Twitter Reveals The Realities Of Increased Airport Security After Friday’s Attack

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by Glynnis MacNicol | 6:38 pm, December 26th, 2009

» 1 comment

popup Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members. — New York Times, Dec 26, 2009.

Now that the first shock of yesterday’s attempted bombing on Northwest Flight 253 has passed the real fallout is starting to take effect, mainly for regular travelers (like the ones who “averted disaster” yesterday) attempting travel across the country today. The Times and elsewhere are reporting on new travel restrictions, which were put in place almost immediately after yesterday’s incident was reported and it ain’t pretty:

Although transportation officials had not announced new security measures yet, Air Canada said the Transportation Security Agency would make significant changes to the way passengers are able to move about on aircraft. During the final hour of flight, customers will have to remain seated, will not be allowed access to carry-on baggage and cannot have personal belongings or other items on their laps, according to a notice on Air Canada’s Web site.

In effect, that means passengers on flights of about 90 minutes or less will not be able to get out of their seats, since they are not allowed to move about while an airplane is climbing to its cruising altitude.

In the words of Gawker’s Ryan Tate: “Airline passengers repeatedly do what TSA can’t — intercept terrorists — so let’s treat them even worse. Shameful.”

NPR reported earlier today that passengers appeared to be “taking it in stride and are very calm about it” but if you want a real sense of what it’s like to be in the air today (or waiting to be in the air today), beyond the cut and dry version the news outlets are offereing, then you need look no farther than Twitter. We put together a collection from across the Twittersphere to give you a sense of how these new restrictions are (or aren’t, as the case may be) affecting traveler’s ability to get where they’re going this holiday season.

Blogger Xeni Jardin perhaps (alas for her) provided the best report on the realities of international travel today.

Our own Rachel Sklar, who was flying domestic, noted there were less security measures than one might have presumed:

Business Insider’s John Carney, meanwhile, was apparently just hoping to find a way to the snowed-in MidWest:

And they were far from being the only ones.

See anything you think we should add? Drop us a line at tips@mediaite.com. And safe travels!

Airplane Travel, Airport Security, Detroit, Gawker, John Carney, John Dickerson, Northwest Airlines, PopGirl, Rachel Sklar, Ryan Tate, Terrorist Attack Detroit, twitter, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Xeni Jardin

http://www.uselessbeauty.com Vidiot

During the final hour of flight, customers will have to remain seated, will not be allowed access to carry-on baggage and cannot have personal belongings or other items on their laps

Really? THIS is how TSA purports to keep us safe?

I assume this will solve all of our problems, because we know no terrorists would ever dream of attacking an airplane with more than an hour to go in the flight.

TSA seems to be doing a wonderful job of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. No one has tried a shoe bomb since Richard Reid, yet we all have to take off our shoes each time. Experts have described just how difficult a liquid bomb is to assemble and ignite, yet we are all suffering from the Global War On Moisture at checkpoints across the country and around the world. (And I just love how they confiscate water bottles, toothpaste tubes, shaving cream cans and the like that are all apparently too dangerous to fly…yet they dump them all in a common trash can right at the security checkpoint.)

The way to security is not to try to combat specific tactics — terrorists and criminals can always dream up new tactics and new approaches, and if they hit on one that our “security” personnel haven’t thought of yet, they win. (If we focus too much on, say, airport security, then the terrorists will change tactics. What would a truck bomb at Disneyworld or at a Midwestern shopping mall do to make Americans feel threatened?) What we need to be doing is pouring less money and resources into defeating movie-plot threats, and more into intelligence, disruption, and interdiction of terrorist plots before they reach operational stages. NYPD, with its large Intelligence Division, is on the right track here.

One of the few security gains after 9/11 was an increased sense of responsibility for security in everyone. The weapon of surprise, which worked so well for the 9/11 hijackers, was blunted even that morning by the time Flight 93 rolled around and passengers fought back. This time a terrorist failed because passengers fought back again.