Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 22:28:51 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at keithlynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: papers, please Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com> wrote: > I understand that, but what is he talking about here? Barry Newton <bnewton at ashcomp.com> wrote: > You can't get onto an airplane without identifying yourself. I'm perfectly willing to do so. "Hi, I'm Keith Lynch. Here's my ticket." What I object to is the idea of having to carry a passport or other government-issued picture ID for a trip within the US. If they think I'm lying when they say who I am, let them call the police and have me charged with stealing Keith Lynch's ticket. And it's not just on planes, anymore. Once this policy was proven useless on September 11th, when all 19 hijackers showed picture ID, and nobody who intended to hijack a plane that day was stopped by lack of such papers, Amtrak decided to require it too. So does Greyhound, in "some locations," and they won't tell you which ones. It's not sheer chance that I wasn't in a plane on September 11th. This policy, which I'm on record as denouncing years ago as just giving everyone a false feeling of security, has kept me off planes for years. Two years ago I took Amtrak overnight to Chicago and back for the Worldcon. > Though it seems to me that it's been that way as long as I can > remember. I flew to Los Angeles for the 1996 Worldcon, and to San Antonio for the 1997 Worldcon. Both times I was hassled for not having ID, and was lied to and told that it was "federal law," but on both round trips I was allowed on the planes. Prior to 1996, I wasn't even asked. The ID requirement was inspired by the crash of flight 800 in July of that year. A bomb was initially suspected when that 747 suddenly exploded within sight of Long Island. Though it was never explained how an ID requirement would have prevented the bombing. And in fact it eventually turned out that there was no bomb, and no crime. Just a wiring flaw. The September 11th problem was solved within a matter of hours. Not by congress or by the president, or by a plethora of odious new laws and regulations, but by the people on board flight 93. Once they learned that the rules had changed, that giving hijackers control of an airplane meant certain death for all onboard and for many more on the ground, they took back control of the plane. And in all subsequent flights where anyone attempted to break into the cockpit, the passengers stopped them. September 11th is a non-issue. Clean up the mess, bury the dead, give a fair, open, public, jury trial and appropriate punishment to any hijacker who is still living, and then continue as if America were still a free country. By changing our country to make it more like the Taliban, we're giving the terrorists enormous power over us. Potential future terrorists see this and are inspired by it. The new security measures are more likely to lead to new terrorist attacks than doing nothing at all. Airports and airplanes don't need any more security than a shopping mall. What are those national guardsmen in their camouflage uniforms carrying machine guns supposed to accomplish, anyway? Is there some danger of a major civil insurrection in an airport? Threats of a large paramilitary organization attempting to take over Dulles and BWI? Or are they just for show? Just to reassure unthinking passengers? Similarly with today's evacuation of LAX because someone found what was obviously a toy grenade. What prevents anyone from smuggling a non-metallic knife on board, and cutting throats? The fact that they have have a drivers license? Nothing stops them. But nothing stops them from cutting throats anywhere else, either. Just don't let them at the controls, no matter what. And they never will get to the controls again, unless the hijackers outnumber the passengers and crew, which isn't very likely. If the passengers on flight 93 had been allowed to carry guns, it's likely that no innocent life would have been lost on that flight. If the passengers on all flights had been allowed to carry guns, it's likely that no innocent life would have been lost at all, on September 11th or any other day. Instead of hiring federal sky marshals, why not give sky marshal training to any frequent flyer who has a clean record? Is there something about being on the federal payroll that makes someone more trustworthy? I don't think so. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.