Security related stuff

[pecunium]

I had a miserable trip home, once I left the hotel in D.C.

Weather delayed my flight, which meant I missed my connection, and opted for the train from L.A. to SLO.

While I was at Dulles I asked if I could deputize someone to pick up my luggage (which was waiting at the airport in SLO, since it was already on the plane). I was told this wasn't allowed, since I'd need to show ID.

But it got me thinking. If I took a bump, and had a bomb in my bag, the bag would go on the plane, and I wouldn't.

To make things more amusing, when I told Maia I wanted to go get my bag, she said we could drive to the airport, but the bag was home already, since the had called her, and told her she could come and get it. This is amusing, because they called her on the landline, which wasn't on the bag, so they used a reverse directory to get it from my address; esp. because the landline isn't in my name.

Phone rings

Maia: Hello

Agent: Does Terry Karney live at this address?

Maia: Yes

Agent: Would you like to come and pick up his luggage?

Maia: Ok, do you want to know who I am?

Agent: No, we trust you.

So, anyone willing to answer a phone and say I live there can come and get my luggage.

On a different note, I pay the $15 extra to get a business class seat on the train. I do this because I want a table to spread the computer on (the snack/coffee/free wine is nice, but not worth the extra money. If I wanted them I could pay less for them in the Cafe).

No more. Because of the Londong Bombings they no longer have double-decker cars on the line (I don't know for any line other than the Pacific Surfliner). This also means the luggage racks at the ends of the cars, and the checked luggage underneath no longer exist. Maia says she heard a woman (with a large bag) told she had to sit with it so that, "if it blows up, you go with it."

Mind you, blowing a large hole in the bottom of a train one happens to be sitting in is likely to cause enough damage to make one's survivial problematic.

More to the point, nothing, and I mean nothing, stops me from walking away from it. I have spent entire trips in the Cafe car, my bag left at my seat.

I could, if I wanted, climb off the train. With a small bit of planning I could even look as though I'd taken my luggage with me (just tuck one in an outside pouch, drop my knapsack, with books and computer into it, and add some inflated ziplocks for bulk).

So, for the appearance of making me more safe, they have reduced the amount of money I'm willing to pay to ride the train (and I like the train).

I can only hope this is a temporary idiocy.

Comments

[lietya.livejournal.com]

It sounds like Britain is opting for the US model of security measures - random inconvenience and the sacrifice of all common sense on the altar of illusory increased safety. Lovely. I, too, hope it's temporary.

"So, anyone willing to answer a phone and say I live there can come and get my luggage." Ridiculous.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Years ago when Dan and I were on the outs, I left him.

Leaving him, and NY was hard (I was going to London).

So at the last minute I decided I COULD NOT GO. I was about to get on the plane and said I wasn't going on, no way, no how.

They said they could not let the plane take off with my baggage. I would have to get on the plane or wait for them to find my bags and take them off.

I felt really bad for everyone and got on the plane (we left on time as far as I could tell).

They were nice and gave me tissues and diet coke, but I can't help but wonder if I worried them, afraid that I had a bomb in one of the bags and didn't want to fly with them. :/

I'm reluctant to travel far now, not out of fear, but out of impatience. All those regulations would drive me nuts.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

There's a new security policy on the commuter rail that before any train can leave the station it has to be searched. This does not prevent exactly what you mention which is: I can leave a bag at any time and quickly exit the train....

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

The no-luggage-a-passenger rule has been in force for some time--I remember it from the late 1980s. It may have gone into effect after Lockerbie. I remember one flight to Germany that sat at JFK until all the luggage without passengers had either been associated with a delayed passenger (who was very much amazed to find they'd been holding his plant--he figured that since he was late to the gate, he'd just have to get another flight) or else removed from the plane.
It seems that this was so obvious a loophole that even air security was able to notice it and figure out how to handle it.

I would hope that Amtrack etc. would be instituting explosive sniffers--either canine or electronic. This seems like the most reliable method of securing things. Given the way trains work, having a bag blow up at one end of the car is likely to derail at least that car, regardless of whatever other damage is inflicted on the car itself, or its neighbors--unless it's a mighty pitiful explosion. I'd think your best bet, if you really wanted to mess up the railroads, would be to concentrate on track and bridges. There's an awful lot of oh-my-good-where-are-we in this country, and where the railroad runs through it, it would be pretty easy to set up trouble, even with modern methods for sensing rail damage. You just do a Lawrence of Arabia, and don't blow anything up until the train's right on top of it.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The fact of the matter is, we don't do that. I have had my bags precede me on more than one occaision. The airline just moves along, and then holds the bag (or not, I had one bag which they tried to send to San Salvador, from mislabelling).

As for trains, they are so vulnerable. The City of New Orleans was derailed some years back. The perpetrators bridged the circuit on the track (designed to inform the dispatchers of breaks in the rail) and then removed a chunk of track from a curve.

I can think of several ways to make the track vulnerable to breakage. I can think of several ways to cause a train to derail. I can think of more than a few ways to cause the track to blow when a train is on it.

I can do most of those without being anywhere near the train when it happens.


TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

In your case, is your luggage getting special military consideration? Because I think civilian luggage doesn't get treated that way, unless the airline lost it, and has to get it back to you.

I was thinking about that derailment, too. My landlord works for a railroad, so I've heard enough of his take on it to twitch over the possibilities, and, well, the possibilities are scary. Given some of the freight they ship, mucking with a passenger train would be a second-rate attack compared to derailing a few chemical tank cars in a populated area. Of course, on commuter trains it would have a quality of life effect, with people stressing over using the trains to get around, but for a really gaudy attack, the tank cars would get my vote.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

There is nothing on my bags, nor yet on my tickets, which says military, so that can't be it (the one which was sent to San Salvador (well only as far as Miami) was, to be fair, some 20 years ago, and the issues weren't (in the states) seen as all that pressing.

If I knew the schedule for some of those trains, it would be trivial to damage the tracks enough to make them fail.

Sometime (if you want to have waking nightmares) I can tell you some of the things we've thought up in combatting terrorism classes. Things like chemical attacks on Las Vegas. Stuff that would be a done deal, and established before anyone figured out the cause, much less started to react.

And all done over the counter,with no real paper trail (or at least falsifiable) evidence.

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

That's odd, because I thought it was pretty much a standard precaution nowadays.

Nightmares? TK, at least once a week, as I drive to work, crossing the Cumberland River on my way, I think: There are three interstate highways passing through Nashville, and a major railroad (CSX). Only one interstate route does not require you to cross the river (I-40 E-W/W-E), and only one rail route (South to East). How much would it mess up transportation to remove not just the interstate and railway bridges, but the local route bridges as well? Only one of them was built to earthquake standards; not all have been well-maintained. Dropping a bridge is not an exercise for amateurs, but it's a fairly well-documented procedure for military engineers, and I'm sure Al-Quaeida could find someone with hands-on experience, if they wanted to. You wouldn't even have to aim for casualties--removing the bridges in off-peak hours would still have a calamitous effect on the city, and a bad one on nationwide transportation. Do I think this is a novel idea? No. Do I think we have adequate security for bridges in major river cities, like Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and so on? No. I suspect it's not flashy enough for our friends at DHS.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Bridges are hard. As you say to blow one takes training.

Doing it wrong would make a hassle, but not casualties, and so isn't really a good target.

Doing it right would take time, and is likely to get someone caught.

Dams, on the other hand, aren't that hard to blow; though you'll forgive me for not going into particulars.

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

No, I live in the land of the TVA, and have seen too many things on the History Channel about the Damn Busters besides the Johnstown Flood and other collapses. Once you get a crack established it's only a matter of time. Letting the two just upstream from Nashville go would be highly messy, and there are plenty of others in this state.

As for bridges, it would depend on whether the results of no more than severe damage, rather than outright collapse, were seen as worth the effort. Considering the amount of truck traffic we have through here on a daily basis, losing the ability to cross the river for even several days would be bad for the trucking companies, and whoever was depending on them. The nearest brdiges outside of Nashville would involve detours through small towns that aren't ready to handle the flow of truck traffic. Going after the railroad bridges on the Mississippi would amount to severe economic warfare; for which reason I hope that the railroads, at least, have had the sense to set up some good security systems at those locations. Luckily, Osama's children have so far shown a preference for horror rather than economic warfare.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That's because they are waging a dramatic campaign, about justice, not an actual war.

The scary thing about dams, is we build them in series. Take out an upstream dam and the whole thing can unzip.

TK

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Oh, good grief. But really, it's just more of the same "let's spend a little money on cosmetic fixes that will fool the masses into thinking they're safer while ignoring any methods that might actually make us safer" that this administration has been pursuing for the last 4 years.