Are We Now Waking Up At Last, Or Just Responding To America's Bidding?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2678737/UK-airports-alert-plot-bring-jet-Security-level-increase-set-lead-longer-queues-thousands-families-prepare-summer-breaks.html

[mushroom25]

no, they're probably exaggerating a bit of "new" intelligence so as to find new ways of intimidating and controlling us.

[piggynose]

ditto

[237SJ]

Neither. There is no "at last" - we`ve always been aware of the threat levels.

[237SJ]

You can`t be over the top where security is concerned.

[Old_Geezer]

I do not see how they can justify longer queues. They still need to achieve the same throughput and if there is more ahead of a traveller than there was previously, then they clearly have not controlled the arrival times given to those travelling. The only extra delay acceptable has to be to do with any extra checks made on the individual, not because they are getting everyone there at once and making them wait.

[Old_Geezer]

Oh you can be over the top.

How about, "Safety first, you sit there on that bench for the next eight months and don't move while we watch you and check into your past."

[Brenden]

They probably have information relevant to the UK, i am not knocking it any assistance is welcome.

[sp1814]

AOG

Your question ("Are we now waking up at last") seems to suggest that security at airports has been less than thorough, or that the threat of terrorism is not taken seriously by security services.

Having flown a couple of times this year, I assure you that at both Gatwick and Heathrow, security is taken VERY seriously.

[sunny-dave]

The real idiocy is the apparent lack of any selectivity in the level of public searching.

A family with two small children, patently white, patently going on a flight to the Costa del Sunshine with a return ticket on a charter holiday, is subject to the same procedure as a single, male, bearded, non-white, twitchy youth with a one-way ticket to somewhere he has no apparent reason to visit.

Yes - I know that (behind the scenes) some profiling has been done and he may be pulled for extra checks - but surely that should also mean that the family has a correspondingly quicker experience. But it doesn't. We are just queued up like cattle. Except for Government Ministers - because they are definitely not 'all in it together' on this one.

And don't even think of starting me on the *** useless UKBA preventing the family from a smooth re-entry to the UK - I have a whole extra rant on that one.

[Gromit]

I don't know if you have flown recently AOG, but the security for the last few years has been very very tight. It is very intrusive and causes the traveller great hassle, but we put up with it because we assume it makes us more safe.

The US telling us what to do is a bit rich. On September 11th four planes were separately hijacked. Showed up what a complete joke their security was.

[sp1814]

sunny-dave

Security at airports not only look out for terrorists, but also smugglers (currency, drugs etc, firearms etc).

Surely ethnicity doesn't come into it?

[sunny-dave]

Of course not SP - sorry, I was just a bit tetchy and making a point fairly ineptly.

[237SJ]

Most of the increased security will be going on behind the scenes and passengers won`t see a huge difference. There are procedures that take place according to the aviation threat levels which for obvious reasons are not publicised.

[237SJ]

LOL http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2014/07/02/saa-pilot-arrested-for-stripping

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

/// Your question ("Are we now waking up at last") seems to suggest that security at airports has been less than thorough, or that the threat of terrorism is not taken seriously by security services. ///

Obviously due to the easy way some British subjects with British passports now seem free to travel back and forward into middle eastern war zones, and the new type of weapons that are now available to them, plus the additional fact that these same people would not need a visa to travel to the USA, it would seem that security has not been taken seriously enough, hence the new measures now needed.

*** The UK security alert was issued after Washington Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson ordered beefed up security at foreign airports from where aircraft fly directly to the US. ***

[youngmafbog]

No this is a real threat. The liberal left of course will play it down as their right on ideas on multiculturism and let anyone in has put us all at risk.

[Gromit]

// these same people would not need a visa to travel to the USA //

Whilst the US has Visa waiver programme with the UK, that does not mean anyone can hop on a plane and expect to be allowed into the US. You have to apply for authorisation electronically before travelling (ESTA)and that is not automatically given. Someone with extensive visits to the middle east could not just board a plane for the US.