting them or swallowing them - what step does the TSA then go to in order to 'ensure our safety?' Gyencological and rectal exams for everyone before getting on the plane? Full body CAT Scans or MRIs for everyone? Simple fact of them matter is, suicide bombers will be willing to go to lengths that airport screenings won't be able to detect. Ultimately the only techniques that are going to give us any safety are flight manifest pre-screens with 'risk scoring' just like lenders use. If your risk is higher than X, we're going to give you hell before we let you on an airplane. If it's lower than that, we'll just send you through the old standard metal detector.

Risk profiling and highly trained interrogators at the security check points are the only things that will offer us any safety vs people who are willing to lose their lives in bring down a plane. What we're doing now is a joke...

[mUUser]

from explosives that someone hides inside a 'body cavity' - either from inserting them or swallowing them - what step does the TSA then go to in order to 'ensure our safety?' Gyencological and rectal exams for everyone before getting on the plane? Full body CAT Scans or MRIs for everyone? Simple fact of them matter is, suicide bombers will be willing to go to lengths that airport screenings won't be able to detect. Ultimately the only techniques that are going to give us any safety are flight manifest pre-screens with 'risk scoring' just like lenders use. If your risk is higher than X, we're going to give you hell before we let you on an airplane. If it's lower than that, we'll just send you through the old standard metal detector.

Risk profiling and highly trained interrogators at the security check points are the only things that will offer us any safety vs people who are willing to lose their lives in bring down a plane. What we're doing now is a joke...

Don't know if it's true or not, but I heard an "expert" on the news the other day explaining that if the US adopted EL AL techniques (which many are suggesting), that due to our far higher passenger loads, we'd need to arrive at the airport approx. 5 hours early.

[statman]

Don't know if it's true or not, but I heard an "expert" on the news the other day explaining that if the US adopted EL AL techniques (which many are suggesting), that due to our far higher passenger loads, we'd need to arrive at the airport approx. 5 hours early.

Have you seen what the TSA lines were like at OHare last Thursday? They were estimated at 3-4 hour waits. And that was BEFORE the Thanksgiving travel really started over the weekend.

And El Al uses the interview screening process on everyone - there's is not based on a data-based risk check that's done ahead of time. Such screens could eliminate almost all of the risk by flagging a a few % of travelers for more thorough checks.

And there are ways to stop people from gaming the system to figure out the models - especially when you're only likely going to be stopping a few % of people anyway: stop an equal small number of people on a purely random basis. That will screw up model decomposition for anyone trying to figure it out...

[DapperDan]

The cold harsh reality is that no one is interested in the inconvenience that real security measures would necessitate. The other issue is that we won't go to this length to try and prevent much more likely causes of death.