January 2004

It's all over the news. The United States want, in their quest against terrorism, all visitors (except — for now — citizens from a number of countries) to leave their finger prints and a picture of their face when they check in to the country. It would supposedly create only 15 seconds of delay.
A lot of people said that they didn't really mind, if it would increase the security. But DOES it really?
Am I the only one to come up with the idea that terrorists will do their thing BEFORE they check in? I mean... There's no such check on any other airport, only if you come into the US. So what keeps them from taking over the plane before it lands somewhere in the US?
And then... I don't have anything to hide, but I don't want my fingerprints and face in a computer system where everyone has access to them. I demand at least THAT bit of privacy still!
But it's a secured network where your information is stored. No one can access it if they don't have the right codes!
Yeah, right! HELLO! WAKE UP!! Do you really think that what you see on TV is fiction? If you're smart with computers, you can hack your way into any system and all the info is free to grab and to publish. Internet is a great source of information, true, but it also links all of us together, it also gives out all the information about you, me, everybody, that is stored on a computer connected to the network!

And then there's the issue of having armed marshalls on board of airplanes. What kind of crap is that?
I personally think that that would make flying even more unsafe. Terrorists don't need to smuggle their own guns aboard anymore, they have the marshalls doing it for them.
But the marshalls are trained and know how to handle difficult situations!
Yeah, right. If there's two marshalls and five or six terrorists. The terrorists are also trained and know how to handle difficult situations.
But the marshalls are secretly aboard, and no one knows who the marshalls are!
Yeah, right. First of all: it's intelligence. There's ALWAYS ways in finding out information. Secrets leak, proven so many things. There's undoubtedly a mol somewhere in the system that will sell information, or dig up the information needed.
Second: the marshall is a human being. Offered enough money or threatened with the right thing, I'm sure that at least one of them will hop over to the wrong side and give a little help to the terrorists.

So there! Is it really THAT much safer with all these extra safety measures?
I don't pretend to have all the answers (I'm not paid a million bucks per year to solve those kind of problems anyway), but I think the US (and a lot of other countries) are running miles and miles behind the problems. To tackle the terrorism problem, you have to be at least one step AHEAD of them. And I think that's the biggest problem of the US.

Just my two cents...