What Airport Scanner Technology is Best?

The best alternative is profiling. The Israelis use this method daily with great success. Unfortunately, political correctness has become official US policy and we are willing to offend millions of flyers to spare the feelings of a relative few.

Frequent flyers, like business people, that are US citizens, should have the option of submitting to a very basic background check, and having a card issued like a drivers licence, where they could be fast tracked past all lines at the airport. Scan the card, info and picture pop up, and keep on moving.

It's a shame that we've thrown anything that resembles common sense out the window.

And the public left on mercy of TSA.

Major business is from public not from business travellers.

Business travelers are the public, and here in the US make up the majority of flyers.

Anyone that flies should have the option of going through pre screening and getting what I would call a fast pass card.

People attempting to bring weapons or explosives onto a plane should be tried in front of a military tribunal as enemy combatants, and, if found guilty, executed.....No appeals. End of story.

Not true. All credible studies have shown that profiling not only does not work but produces greater risk.

I guess Israeli airport security didn't get the memo, it's working great there.

Profiling doesn't only involve the way a person looks, their are many things involved.

I don't know what studies you're reading. The US and international law enforcement agencies employ people who's job title is "profiler". It's very effective.

"Are there better alternatives available to satisfy passenger concerns?"

Don't know if it's true or not, but, rumor has it that the Israelis have a bomb proof room they direct any suspicious persons into. If explosives, or contraband is detected, the carrier and the contraband is blown to hell.

Sounds pretty effective to me.

My experience with Israeli airline passenger check in..back in '75 [1975] each passenger who was ushered aside for whatever reason - [ I had steel tent poles !!] into what seemed like a small partitioned area a couple of metres square. Questions were then asked and baggage etc checked. Whether or not the partitions were bomb proof I don't know, but I believe they were. So it would have been the bomber, their stuff and the security agent who would have gone KA-boom - without killing others. {will Mossad be looking for me??}

As for playing into 'terrorists' hands - of course you have by changing the way you used to do things to 'accommodate a threat' - 'they've' won by you changing!. But is ignoring that 'threat' the way to go??

Some sort of policy should have been adopted years ago prior to 911. We are now in a "missile race" with terrorists. As they find new ways to attack us, we develop new strategies to combat them. We are playing into their hands. This cannot go on and on. What's next for public transportation? scanners for bus terminals, railroad stations, tunnels and bridges? In an effort to be politically correct, by not profiling, the American people are paying for it and it will get worse.

So, would a Timothy McVeigh be stopped in your profiling scheme?

McVeigh didn't believe that suicide would get him to heaven. He also didn't have to go through airport security to rent a Ryder truck.

I can assure you, profiling is being employed to stop future McVeighs, as well as many measures that we don't know about, like tracking large fertilizer purchases by non farmers. Your argument is nonsense.

It wasn't an argument child. It was a question.

I gave you an answer. There is no "airport" scanning or profiling scheme that would have stopped McVeigh.

That would be an entirely different topic.

Anyone can be made to be a suicide bomber and they don't even have to be aware of it. Do I need to explain this to you?

You're onto a good point here Ron. But I think the crucial aspect of it may fail to be obvious...

The 'terrorists' are using our own tactics against us. Why? Because they're smart that's why. Because forcing the Soviet Union to commit more resources than it could afford in an absurd cold war weapons race drained them of any ability to maintain their already tenuous economy thereby resulting in the collapse of an 'evil empire'... Whether this was policy or happenstance is irrelevent, it is what happened.

There aren't ICBM's to be manufactured now, but it is still an arms race and we are now on the other side of the coin. An adaptable, well funded opposition are using hillbilly tech to confound our super-high-tech defenses which then have to be strengthened so the opposition can then confound our new-improved-even-more-super-high-tech defenses which then have to be strengthened... Until one day, the 'evil empire' is defeated...

Anybody remember the $$$$ attached to this? It's coming out of taxpayer pockets, and if we weren't spending it on 'security' more of us might be able to afford that new big screen tv for the holidays... and then the terrorists might lose.

Strip naked

not agreeing: walk home. (or swim)

Why is it that I carried a wrench on my trip out to a job site, then got it confiscated on the trip back? How is a wrench a weapon (we are talking a 6" crescent, not a 24" pipe wrench)? Same thing happened to me in 2002 when I was carrying a knife in the deep down folds of my briefcase that disappeared in about '95 - why?

Why did I also get tested for gun powder and explosives before they were even aware of the wrench? Why did they just confiscate the wrench and ask no further questions after they thought I looked like the unibomber carrying a weapon of mass destruction?

Why was the guy next to me able to smuggle his cell phone through the metal detector and the pat-down without anyone detecting it?

Why did the towel-head on the flight just saunter through the metal detector and onto the plane without anything more than a glance from the TSA? He looked with hatred at all the infidels around him, and no one seemed to care - other than the rest of the passengers on the flight.

Why is it that the airline charges me $20 to check a bag, then loses it between here and there without any stopovers? Why do I have to wait 20 minutes to claim that bag? Why does the guy unloading it throw it 25 feet onto a platform? This leads me to put everything in a carry-on and then get my tools confiscated - great plan!

Not sure what good the TSA is if they can't even do their job right????.... There has to be a better system to get people on and off an airplane. #1 I don't feel safe. #2 it has been proven that they don't catch all the problem children. #3 If you don't catch them all, is it a good idea to make sure everyone else on the plane is unarmed? #4 I am about to give up on flying all-together and start driving everywhere or turn down the work - the hassle and lack of safety is not at all worth it.

Bring on the scanners and if that does not work - profile away! There is nothing wrong with telling a Pakistani/Talibani that he cannot get on a plane!!!! If he hates us with the intensity of a thousand suns, then he can stay out of this country in the first place. Political correctness is a waste of time and innocent lives!

Profiling, based on background and other factors (similar to military security clearances) would allow issuance of national security ID cards to bypass all the nonsense. Homeland Security and TSA are entirely reactive (remove shoes because some clown tried to light his, body scanners and pat downs because another had a bomb in his underwear, etc.) Ridiculous, and if that kind of reaction persists and escalates, the terrorists will have won.

You brought up another point that I've never understood; airlines charging extra to check luggage. I realize they do it simply because they can but I've always felt that if they want to charge extra it should be for carry on. I would think airlines would want to encourage checking because it would greatly speed up and simplify boarding and departure.