You know how people say the US is the envy of the rest of the world? That’s probably true, until they come here and see how screwed up we really are.
“It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,” said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He’s worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.
“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take s— from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.”
That, in a nutshell is “Israelification” – a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.
Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?
Read the article to find out how they solved the airport security issue. If Israel, a place one would think has a tad higher potential for terrorist activity than the US, can do things intelligently, why can’t we?
#19 El Al’s security is not just Israel.
I flew from Munich to Vienna to Tel Aviv.
There was extensive questioning by El Al security at several points in Munich. I counted 6 stops along the way to the secured room at gate. There was a police car in front of the transportation bus and one behind. There were 4 armed guards with automatic weapons on the tarmac guarding the plane on all 4 corners.
In Vienna, I stayed on the plane for 45 minutes about a mile from the gate. There was a 4 man armored vehicle circling the plane on the tarmac. And amazingly, there was a helicopter that was scanning the woods when we landed and when we took off again.
In the USA? Either face
- Radiation from the naked scanner or
- a hairy big TSA guy who grabs my balls.
And does the naked scanner really work? It can’t see stuff hidden in “body cavities”. And it is fooled by creases in clothing.
http://goo.gl/M1XRJ
Don’t you mooks get it yet?
You’re not supposed to want to fly. (Later you won’t be supposed to want to take the train.)
The passenger airlines are going to revert to a service for the rich, who don’t wait in lines to get groped by some TSA troglodyte. They have their own planes, airports and pilots.
The trains are going to revert to freight only (after they’ve duped you into paying for high-speed corridors and expropriated huge swaths of land under eminent domain and then blown up a couple of trains and killed a few hundred passengers before letting the TSA molesters loose on your asses at the ol’ train stations.)
Then you’re going to have to pay huge amounts for stuff you were supposed to already have paid for, a better internet.
Virtual presence means that the gummint will have you by the long and straight (as opposed to the short and curlies.)
When they decide you should “shut up, slave,” they’ll just have to throw a switch.
What are you gonna do bout it?
Write an email to the editor? There won’t be a paper left (and they’ll have pulled your plug.)
Write a letter to your congress-critter? There won’t be a post office left.
Obama was elected therefore I believe the majority of Americans judgment on character would not work at our airports.
Stolen from some other blog:
Hypothesis: If I write the words HAPPY DONGLE on my chest and belly with zinc oxide ointment, very thick, then let it dry and head to the airport for a scannin’… do you think the TSA scanner readers would know what the words mean? I’m guessing it’s visible in the scan through clothing…
#19, you’re argument has a glaring flaw in it.
How many international airports in Israel (3) versus how many in the US? (100s)
How many people in Israel (7,308,800) vs how many in the US? (307,006,550).
The US has around 45 times the population. It also has about 45 times the number of large international airports.
(Lets not pretend that Ketchikan International Airport in Alaska or Denver International in Colorado, or even William R. Fairchild International Airport at Port Angeles in Washington state are as well trafficked as Gen. Edward Lawrence Logan International airport in Massachusetts or the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International in Georgia.)
The reason we don’t implement proper airport security is because we don’t want to be bothered.
That’s why we hire high-school G.E.D. graduates to get their poor pathetic jollies groping our balls and our tits and asses, to DISCOURAGE us from flying.
And don’t ask about the ACLU.
When’s the last time you saw a lawyer working for the ACLU flying steerage with us proles?
Same thing for sports figures. Bet you dollars to doughnuts that security doesn’t apply to a plane full of jocks on their way to defeat at the hands of some other bunch of jocks. (‘Sides, who’d care? They’re interchangeable anyway. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s unknown. The Taliban used to hold executions in the sports stadia in Kabul.)
We’re idiots for paying them that well.
As usual, the crazies have it backwards.
The fact that we have many more airports than Israel is precisely why we need a system like Israel’s.
The Israeli system is wonderfully scalable, unlike our pathetic system. How do scale to handle new threats like the expected bomb hidden in vagina or baby bomb.
Where are the grow-ups to deal with the problem?
In a perfect world the US would implement Israeli style security but they would never find enough qualified people. The employees at El Al and Ben Gurion have a solid military background. In Israel the best and brightest go into the military and excel in their careers based on their experiences there.
In the US the TSA is made up of people who would otherwise not have a job at all. It is a huge gov’t program to keep people employed doing crap jobs.
Also, as someone else pointed out the USA is not anyones envy anymore. I moved to Israel a year ago and enjoy a higher standard of living for less money and have a lower carbon footprint.
Head to post #16 to see a real live sheeple without arguments.
#27 A PC sheeple crying for the implementation of passenger profiling. The things one has to read.
Dallas, you have a totally false view of the fundamentals of the Republican Party. At least, those that it espoused just a couple of decades ago. The TSA is an afront to those ideals because it necessarily creates bigger government, draws more taxes and impinges further on freedom. The TSA has been single-handedly responsible for this aerospace engineer’s progressive loathing of the thought of actually taking a flight somewhere. I would be the one telling them “don’t touch my junk” and all hell would break loose when they tried getting their supervisors involved.
The US, in its current state, will never adopt the Israeli model. For one thing, the US is largely anti-Semitic right now. That, in itself, is scary. To admit that Israel is doing something better (by far) than we are would be a matter of world humiliation. To turn to them and offend Obama’s Muslim brothers would be tantamount to an act of war.
Of course, I also have an elitist attitude. The majority of TSA employees have double-digit IQs (and I’m being kind in giving them that) and don’t give a rat’s ass about security or anything other than the fact that they have a cushy government job AND for a few seconds or a couple of hours, they hold near complete power over a person’s life. How they wield that power depends on how their baby-momma treated them that morning. The Israelis are surrounded by their enemies and deal with the threat of military action every day. That, in and of itself, probably gives every man, woman and child in the nation a completely different world view than the idiots in our country.
TSA is just flat out wrong and needs to be disbanded.
This would never work in the US due to the inability to find the people that believe 100% in protecting the US, and it is up to them to protect it. If they fail, they’ve failed the country.
That is not how the US thinks. The US thinks…me…me…me…me…
Like most countries in this position, the US needs to think about why they’re a target for terrorism, and change that behavior. Just like Israel needs to ask themselves the same question, and act accordingly…
#29 Pedrito, this is not Walmart and you don’t have to direct the sheeple to the correct aisle.
I’ll just assume you’re doing your civic duty to educate the Dvorak sheeple.
Dallas and Pedro, knock off the 3rd grade crap! Everyone’s tired and bored with it!
#30: I don’t think the US population is anti-Semitic. They may be anti-Israeli policy which is a political issue with the current government. Of course, that’s a political argument that exists within Israel as well and I don’t think the anti-government Jews in Israel are generally considered to be anti-Semitic.
#30 you seem to agree with everything I said except for branding an Israeli security system as “the Israeli Security system”.
IMHO, just like people like Swiss Watches and German Engineering, they would welcome an “Israeli Security System”. Trust me, all the anti-Semitic thoughts go out the door.
Nothing states about how Israel handles their hundreds of airports and the millions that move through them yearly.
Oh that’s right cos neither happens.
And Israel is such a hotbed destination.
Cursor_
#22: You forgot to mention the freight cars which would actually be carrying people…
Actually, Tony Soprano said you put the Jews in charge of the money, and the big guys in charge of security.
So, what is this article missing? Oh yeah, the little fact that all air travel in Israel is international travel. There is almost no internal air travel at all. So all they got to do is look at your passport. If you’re a Israeli Jew, your security check is going to be a breeze. They might even pass you on without peeking at your luggage. If you’re Arab however, you might be taken aside and checked much more thoroughly. And if you’re a tourist… expect a long list of embarrassing, intrusive questions.
27 Dallas,
Israeli airport security does NOT scale. There are some major issues with trying to scale that system. Primarily, you must know that the ISA (Israeli Security Agency) is basically the government and utilizes conscripted members of Israeli society as the front lines. Civic employees are the higher ups. So, you have a completely governmental agency using conscripts to run the gates.
Secondly, Israel has 3 airports. The US has thousands. You would have to bring up EVERY airport in the US to the Israeli level or it’s pointless. So, an airport that might handle a few hundred passengers would have to be brought up to spec with o’Hare.
Thirdly, Israel is highly racist. If you’re not an Israeli Jew, you are going to get the ultimate level of screening. And while some ‘mericans might thinks that will help, I wonder how it would catch the McVeighs…