Yes, we all know aviation security is a hassle. As a Pakistani-American citizen I know how much TSA can be bothersome, but security has come a long way and there is still much to learn. There is an intresting article on CNN about how the Israelis have been doing there security; in particular El Al airlines. They actually interview everyone that boards the aircraft and believe it or not they have not had one incident...so it must work, a technique that I think most flyers will embrace more so than the screening.
In the article I looked at this week, a poll of over 2000 American passengers showed that nearly 1/3 of Americans are more concerned about security now then they were 10 years ago, and 84% said they believe American will be hit with another attack from a citizen of a foreign country in the next 10 years.
A pair of Gallup polls last year indicated relatively few U.S. air travelers (27 percent) are upset about security procedures, but 71 percent said they'd prefer it if security procedures included profiling rather than depending on random selections for more intense security screenings. The article also says that we waste money screening "grandmothers and other passengers who pose no threat to the system," but in my opinion, if terrorist really want to cripple America they would no doubt send there Grandma's to do some damage if they found TSA not screening elder people's.
The article also said "Every action and every layer of aviation security that has been added to the system has been based on a reaction to a previous threat," Which is why I believe we should institute the Israeli system of interviewing all passengers, if we can do it while people are waiting in line, it wouldn't be so bad with time. If we really want to be serious about safety then we should have everyone going thru screeners (except the flight crew) and everyone should be interviewed, and we should wait until something bad happens to act
Interesting statistics, some of them surprising. And I agree, if someone wants to do something, they will find a whole in the existing security process.
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