If you're innocent, why should you worry?

[Banquo's Ghost]

This terrorism lark gets better by the day.

Slovak security forces planted high explosive on an innocent traveller to test their procedures. These failed, leading to the poor sap travelling by air to Dublin with a bomb in his luggage. Then they forgot to tell anyone for days, casually mentioning it so that Irish police raided the fellow and banged him up under anti-terrorism laws.

I suppose he should be grateful it wasn't the Met, who would have shot him anyway.

Far more appalling to my mind than loading volatile explosives onto a plane through negligence is the fact that completely innocent people are having bombs planted on them. Anyone could be set up this way and all the authorities would need to do is have a brief amnesia. What if this chap had been flying to a less laid-back country like China - or God forbid, the United States? Off for special rendition before anyone could say "No, honestly, it's a joke - it is crucifixion - put me back!"

So, I guess "if you've got nothing to hide, you got nothing to worry about" legislation gets ever more troubling?

[rory_20_uk]

Although theoretically I agree with that statement, the massive caveat is one is assuming nigh on infallibility of the security services / justice system.

In theory I am a proponent of the death penalty... but the cases that one hears of in USA shows that they're way off no doubt.

[CrossLOPER]

So, I guess "if you've got nothing to hide, you got nothing to worry about" legislation gets ever more troubling?

I want to know at what point this statement was actually considered logical for a reasonable individual.

[Kralizec]

That's a seriously messed up story. Besides the obvious ethical issues, why didn't they prepare for the possibility that the explosives would get past security

Moronic ideas like the one in that article aside...I've only traveled by plane 4 times in my entire life, so I'm not the best person to give his opinion about this sort of security measures.

[Kadagar_AV]

I want to know at what point this statement was actually considered logical for a reasonable individual.

Agreed...

[Crazed Rabbit]

Wow, I thought the TSA was bad. Well, they and the border patrol are, but they don't plant explosives on unwitting passengers.

On the other hand, the Slovaks used sniffer dogs, which is light years ahead of the increasingly moronic and hypochondriac policies of the TSA.

CR

[lars573]

On the other hand, the Slovaks used sniffer dogs, which is light years ahead of the increasingly moronic and hypochondriac policies of the TSA.

CR

Care to expand on that?

[Vladimir]

Dogs are cheaper and better at finding explosives.

[drone]

Dogs are cheaper and better at finding explosives.

But they require long term training and development, and someone has to pick up the poo.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Care to expand on that?

The TSA wants to check everyone's shoes - ie make them take them off for every security checkpoint - because of one attack. No more attacks have used shoes, even in Europe where they don't check shoes.

They don't let you take liquids on in large amounts (unless you trick the idiots, which is quite simple), because of a plot chemists say wouldn't have worked anyway (where UK police caught some guys prepping for a liquid explosive attack).

After the latest attempt, they had rules saying you can't have a blanket on you for the last hour of a flight. And the pilot can't tell passengers where they're located.

Basically, the mentality is one of extreme worry about the slightest danger, resulting in intrusive checks that haven't stopped anything, and security theater aimed at the biggest hype, not the most dangerous and probable attack. They have never stopped anything; they only delay and inconvenience travelers and trample their rights. Sometimes they get to thinking they're cops and can ask non plane security related questions, and arrest people who don't tell them they're salary.

We ought to have a magnetometer for detecting guns, dogs to sniff explosives, quick luggage x ray, and leave it at that. Use the extra guards to patrol undercover around security checkpoints and look for suspicious characters.

CR

[Myrddraal]

The Irish Times understands he was contacted by the Slovakian authorities on his mobile phone yesterday morning and told explosives were in his bag. Gardaí raided his flat shortly afterwards.

Can you imagine? Four days after happily arriving in Dublin you get a call from and unknown caller speaking in a foreign accent saying "You have a bomb in your bag". Minutes later the police are arresting you and cordoning off your street. I'm not sure how I'd react, but it wouldn't be pretty.

The two things that are so striking to me are:
1) Why use innocent passengers to test security, why not actors?
2) How on earth did they not notice that one had got through?!?

EDIT:

even in Europe where they don't check shoes.

They do for international flights in the UK.
The X-rays for hand luggage are pretty good in my experience. Once I had a tiny pair of scissors with plastic handles in a first aid kit in my bag and they found them. I also got asked to show them a harmonica because it appeared to be an unknown metal object which seems pretty on the ball to me. Amusingly, the Mexican guard who was searching my bag asked me to play it loud enough for the guy watching the x-ray to hear.

[HoreTore]

If there ever is an award for "most retarded policy ever", the airport security policies should get it.

I wonder when someone will blow up a bomb in that big line before the security check. Even at a small airport like Gardermoen, you should be able to kill at least a few hundred people with a bag full of explosives during rush hour.

[Subotan]

Basically, the mentality is one of extreme worry about the slightest danger, resulting in intrusive checks that haven't stopped anything, and security theater aimed at the biggest hype, not the most dangerous and probable attack. They have never stopped anything; they only delay and inconvenience travelers and trample their rights. Sometimes they get to thinking they're cops and can ask non plane security related questions, and arrest people who don't tell them they're salary.

It never seems like they're on the offensive against terrorism on planes. It's always "Don't do this because there was once a plot which involved this", as if terrorists would be stupid enough to repeat the same plan twice.

If there ever is an award for "most retarded policy ever", the airport security policies should get it.

I wonder when someone will blow up a bomb in that big line before the security check. Even at a small airport like Gardermoen, you should be able to kill at least a few hundred people with a bag full of explosives during rush hour.

That was tried at Glasgow, and was then used an an excuse for the airport to charge people extortionate amounts of money for using the short term stay car-park.

I bet the next big attack will be on a train. There are no security restrictions on using trains, and it's easier to carry a backpack aboard one than it is to carry a matchbox on to a plane.

[Beskar]

If there ever is an award for "most retarded policy ever", the airport security policies should get it.

I wonder when someone will blow up a bomb in that big line before the security check. Even at a small airport like Gardermoen, you should be able to kill at least a few hundred people with a bag full of explosives during rush hour.

Well, you know what to do for the glorious revolution then.

[Crazed Rabbit]

That was tried at Glasgow, and was then used an an excuse for the airport to charge people extortionate amounts of money for using the short term stay car-park.

I bet the next big attack will be on a train. There are no security restrictions on using trains, and it's easier to carry a backpack aboard one than it is to carry a matchbox on to a plane.

You don't have to pass any restrictions to get to the security line, which, thanks to our security measures, have large amounts of people stuffed together.

That terrorists haven't tried that suggests some things; either they're stupid, or they want to go for the symbolic attack, or they can't get people and explosives into our country easily.

Oh yeah, the no fly list doesn't work either if the terrorist can steal/obtain a credit card from a person not on the watch list.

CR

[HoreTore]

You don't have to pass any restrictions to get to the security line, which, thanks to our security measures, have large amounts of people stuffed together.

That terrorists haven't tried that suggests some things; either they're stupid, or they want to go for the symbolic attack, or they can't get people and explosives into our country easily.

I'm willing to bet that it'll happen within the next two years.

Any takers?

[Subotan]

It already happened, three years ago.
It's just a matter of time before it happenes again

[drone]

It already happened, three years ago.
It's just a matter of time before it happenes again

That's not the same. At many airports, the tensa-barrier lines at airport security easily have 200-300 people within a 50-foot radius of the center. I am very surprised this hasn't been targeted, since it would be a) bloody and b)severely disrupting. It would shut down the commercial air industry in the US for a long time and probably bankrupt it.

If the TSA was truly on the ball, they would be trying to eliminate these dangerous situations. A positive side-effect would be faster processing through the airport. Instead, it's all theater.

[CountArach]

That's just wrong...

In other innocents have nothing to worry about news, New Zealand joins the authoritarian world:

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications.

[Beskar]

That's just wrong...

In other innocents have nothing to worry about news, New Zealand joins the authoritarian world:

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications.

I mean, if you are not going on sites which are illegal, no one is going to care about how you are subscribed to "night owls r us" other than your wife, if you kept it a secret from her.

[Crazed Rabbit]

That's just wrong...

In other innocents have nothing to worry about news, New Zealand joins the authoritarian world:

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications.

The bigger government gets, the more it will invade our lives.

How To Make Your Phone Untappable

In 1991, Philip Zimmermann developed a humble-sounding electronic encryption technology known as Pretty Good Privacy. In fact, it was very good--so good that not even the federal government has been able to crack it, a fact that has made Zimmermann a folk hero to privacy advocates and a headache to law enforcement.

Now Zimmermann, a fellow at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, has found himself back in the fiery debate between federal investigators and those who oppose their snooping--this time thanks to ZRTP, a technology for encrypting Internet telephone calls. ZRTP throws a wrench in the Bush administration's controversial warrant-free wiretapping program and its proposed legal immunity for the telecommunications companies. So far, not even teams of supercomputers and cyberspies at the National Security Agency have cracked ZRTP. That means anyone who uses Zimmermann's Zfone software, a ZRTP-enabled voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) program available for free on his Web site, can skirt the feds' wiretapping altogether.

Forbes.com spoke with Zimmermann about how his small company has been able to produce an encryption product that not even the U.S. government can break, what ZRTP means for national security, and why cutting off the government's access to our phones is necessary to keep out the truly malicious spies.

CR

[HoreTore]

It already happened, three years ago.
It's just a matter of time before it happenes again

As Drone said, it's not the same. That was simply a half-arsed way of attacking the airport itself, not detonating a bag full of explosives in the security line....

[Ser Clegane]

There was an interesting article on airport security measures in this week's Der Spiegel

Are Traditional Security Methods the Best Path to Air Safety?

Rather long but worth the read IMHO.

[aimlesswanderer]

That's just wrong...

In other innocents have nothing to worry about news, New Zealand joins the authoritarian world:

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications.

Err, so is there a massive terrorist threat to the Land of the Long White Cloud, or is there a widespread insurgency among the sheep there?

Come on, no offence to New Zealanders, by why the hell would anyone want to do anything drastic to New Zealand? It's one of the most stable, inoffensive, and peaceful countries in the world! Or are they trying to find people who don't support the All Blacks, but the Wallabies (illegal!) instead? Of all the countries in the world......

[Andres]

So, now that the Slovaks have evidence that the current security policy doesn't work, what will they do to ameliorate the situation?

No more luggage and sauna dresscode?

EDIT: can somebody explain to me why retired old ladies travelling to Spain had to take out their sandals during the security checks in Zaventem last summer?
EDIT2: or is this all a big joke to test just how far passengers are willing to go? Would they agree to jump on one leg, wearing nothing but one sock and a red hat while going through security? You can only pass if your bag is yellow and you are prepared to carry it on your back while crawling on hands and knees? Is somebody having great fun watching those silly passengers doing all kind of idiotic stuff?

[Ser Clegane]

No more luggage and sauna dresscode?

hehe - from the article I linked to:

"If the British government had its way, we would have no carry-on luggage today," says Ralph Beisel, the chief executive director of the German Airports Association. And this is how August Hanning, state secretary in the Interior Ministry until recently, once summarized the security philosophy he represented more than anyone else in Germany: "We still have a lot of latitude before we start undressing air passengers down to their underwear."

[gaelic cowboy]

The idiots apparently contacted Serviceair about the bomb unfortunately Serviceair are a private company and nothing to do with airport secuity as there a private luggage handling service

[CountArach]

Err, so is there a massive terrorist threat to the Land of the Long White Cloud, or is there a widespread insurgency among the sheep there?

Official papers obtained by the Star-Times show that, despite government claims that it was done for domestic reasons, the new New Zealand spying capabilities are part of a push by United States agencies to have standardised surveillance capabilities available for their use from governments worldwide.

While US civil liberties groups unsuccessfully fought these surveillance capabilities being used on US citizens, the FBI was lobbying other governments to adopt them. FBI Director Robert Mueller III told a senate committee in March last year that the FBI needs "global reach" to fight cyber-crime and terrorism and that co-operation with "law enforcement partners" gives it "the means to leverage the collective resources of many countries".

[aimlesswanderer]

Official papers obtained by the Star-Times show that, despite government claims that it was done for domestic reasons, the new New Zealand spying capabilities are part of a push by United States agencies to have standardised surveillance capabilities available for their use from governments worldwide.

While US civil liberties groups unsuccessfully fought these surveillance capabilities being used on US citizens, the FBI was lobbying other governments to adopt them. FBI Director Robert Mueller III told a senate committee in March last year that the FBI needs "global reach" to fight cyber-crime and terrorism and that co-operation with "law enforcement partners" gives it "the means to leverage the collective resources of many countries".

Oh dear, still, one hardly thinks there will be much useful info coming out of NZ, it is likely only so they have an example to other governments... Was there no great outcry in NZ? I didn't hear about it, so it can't have been massive. NZ of all places, how, odd.

[Beskar]

It is the American NWO Global Agenda Conspiracy and American Imperialism gone wild!