My, my. Look at this:
Before I get started on the article, I have to ask: just what kind of air security do Canadians “deserve”? How can you tell who deserves security, and how much, and what kind? Do some people deserve better security than others? Do Canadians, for instance, deserve better security than Israelis, or Brazilians, or Indonesians? Do some Canadians deserve less security than others?
The only guideline that comes to mind is, of course:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. (Benjamin Franklin)
by which measure it seems that Canadians are getting exactly the air security we deserve — fuck you very much, voters — but that’s probably not the answer we all want to hear. Let’s move on.
The first problem here is that, while passengers get ever more intrusively searched as they enter “security”… well, staff don’t. And as you might expect, some of those staff members work for unpleasant people:
[Liberal Senator Colin Kenney] said the RCMP had told Senators that organized crime was present at all major airports in the country, and criminals had access “airside” — a reference to the secure zone at airports where employees can board aircraft or handle baggage and cargo before it’s loaded.
Yet the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority performed only random security checks on airport employees, searching about two per cent of staff every day.
The latest Senate report says Ottawa hasn’t acted quickly enough to fight organized crime at airports or to tighten other lax measures identified in an earlier report on airport security released in 2003.
According to that earlier report — The Myth of Security at Canadian Airports — these security gaps include inadequate background checks for people with access to aircraft on the ground, lack of screening of mail and other cargo carried on passenger jets and reduced levels of policing at many airports since the privatization of local airport authorities.
Your Tax Dollars At Work.
Smile, it gets worse.
“The committee would like to assure the public that the numerous gaps that remain are being treated with some degree of urgency by government,” the 2007 report says. “But we cannot.”
Conclusion:
- Airport security sucks.
- The relevant authorities know that it sucks.
- They don’t care.
Makes you proud, doesn’t it?
Edit: Hat tip to totalrecoil for reminding me of this news story:
- Orlando Airport Boosts Security After Gun-Smuggling Arrests (news4jax.com)
Short version: baggage handlers sneak a duffel-bag full of firearms onto a flight from Orlando to San Juan. It’s not as though there’s no threat here.
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