Travel Clampdown - the US Government

Originally posted by wanderingmariner
And I wonder how long it would be before we heard of our first rogue air marshall???

We have just recently had an Air Canada Pilot going loopy in mid air!

There is no room for any fire arms at all on any flight no matter who is carrying them.

Hit one nail on the head there. Of course no one with a gun in their pocket has ever gone off on one have they? Imagine the horror in an aeroplane - I am firmly against firearms on anybody, air marshals, pilots, terrorists, in the air. Scares the pants off me [:$]

DarkAuror - no need to apologise to me, as I wasn't offended. I tried to choose my words carefully in order to convey that, but I guess I didn't.

Catsilversword, I do appreciate the sentiment about the age of people who lived through the Blitz. When I said the article referred to 'British character and people having endured the Blitz' I used the word 'and' so as not to imply one came solely from the other. My comment was an add-on to DarkAuror's reference to the IRA, which is why I didn't mention the IRA again, but I do see now that I wasn't really clear. The article did mention the IRA as well. I'm glad your reaction was to [:)] rather than to [V] !

In case anyone is interested here is the article I was referencing.

Now I will shut up let the thread return to the original topic...[:I]

And I don't think anyone has mentioned that the 'threat', if there really is one, doesn't have to originate from European flights. Anyone recall the Bojinka plot? If the people planning this weren't arrested it would have dwarfed 9/11 in terms of deaths. And all the flights were from Asian and Pacific nations. Now I'm not saying this policy should be global, just that if my terrific government is going to enact such a policy at all it should cover more than just one part of the Earth. In terms of airport security, I don't know how much you hear about it in the UK, but almost every month we hear about a successful attempt by the TSA to get fake bombs and weapons through security checkpoints. As I've written about in my trip reports, comparing the attitudes of the security officers at EWR with the ones at LHR is almost laughable. Now the media might not be reporting on the unsuccessful attempts, but it still raises a lot of concerns.

I must resist in commenting, oh! too late!

Actually, when I was in DC in October, there was a news story about TSA managing to get two fake bombs through the security checks at IAD.

Which considering that there was a huge security operation in place because of the anti-globalisation protestors protesting about the IMF and World Bank meeting held 8 blocks away from the White House, makes it laughable.

Originally posted by stars
DarkAuror - no need to apologise to me, as I wasn't offended. I tried to choose my words carefully in order to convey that, but I guess I didn't.

Catsilversword, I do appreciate the sentiment about the age of people who lived through the Blitz. When I said the article referred to 'British character and people having endured the Blitz' I used the word 'and' so as not to imply one came solely from the other. My comment was an add-on to DarkAuror's reference to the IRA, which is why I didn't mention the IRA again, but I do see now that I wasn't really clear. The article did mention the IRA as well. I'm glad your reaction was to [:)] rather than to [V] !

I think I just had this sepia image flit through my mind of war time stuff.... I guess I associate the stiff upper lip with those times, but as I wasn't around then, who really knows???!!!