Comment by closewith
9 hours ago
> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?
This is said as an axiom, but we have protected against the motivated terrorist, as shown by the safety record.
Mitivated terrorists pivoted to driving cars into crowds and shootings.
Don't forget strapping knives to their hands and slashing into crowds.
As horrific as truck attacks, mass shootings, and suicide bombings have been, no-one have been on the same order of magnitude as airborne terrorism attacks.
The Bataclan, Las Vegas, Nice truck attack - all enormous tragedies. But compare to 9/11, Lockerbie, Flight 182, etc.
Bataclan = 132 deaths + ??? injuries
Nice Truck = 86 deaths, 458 injured
Lockerbie = 270 deaths (presumably 0 injuries)
Air India = 329 (also presumably no injuries)
3 replies →
Have we protected against the motivated terrorist, or only the motivated terrorist on an airplane?
Is your contention that there haven't been any terrorist attacks, therefore airport security isn't effective?
Because over the last 25 years, there have been a _lot_ of "successful" terrorist attacks in the West, and none of them were on planes.
My point is that if improved airport security just shifts terrorist attacks to other places, the overall safety benefit is not as great as it may at first seem.
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Exactly, air security has actually done a really good job over the last 25 years. I hope they keep improving it.