From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 20:16:04 -0800 (PST)
To: Alan Bostick <abostick@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Airport security [no such thing]
Message-ID: <199701210416.UAA28041@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


	Recall that all security is economics.  The airlines want the
appearance of security without having to pay for it.

	The '3 questions' ("Pack your luggage?  let it out of your
sight?  Taking any gifts?") originated with El Al, where they are the
introduction to a very expensive (and privacy invading) set of
screening questions.  The El Al people are trained to watch you as
they ask the questions, and respond to signs of lying or rehersal.
The Americans read the questions off the screen, and pay no attention
to your answers.

	The market, however, is irrational*, and airlines prefer to
have government imposed regulations over having to actually figure out
what works, and do it.

	*The market is irrational because statistics on what airlines
are safer than others is closely held knowledge of the FAA.

Adam


Alan Bostick wrote:

| She presented the gate agent with *four* tickets and *four* IDs.  "Where
| are these other people?" the agent asked.  "They're parking the car,"
| said the traveler.  The agent gave her all four boarding passes; and my
| companion and I were bumped to the third boarding group.
| 
| The woman in front of us was white and middle-class-looking, traveling
| with what appeared to be her family.  One wonders what would have
| happened were she a swarthy man wearing robes and a burnoose.  Or if she
| were just wearing shabby clothes. 

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume