Tag Archives: Terrorism
If I wanted to bomb an airliner…
Sharm-el-Sheikh Airport - CC / Flickr
…I wouldn’t do it if the airliner were leaving from the UK.
Let me explain.
I’ve recently taken return flights from the UK to Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt (to go diving in Dahab), and my parents have flown to and from Morocco, returning to the UK from Fez.
On the way to Egypt and Morocco we were subject to the normal checks on liquids in our hand luggage, and obliged to bin anything over 100ml, still in response to the 2006 transatlantic bomb plot.
But what about the other way around?
You can take as much liquid as you like (within reason) through security in both Fez and Sharm-el-Sheikh – I took 2 litres of water through, just to test it. Not an explosives check in sight, just a metal detector, and through went my water. Isn’t there something a bit odd about that, as there are some rather unpleasant groups operating in both Egypt and Morocco? If I wanted to bring down an airliner I sure would do it departing from there towards London rather than the other way around.
Then again there are all the fallacies of airport security full stop, not least – as explained by the classic XKCD cartoon – that you could do a whole lot of nasty things with a laptop battery, and with a glass bottle of whisky bought at duty free as well no doubt.
If I wanted to blow up a train this isn’t going to stop me
Barcelona Estació de França - CC / Flickr
I’ve seen some idiotic security controls in my time, but yesterday at Estació de França, Barcelona, beats all of them.
The station, as the name implies, is the old terminus station for trains from the north of Catalonia towards France, and it’s also the station where night trains for France depart. The station has a dozen platforms and used to have three main exits to and from the street.
Two of those exits now have a simple string barrier preventing entry and exit, and the third has a magnetic bag scanner and a single security guard sitting beside it and scowling at passengers. Every bag is supposed to go through there, even if you’re a commuter, and hence there’s a queue to get into the station.
So what can you not take on a regular train? Remember we’re not talking about Eurostar here.
The ideal airport
Plane at Berlin Tegel - CC / Flickr
There has been masses of discussion in the last few days in the UK media about airport security in light of a failed attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner. The UK and US have been jumping to come up with more technological solutions to the problems of airport security. The US has tightened controls for travellers from certain countries and the UK promises full body scanners.
To be quite frank I am unimpressed. Technological security is not an absolute – if the focus is on scanning the body, then flaws will be found in other places in the security of airports. Plus in the UK security procedures are slow and cumbersome as it is, let alone with the addition of more complex technology. Half the people operating the tech at UK airports give the impression that they don’t have a clue how to operate it anyway!
I’m also fascinated by this story of how security operates at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The Israelis are well aware of threats to security and – notably – most of the security at Tel Aviv is due to personal interaction between security personnel and passengers, and not technological solutions. Could London Heathrow possibly find people it could recruit to make a system like that work? I’ve never flown through Ben Gurion so can’t vouch for it but it gets my vote for the best overall approach to security if it’s true.
All of this has led me to reflect on overall airport design, something I always think about when I’m hanging around waiting for planes to depart or for idiots in front of me at security to realise they have coins in my pocket… so here’s my very subjective guide to how to build the perfect airport! Apart from Ben Gurion all of this comes from my personal experience.
- Security checks at London City Airport – loads of space, plenty of tables and boxes for coats, laptops etc., and clear signs. A knowledgeable business clientele knows how to play the game and everyone gets through to the gates very swiftly.
- The modern art of Oslo Gardermoen.
- The overall ambiance of Stockholm Arlanda.
- The general efficiency of Munich Franz Josef Strauss.
- The onward connections of Frankfurt International – excellent rail and road connections from beside the airport.
- The architecture of London Heathrow Terminal 5.
- The short walks to the gates at Berlin Tegel Terminal A – why don’t more airports go for hexagons?
- The view out of the window when landing at Naples Airport – Vesuvius!
I wanted to include an airport with good and clear signs to get you to the gates easily but cannot actually manage to think of one! Any ideas…?
Your neighbour is probably a terrorist
Terrorist Billboard - James Holden
There is something really incomprehensible about Britain’s approach to terrorism. It seems that the government wants to use every technological, physical and PR tactic they can to make people feel more scared safer.
The most recent is a billboard campaign from the British Transport Police urging you to snoop on your neighbours if you see some vaguely suspicious rubbish in a bin. Amusingly – via The Wardman Wire – this has resulted in a Flickr pool of spoof posters produced from James Holden’s billboard slogan generator.
This follows on from the paranoia that all kinds of buildings must have big barriers around them, everything must be looked over with CCTV, that metal detectors need to be installed in the London Underground and in London hotels, that you can take only 100ml of liquids in hand luggage into an airport (but can buy litres at duty free)… etc., etc.
Let me tell a small story to illustrate the absurdity of all of this.
It was June 2005, about 3 weeks after the London terror attacks. I got on a Number 35 bus at about 7am from Clapham Common Station, heading towards Clapham Junction. The ground floor of the double decker was largely deserted, a couple of people at the back, and a huge bag just left on the wheel arch at the front of the bus. My first thought: who does that belong to? I enquired urgently of the driver who shrugged his shoulders in a blaze fashion. I asked the other passengers and discovered the bag belonged to a guy right at the back of the bus, about 5m from the bag. OK, my fear reduced.
But what about others getting into the bus for the rest of the journey? More than 20 people got on the bus over the 10 minutes of the journey, and not one of them raised an eyebrow about the large bag at the front. All of this despite advertising on London transport about reporting anything suspicious. Individuals do not look out for each other, and a billboard campaign is not going to help; in fact it is likely to make people more suspicious of each other, which is precisely the wrong outcome.
Why, oh why, does the UK always try to deal with the symptoms of terrorism, not the root causes?
The UK needs to emphasise tolerance and understanding, community cohesion and trust. Billboards, metal detectors, bomb barriers etc. are surely not going to manage that. Beyond the UK we heed a decent development aid policy and liberal approach to trade into Europe; reduce economic disparities between the developed and developing world.
In short we need to answer why people allegedly want to blow themselves up on British soil and not try to find every possible way to stop them doing it which is where the government seems to be putting its efforts currently.