How has airline security changed since the attacks on September 11th?

Answer 1

We now have to take our shoes off and go through metal dector gates or have some random zit faced kid wave us down and touch us in non appropriate ways to make sure we don't have any weapons or illegal substances on us.
I flew a month ago and was randomly selected for special screening. I had to take my shoes and hand bag off and stand in some weird machine. Then I was asked to be as still as I could while puffs of air came out of the machine and hit me in every place. Then a buzzer sounded and the door opened and I was promtped to get out and have the rest of my things searched through by, again, a zit faced kid working at the airport. They had to take samplings of my carry on bags by rubbing a white piece of cloth around the inside of my bags and then placing the cloth into yet another machine. Once my "cloths" were tested negative I was able to leave. By then they had already made me late to my flight and I had to run to the other side of Detroit Metro Airport. Fun stuff, let me tell you.

Answer 2

Don't forget the most recent issue. No liquids of any kinds onto the plane. No gels either. The only way they are allowed is if they're travel size containers of like soap and shampoo--i.e. enough for one use only. So, you'll have an added expense of buying hygiene supplies when you reach your destination if you're going to be at your destination for more than one day. If you forget, get thirsty, and buy a water or soda or coffee outside the gate's security checkpoint, you get to throw it away and then buy a whole new one inside near the airline gate. Starbuck's must've loved that change. Just gotta wonder how many "Oh sh*t, I forgot" sales they're getting now.

Answer 3

I don't know any specifics as in protocol but I do know this. My sister always carried this knife like a shank knife like something you'd see in West Side Story anyways she always carried it in her purse don't know why her man had given it to her and for some reason she always carried it in her purse. I think 3 times she forgot to take it out of her purse before getting on a plane and we would get stopped at the metal detectors but they would always let her get through with it. I was at the airport like a year ago and before leaving the house I made sure to take all the lighters out of my purse and then at the metal detectors they stopped me and I was so scared because I didn't know why they were stopping me this little bitty lighter was stuck in the side of my purse and it was setting off the metal detectors so they made me throw it away. So I would think thats a big change right?

Answer 4

definite it develop into an interior job through the united statesauthorities. i visit't grant any links cuz i'm using my telephone. the authorities. needs u 2 imagine that the muslims were behind the attacks. the authorities. did this 2 convey help forth the recent international Order. An excuse 2 attack Iraq.

Answer 5

Well prior to that I did not have to take off my shoes and almost get stripped searched and now every time I fly, every other weekend, they do.........now mind you it is not like I mind a strong handsome man checking my body!!!

Answer 6

On the surface, it is looks better, but it actually is not. Something major has to happen before any significant is done. I have enclosed an article that I have found.

Five years later: 'Safer but not safe'

By Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer | September 8, 2006

WASHINGTON --Americans are destined to worry about terrorism approximately forever.

Five years after that blue-sky Tuesday turned dark with death and rubble, longer now than the U.S. fought in each world war of the last century, the essential characteristics of the terrorists haven't changed, nor the nature of the confrontation. No treaty is possible, no truce to be had, no Mission Accomplished banner contemplated as far ahead as anyone can see.

The terrorists are endlessly sneaky, clever in some ways, almost comically bumbling in others, and seemingly replenished as fast as they can be killed or captured. Hopelessly outmatched in any head-to-head confrontation, but impossible to stomp out. And always lethal because it only takes a few with a brain wave, or one with a strapped-on bomb, to cause mass death.

Five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government says it lives every day like it's Sept. 12, 2001. That's an exaggeration -- the country is not on highest alert -- but there are, at least, both visible and invisible sentries at work always.

Combat air patrols comb the skies with new post-9/11 powers to shoot down civilian aircraft. They've logged more than 42,000 flights. Ships at sea prowl for incoming dangers with new authority to intercept suspicious vessels. Unseen eyes monitor movements and communications in ways that have never been.

The government's squishy mantra: Safer but not safe.

Expect never to hear this: We're safe. Relax.

There are indications Americans are taking a fork in the road when it comes to the impact of the threat on their lives. At first, everyone walked on eggshells.

Now, AP polling loosely finds two levels of worry based on where people live. More than half of the people in New York and Washington are concerned about their cities being attacked, polling suggests. Less than one third of Americans overall have this concern about where they live.

But half the people surveyed both in targeted cities and nationally say the attacks changed the way they live to this day. And most worried that the war in Iraq has made a terrorist attack on the U.S. more likely.

Absent another attack, a low-grade disquiet persists, one that spiked up when the British foiled the alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners in the sky. Americans boarding airplanes scan seat-mates and make snap judgments of character.

Anything suspicious trips a hair-trigger sensitivity. Nearly one in five Americans polled for AP reported suspicious activities or people in recent months.

"Now, if somebody moves toward the cockpit or somebody leans down to light their shoe, I think three people are going to jump them," Thomas Kean, the former Republican New Jersey governor who was co-chairman of the 9/11 commission, told AP. "And I think that makes me feel much more secure than anything government's done."

More secure, but not secure.

"There are an awful lot of people out there who want to do us harm," Kean went on. "And it's very hard to believe that somebody is not going to get through."

Five years later, the portrait is hardly one of a traumatized nation. Rather, a nervous one where life goes on, people travel and gather in crowds. The ban on carryon liquids and gels prompted by the recent plot was quickly adjusted so people would not be put out too much: Solid lipstick is OK, mascara is not.

Al-Qaida targeted national and economic symbols; despite its catastrophic success that one day, the New York and Washington economies are thriving, the Pentagon is whole again and the U.S., a fat target with penetrable borders and openly discussed security loopholes, has so far escaped another assault.

Yet the definition of success is as elusive as the meaning of safer.

"They say we're winning because there hasn't been a detonation of explosives in the U.S.," said Mike Scheuer, who led the CIA group that hunted Osama bin Laden until it closed last year - mission not accomplished.

"Well, al-Qaida is fighting us in two wars overseas, in Afghanistan and Iraq. ... bin Laden remains free and his organization continues to function. Our budget deficit is spiraling. The amount of money we're spending on homeland security and defense is astronomical.

"And when you look at it from bin Laden's perspective, of how he's defined this war, he's defined it as bleeding America to bankruptcy. I would say that America has been under attack every day since 9/11."

Bin Laden drifts in and out of U.S. discourse according to political expedience.

Republicans avoid mentioning him when it serves them not to remind people he's remained on the loose while Americans went into Iraq. Democrats do the same when it serves them not to remind people they still prefer Republicans on matters of terrorism, if not on much else.

Bin Laden has been out of the debate more than in, but President Bush brought him back in a big way after the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the fall campaign. Bush discussed al-Qaida's ambitions, ideology and strategy at unusual length. "Hear the words of bin Laden," he kept saying.

Bush quoted al-Qaida lieutenants and papers, too, on the forever nature of the struggle.

"There will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in Allah," Bush quoted. And he related this warning from the organization: "The whole world is an open field for us."