apophenia wrote:Well, the long and short is, pat downs wouldn't have prevented the terrorism they were meant to prevent, and the terrorism they would prevent is so infrequent that the pat downs are a useless joke. Pat downs are meant to do nothing more than convince paranoid people that their paranoia is justified. They wouldn't have significantly reduced loss of life in the past, and as they're regular now, they won't prevent in future, as terrorists will just find another way. (Anybody got stats on how many U.S. flights were subject to terrorism before 9/11 — I'll bet they're close to zero. Any stats post-9/11? I'll bet they're close to zero also. And it ain't a result of improved security. It's a result of the low rate of terrorist attacks against the United States. And all the pat downs in the world won't change that.
Though personally, I wouldn't mind a full body pat down, or three, or six, pat mah body down all night long.
That, I think, goes to far. The pat downs were not designed to prevent one particular kind of terrorism. They are, in part, designed to prevent kinds of terrorism that can be carried out by people bringing stuff on airplanes. I am not opposed to pat downs in principle, because people will stick stuff in the nooks and crannies, and can do great damage. The infrequency of such activity is not the issue -- first, it becomes less frequent when there are pat downs because people will know they run a risk of getting caught before getting on the plane, and second, all it takes is one horrific event, and folks will be saying "why didn't have even simple pat-down procedures at the gate? The person just walked in with plastic explosives hidden under his ball sack and in the crack of his ass."
I disagree that the pat-downs are meant to do nothing more than convince paranoid people that their paranoia is justified. Mainly, I disagree because it's not paranoia to think that terrorists might seek to damage or destroy an airplane, or take some terrorist action involving an airplane. it would be negligence not to take precautions in the face of a known risk. I see scanners, bag searches and pat downs as necessary relative to passengers boarding planes because we don't have another way to take some measure to help assure that dangerous items don't make it on the plane.
You say that "as they're regular now...terrorists will just find another way." What's the alternative? Not have them now, so that terrorists will not need to find another way?
As for the infrequency of terrorist attacks, that again is not the issue. First, what would you suggest? Just accepting that once in a while planeloads of people are going to die in the infrequent terrorist attacks? If that isn't your suggestion, then what measures would you take to try to prevent it? Second, the damage that can be wrought by a terrorist attack far exceeds the loss of life and property that day. As we saw on 9/11/01, it rocked the US and the world economy to the core, and precipitated a decade of war. What do you think would happen if a similar scale, or larger, even occurred now? You think Obama would not order a massive military response against the perpetrators and those deemed to be associated with or backing them?
