Mr. Gilmore’s publicity stunt had what I presume to be its intended effect on me. It got me thinking. By labeling himself a “suspected terrorist” he reminded me of the “trusted traveler” initiative in which certain individuals would be qualified as “trusted traveler”s and could bypass certain airport security screenings and searches. Programs such as this one, and others like TRIPS and TRIPS 2 indicate a shift in the philosophy of airport security.

I always thought that the basis for airport security was to manage unknown risk by placing a ceiling on the damage any one passenger (or perhaps a small group) could cause. The ceiling is the amount of damage an unarmed passenger can cause. By screening luggage, weapons, explosives, and other dangerous materials are not allowed onboard, along with the passenger attempting bring them on. The perspective of airport security is basically, “we don’t know who is coming to the airport with the intention of causing harm, if we can prevent weapons, explosives, etc. from getting onboard, then the worst that can happen is the damage someone can do with their hands and feet.” It reminds me of movie Westerns where the town sheriff takes the guns from dusty strangers what drift into town. Once everyone is disarmed, the most chaos these men with no names can cause is limited to bar fights. An acceptable risk level.

The main problem with this approach is that the luggage screening procedures become a single point of failure. One of the positives, however, is that it is an objective, measurable process. There are lists of banned weapons, materials that are potentially explosive and so forth. This list is available to passengers so they won’t unknowningly bring something on the banned list. The couple going camping in Utah will know to put the flare gun in the checked baggage and not in the carry-on.

The new approach is to include disarmament, but enhance it and perhaps even supercede it by assessing the security risk of every passenger and tailoring their treatment by security personnel accordingly. Now that is becoming technologically feasible (although perhaps not legally feasible yet) to instantaneously call up the entire credit, medical, job and criminal history of every passenger, airline security can try and make use of that information to assign a relative security risk measure to each.

This change in attitude is highlighted by Mr. Gilmore’s other argument with the airlines: why do you need to see my ID? You looked through my bags and my person and have concluded that I don’t have any weapons or explosives — isn’t that good enough? Under the old regime — yes, under the new regime — no.

It would be like in a Western where a dapper gentleman rides into town on his carriage and presents to the sheriff letters of reference from sheriffs in three other towns. The sheriff says, “I will have to take your hip holster and guns as is our town’s policy, but you have good references here and since I can see that you are an honorable gentleman I won’t bother checking your boots or under your jacket for hidden weapons.”

To paraphrase you, wearing the button served no good end either.

You want to fight something? Help the poor webmaster that is being arrested for having links to websites that teach how to make bombs, and writes anti-government posts. Last I heard, there is a thing called free speech that our ancesters fought for a long time ago, yet now we have to write on eggshells or face prison time.

Thanks for the ‘old stuff’ chuckle. I appreciate your point–even if I wouldn’t make the same word choice–and your dropping a nice note on my weblog’s comments. My next post will be “Why I Stopped Weblogging, and Why I Started Up Again”–or maybe I’ll milk it for two posts.

The word ‘hero’ has gotten to be a hot button for me. People apply it to broad classes–“All policemen are heroes”–when common sense would tell them that policemen as a class, like all people, vary in their heroism. Some cops are creeps similar to but worse than the people they arrest.

(I have a particular case in mind, a small-town drug cop from back home in Arkansaw.

(I forget if he’s been convicted of rape and awaiting charges on selling Ecstasy or vice-versa, but they just dismissed charges against someone against whom he’d caused his drug dog to falsely signal–when he’d hit the side of the car with his hand, the dog would ‘find drugs’.

(That ex-cop is many things, but hero is not one of them.)

A good friend, recently deceased, was a Marine colonel who saw much fighting in both Korea and Vietnam. We were talking about similar matters, and he allowed as how he’d been acquainted with four Medal of Honor recipients–two of whom he felt were men of very poor character.

I’m not sure whether one would say that only two of those four men were heroes, or that all four were heroes but that being a hero isn’t everything–I think I’d take the second tack and class heroism as a morally neutral virtue, which can just as easily serve good as it can evil.

To the anonymous poster just above me:

I agree that much of what Richard says is repugnant, but I’m not sure it’s germane to this discussion, except where he’s brought it in.

Your first example is poorly chosen–prison rape is one of America’s filthiest secrets, and I sympathize with its victims.

Richard doesn’t present that point particularly well, and he uses it, in my opinion, to bash on women who are raped, which is, as I say above, repugnant. Still, being the left-wing secular humanist Pollyanna that I am, I appreciate signs of compassion in anyone.

Devil’s Advocate is not my favorite role,

John A

Re-read BA’s own rules on this to see that Gilmore violated none of those rules and yet they still refused to carry him. Remember, they spoke with him and saw he was no threat, yet still demanded he remove the button. Safety was not an issue, so the direct order does not apply. Unless you wish to take up the argument that the captain can order anyone to do anything, just because he says so.

“I don�t know how we get from one guy being asked to take off a button to �letting authority do whatever they want without even the possibility of objection,� but that�s just too much of a leap for me to make.”

That’s why you have to be vigilent about such things, for it’s not always obvious which way a society is headed, or where it may wind up, until it’s too late to do anything about it. As for the phrase in question, since it was mine, let me clarify. The captain made an order that violated BA’s own rules of carriage, about an issue that had nothing to do with safety or security, from the reports. So when an authority figure makes a demand that is nonsensical (at least in terms of increasing safety or security), and people here leap to his defense by saying, ‘Hey, it’s his plane, he can do whatever he wants,’ I get uncomfortable. I don’t believe in giving authorities unlimited power or control. If you ‘let authority do whatever they want’, and when we raise objections we are told, ‘hey, quit making such a fuss,’ it becomes what I am talking about.

I was amazed to see Rosa Parks brought into this discussion. Her situation (being denied the right to sit wherever she wished because of her race) has little if anything to do with Gilmore’s being denied the right to wear a stupid button. What harm to society if he has to take off the button? He could have put it on again after he got off the plane!

As far as the inconvenience to the other passengers, I doubt it was that serious. Flights are delayed all the time by weather or mechanical difficulties, and passengers seem to get to their destinations. Far better for passengers to be inconvenienced than allow a disruptive, disobedient passenger to remain on board.

I don’t know how we get from one guy being asked to take off a button to “letting authority do whatever they want without even the possibility of objection,” but that’s just too much of a leap for me to make.

Besides, yes, First Amendment rights are worth inconvenience, even had it been Gilmore’s choice to turn the plane around. Throughout history, it has been the people ‘raised in a barn’, metaphorically, that have helped win the rights we now cherish, and which some people seem willing to give away for the illusion of safety, or for the politeness of not bothering others. I would gladly have met up with your Gran and had a pleasant discussion with her about rights.