Congressman Issa’s call for an immediate and bipartisan Committee investigation and hearing looking at the Christmas Day terrorist incident narrowly averted on a plane heading for Detroit is well intentioned. But we could save ourselves a lot of trouble if we would simply outsource airline security to the same folks who overseeing security for El Al Airlines, the national airline of Israel.
I’m completely serious about this. El Al has been a target for decades, yet the instances of attacks have been rare. No El Al aircraft has ever been harmed by a terrorist act. The only successful hijacking in 1968 ended with no injuries or deaths to passengers or crew. The few attacks with loss of life have taken place at ticket counters in foreign airports in Rome, Vienna… and in Los Angeles in 2002. In 2008, the airline was named by Global Traveler magazine as the world’s most secure airline.
How do they do it? Passengers must report three hours before departure. All El Al terminals around the world are closely monitored for security. There are plain-clothes agents and fully armed police or military personnel who patrol the premises for explosives, suspicious behavior, and other threats. Passengers and their baggage are checked by a trained team and all passengers are individually interviewed by El Al staff to identify possible security threats. At check-in, passports and tickets are examined, and a passenger must have a security sticker on his or her ticket indicating that he or she has passed the interview or you cannot board the airplane.
All passengers’ names are checked against information from the FBI, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Scotland Yard, Shin Bet, and Interpol databases. Luggage is screened and frequently hand searched. Bags are put through a decompression chamber simulating pressures during flight that could trigger explosives. El Al is the only airline in the world that passes all luggage through such a system.Even at overseas airports, El Al doesn’t trust searches to any other organization. Its own personnel conduct all luggage searches personally, even if they are supervised by government or private security firms.
El Al flights have armed sky marshals on every international flight. All El Al pilots are former Israeli Air Force pilots. The cocktails have double doors to prevent a breach. A code is required to access the doors, and the second door will only be opened after the first door has closed and the individual is identified by the flight crew. All El Al aircraft have infrared countermeasures, developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries to defend against anti-aircraft missiles. No other airline has such a system.
El Al has been the subject of criticism that its security checks use racial profiling. The airline says there is nothing inherently racist about passenger profiling and that any special scrutiny of Muslim passengers in particular is necessary for security.
In the days after 9/11, this very idea was discussed in popular media, including in this story by CNN. Why haven’t we done everything we can to learn from the success of El Al and at least attempt to adopt some of its security measures?
Congressman Issa, I urge you to seek testimony in your hearings from El Al security experts and seek their advice on what we can do here in the United States to make air travel safer. Ask them to help us assess the failure on Northwest/Delta Flight 253 on Christmas Day. Until we do, I’ll join the ranks of many who will fly only when I “have to.” That “have to” bar has been raised quite a bit in the past week.
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Hey SDRostra –
I’m a fan of your site and commentary, but wow, is this idea ridiculous.
I’ve flown El Al. What you don’t mention is how absolutely degrading the process is. In 2003, flying from Spain to Israel, I was subjected to an extensive interrogation about my ethnic heritage, which is Jewish, though I don’t practice. They made me provide the dates of my bar mitzvah and the Torah portion I recited. Even more humiliating: I was required to sing (SING!) Hebrew school songs in front of other passengers at the gate. This wasn’t legitimate, in my mind, but intentional harassment.
I mean, if you’re all for being rejected for flights by not being Jewish enough, then sure, it’s a great idea. If your idea of security is not just profiling, but rejecting passengers on basis of ethnic origin, then, well, I don’t know what to say.
As far as other security precautions go: Their method for inspecting a bottle of wine to make sure it didn’t contain explosive was holding it up to a light. Worse: Their on-board flight protocols allow orthodox to stand up for extended periods of time to practice davening rituals. I mean, unless you reject everyone who isn’t verifiably Jewish, that’s a huge security breach: Imagine how hard it would be to maintain control of flight if people were allowed to stand up, move around, pull things from little bags for a half-hour to an hour?
Furthermore, it’s easy to extol the virtues of sky marshals on every flight when you’re talking about nation with mandatory military service. Yeah, let’s use that as a model. You can sing first.
“If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?” – Maureen Dowd
Dave:
Thanks; all of the commentary on SD Rostra is of course the individual opinion of each author; there is no “Rostra Opinion” on any subject, although clearly the authors run the gamut of Republican to Conservative and Libertarian and a hodgepodge mix of those variants. Just clarifying. Gayle, of course, is a big girl and can defend her opinions very well. (Glad to hear some folks at CityBeat read us, as we do you!)
Michael:
Dowd is often amazingly spot on!
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Dave, a lot of people find using machines that put your nude body on display for strangers to inspect pretty humiliating too. But this is exactly what America’s airports are now rushing to do. Get angry with the terrorists who’ve caused this situation, not the management of El Al airlines.
I think mandatory military service is a great idea. Men and women, just like in Israel. I’m all for it.
Libertarians believe the single most important role for government is the security and defense of our nation. High time we got our money’s worth.
Michael, when the liberal columnist Maureen Dowd criticizes the Obama Administration and the TSA as she did in the New York Times Dec. 30, you know things are bad!
Here is what “Consumer Reports” magazine reported
in 2008 after talking with the Airline Pilots Association,
among other world wide authorities:
CONSUMER REPORTS Feb. 2008
” While the U.S. has made significant efforts in aviation
security since 2001, many experts cite EL AL ISRAEL
Airlines as the benchmark for aviation security, with
double cockpit doors and more extensive passenger
and baggage screening. ”
* As usual, Gayle Falkenthal hit the Center of the Target !
The problem is that such a system would have to be implemented world wide to have any real success and it would take a heck of a lot of political will to make it happen. Heck, I wouldn’t object too much to a cavity search if I got to choose who was doing the searching.
PS: Dowd is not a fan of Obama, she is one of Hillary’s
Michael – Thanks for reading CityBeat. If you ever have any ideas for us to cover, lemme know. davem@sdcitybeat.com
For some reason, the site didn’t post my response, so here goes again.
Gayle, someone needs to revoke your Libertarian card. Correct me if I’m wrong (I’m not, unless the vast majority of Libertarian organizations are also in error), but conscription is completely antithetical to Libertarianism. Forcing citizens into government employment–whether the military or civil service–is socialism, plain and simple. Mind the consequences: In Israel, health care is both universal and mandatory, as it would be in the states under conscription. Everyone would be covered by the VA. I’m shocked you’d make such a statement.
I’m also surprised that you, as a Libertarian, would be OK with having the government (by proxy in your scenario) require you to recite prayers you don’t believe in in order to board a plane. I’m also surprised that you somehow believe that doing so somehow makes a flight more secure. As if terrorists are incapable of research and memorization.
Your comparison to body scans is also silly. It’s not as if the “nude” images are broadcast onto a hi-def monitor for other passengers to ogle at. No, the scans are viewed by security personnel only and while that might be considered humiliating, so might pat-downs. But other passengers aren’t allowed to come up and rub you up and down with their hands. No, my experience was sheer abuse of power.
Another thing you ought to keep in mind is that Israel doesn’t have nearly the amount airports as we do (12 in Israel compared to 5,300 in the US). According to some calculations, the US’s rate is one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures. El Al runs 15,000 flights per year…so, if El Al were to experience 1 terrorist attack every 1,000 years that would be on par with the current US rate. Considering El Al is only 62 years old, you’ve got a long time to wait before you can argue their flights are safer.
Oops, I guess Michael wasn’t the admin afterall. Well thank you Thor’s assistant whoever you are.
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Dave, pardon my long delayed response to your call to confiscate my Libertarian card (you said revoke but I use the term confiscate since you’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands along with a few other items).
We don’t revoke the “Catholicism Card” of Catholics who use birth control, and we don’t revoke the “Democratic Card” of Democrats who are against gay marriage. Whether the Republicans would revoke the “Conservative Card” of a Republican in favor of gay marriage is another discussion.
Thanks for participating in a robust discussion. It’s exactly what I intended.