[extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs

[Samantha Atkins]

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:33:21 +0000
Charlie Stross <charlie at antipope.org> wrote:

> 
> You bet. Which is why the latest news in the UK is that BALPA (the 
> British Air Line Pilots' Association) is telling their members that 
> they don't need to fly if they believe there's an armed stranger on 
> their flight.
> 
> BALPA's objection isn't merely to security -- airline pilots are not in 
> favour of hijackings! -- but they believe that sky marshalls will make 
> flights *less* safe. For one thing, a single sky marshall against a 
> group of hijackers may merely give them a free firearm. For another 
> thing, sky marshalls may accidentally wound or kill non-hijackers, or 
> damage the aircraft. They may be mistaken for hijackers by passengers 
> and *cause* security incidents -- if you realised the passenger in the 
> seat next to you had a concealed weapon, what would you do? And so on.
>

I would give a lot to have had an armed and trained person, marshall or civilian, on the planes involved in 9/11.   The dangers listed above are small relative to the actual tragedy that resulted at least in part from having no such person on board.  
 
> BALPA want attention focussed instead on heightening security checks 
> before passengers board the aircraft, and point to the poor quality of 
> many security staff as the biggest problem. Unfortunately it costs a 
> *LOT* more to have well-paid, professional, highly-trained airport 
> security staff than minimum wage drones plus one or two sky marshalls.
>

And what if they miss something?  Are the passengers and the potential direct and secondary victims on the ground to have no additional security?  How is this reasonable?   How does the cost of a trained security on planes compare to the staggering and still growing costs of a single incident like 9/11?

- samantha