Debbie Schlussel: Unsettling: New "Self-Service" Security Aboard Delta Flights
Recently, we noted a New York port where Customs & Border Protection (CBP) asks boaters to call in to CBP and voluntary declare themselves and their belongings.
And we're very sure a lot of terrorists and others entering the U.S. from Canada by boat are ready to voluntee their activities and notify us of their entry. Especially since the article noted that many of them are drug smugglers and sundry others from the Middle East.
Well, now, Delta Airlines is utilizing the same "trustworthy" self-service security. ABC's Rhonda Schwartz (part of reporter Brian Ross' investigative team) notes that a flight attendant asked passengers to voluntarily hand over their liquids:
Delta Airline shuttle passengers on a flight out of Washington, D.C., this morning were asked to turn themselves in if they had violated new security measures."Would anyone who has improperly brought a liquid or beverage on board kindly ring the call button and identify yourself," a flight attendant announced.
Schwartz reports the predictable outcome of that dubious request:
No one did, according to passengers on the flight.
It's the same as those silly questions you used to be asked after 9/11 by ticket and/or gate agents at the airport:
* Did anyone else pack your luggage or give you anything to put in your bags?
* Was your baggage in your possession at all times?
Mohammed Atta: "Why yes, you sweet gate agent who was forced to ask me this silly question by the government, I have a bomb in my suitcase that my gay, vegan cell co-leader Ahmed packed for me, while I asked him to watch my bags overnight."
That Delta has its flight attendants ask for self-service security on a flight taking off just about a mile from the White House is kind of scary, less than a month before 9/11.
First, self-serve border "security," and now self-serve airline "security." Will the last non-terrorist left in the U.S. please turn-off the lights?
Posted by Debbie on August 21, 2006 12:44 PM to Debbie Schlussel