Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Big Brother Takes To The Sky

Michael Chertoff sounds like another Bushco wingnut with this latest plan. His argument makes zero sense to me (actually, Tim Sparapani has a better grasp of the issue in this story, as far as I’m concerned).

Chertoff apparently said a week or so ago that he had to make a choice between devoting more resources to fighting terrorists on a plane that could be used to kill 3,000 people as opposed to fighting terrorists on a subway car that could be used to kill 30 people, or something like that. Why is that a choice we should have to make?

(Also, having ridden the R-3 SEPTA train from the Market East station in Philadelphia en route to West Trenton, NJ at rush hour, I can tell you that there were a hell of a lot more than 30 people on that train, so that analogy falls apart immediately, especially when you make similar comparisons to PATH in NYC, the Metro in Washington, D.C., Amtrak all over the East Coast, etc.)

Here’s an idea. Let’s ask the Israelis what they do with El Al and imitate them, or at least try anyway. When was the last time you heard about anything happening to one of their planes?

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