| Thursday, February 7, 2002 |
00:14 - To Return to Seanbaby...
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Now, while I had myself a good hearty set of guffaws over the Seanbaby article I posted earlier today, there's something about it that I wanted to bring up and point out.
It's not about how it's right on the money. It is. Security is pretty much moot when compared to the initiative of passengers who realize that the plane they're on isn't simply being diverted to Havana, that if they just sit and let the terrorists do their thing it won't be a matter of avoiding a few box-cutter papercuts or black eyes, it'll be a matter of life or death for themselves and thousands of people on the ground. Hence the first three flights on 9/11 that crashed into their targets because the passengers thought it was just a "routine" hijacking, and the fourth-- after the passengers heard what had happened-- that did not, because the passengers stood up and started kicking nads.
See Hiker's post on the subject for more on that.
No, what I want to talk about is the fact that airport security is a joke, a joke worthy of Seanbaby-- and you know what? Everybody knows it. Even the government. Especially the government.
Here's the thing, see. Airport security is an illusion, a very carefully crafted illusion. X-ray machines and metal detectors are placed at a security checkpoint in order to convey that YOU ARE ENTERING A SECURE AREA. The purpose of this is to make the passengers feel safe. The purpose is not, or is only secondarily, to make the passengers be safe.
Hence Argenbright. Argenbright is cheap. They can run the X-ray machines; not perfectly well, true, but hiring people who can run them perfectly well would cost a helluva lot more. Ticket prices would be about twice as high, at least. And so the balance that is currently struck means that passengers get a certain amount of reassurance for a certain amount of cash outlay, and it's stable and satisfies the laws of supply and demand.
I don't mean to put this into such playing-cards-with-lives terms. I'm not trying to justify or condemn the way security is. Just to describe what's going on.
The FAA needs to meet a budget just like everybody else; the airlines have to meet their revenue numbers. We've seen what happens if they're grounded for even one day: whole airlines go out of business. It's that expensive. And an airline going under, or even missing its numbers, hits the stock market hard. It's in the entire country's interest to make sure the machinery of the airline industry moves along smoothly, and in order for that to happen, security has to match a certain features-for-price point. The three-hour lines for the X-ray machines won't last much longer, because the FAA won't pay for that level of work by security personnel for any longer than it absolutely has to-- and how long it has to is determined by how safe people feel, which is measurable by how many tickets they buy.
That's another interesting point, by the way. I've flown several times since 9/11, and frankly I've never noticed that security is that noticeably tighter. All I've noticed is that the X-ray machine line is a few minutes longer, they make you take out your laptop and send it through the machine separately and sort a few more things into different-sized bins, there are guys in fatigues with rifles standing around and looking uncertain, and people without tickets aren't allowed to go past the security checkpoint.
It's that last point that presents the only real inconvenience I've noticed about the airports. We now have to say good-bye to our loved ones before we go through the metal detector, then trundle through the long and winding terminals to our gate, there to wait for hours reading newspapers that other people have left behind, instead of spending those last few moments together and saying good-bye only at the last possible moment. Likewise, you can't meet whoever is greeting you until you've exited the baggage area-- not as soon as you get off the plane, like before. No more very-best-of-humanity exchanges between family or friends or lovers just outside the gate. Loki from Dogma would be so disappointed.
I'm told that this is a feature peculiar to American airports; in Canada and elsewhere, people without tickets have never been allowed into the secure area. Now we're just doing what everyone else does. This got me thinking: What exactly does such a measure protect against? Screening out people without tickets wouldn't keep terrorists out; they can buy tickets just as easily as anyone else can, and they can't very well get on a plane without a ticket (and a hijacked airport doesn't travel dangerously fast). I guess it might help keep the crowds from getting too thick in the secure area, and there might indeed be some merit in having people be quiet and introspective and pass the time with newspaper fragments while waiting for their flights to board instead of talking and laughing with their friends. Maybe it means they don't have to staff as many security guards throughout the terminals.
In any case, American airports really aren't set up for good-byes and greetings to occur near the screening area. There are no restaurants outside the secure area; before a recent flight, a friend and I had to eat plastic-wrapped sandwiches from a portable snack stand while sitting on luggage containers before saying good-bye. The old way will come back, and probably soon. You know why? Because the only reason it's gone now is that it's a quick, cheap way to provide more illusory security-- the passengers will think, "Hey! They're not allowing non-ticketed-passengers into the secure area. That's got to mean we're safer!" And they won't think about it too deeply, they'll walk forward with more of a spring in their step, and they'll buy tickets more readily. That's the goal.
The FAA might just as well have banned the use of laptops in the terminal. Not for any true security reason, but because it's cheap and easy to implement, and it's visible and easy to whip up a justification for it. People would quite readily think, "Well, yeah, maybe terrorists are known to use laptops to plan their operations beforehand or something," and they would absorb the inconvenience and feel more reassured that somebody is doing something. And the ticket sales would flow.
So to bring this point full circle, Seanbaby's article is spot-on, yes... but it's pointing out foibles that the FAA knows all too well, but it would just as soon people not draw attention to it. It's shouting about the emperor's lack of clothes. I want to be very clear here: I'm not advocating censorship of satire or exposure like Seanbaby's... but what's it trying to accomplish? If millions of people read it, would they all demand real security instead of illusory security? Well, if that's what people decide they want, sure-- but it'll cost a lot more, in the form of sharply hiked ticket prices. And it probably wouldn't catch all that many more perps than Argenbright does already. Argenbright can catch 90% of what federal employees would catch, for 40% of the pay.
It's not just a simple matter of "We need more real security". Richard Reid would have gotten through regardless of whether the X-ray machines were being manned by feds or by contractors-- he kept his bombs in a place where they weren't equipped to check. The guy who arrived in Buenos Aires today with an axe in his head would have set off no additional sirens at the security checkpoint. Real security in air travel, ever since about 9:00AM on September 11, has been handled with great and deadly efficiency by the flight crews and the passengers themselves on the planes.
We know now that any threat made on a plane has the potential to be something we should stand up and fight with immediate and deadly force, and we also know that hijackers will not be armed with anything more dangerous than boxcutters or shoes with plastique in them. We know we can take them out very easily if we just stand up and start punching as soon as we notice something's wrong.
And so security at the airports will recede back to pre-9/11 levels, or something very like it; but the people on the planes won't let down their guard. Thus we have both real security and illusory security, handled most efficiently by those who are best able to perform the respective tasks according to their natural capacities.
I'll be flying in about a week. I'll be one of the most effective pieces of airline security in the airline industry that day. I plan to do my job to the best of my ability.
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