I’ve really enjoyed reading Bruce Scheiner’s blog this week on airport security, as he talks with a TSA administrator. Today was the final part, and I noticed something was missing from the question lineup — what about international flights?
Think about it — the TSA does all it can do to stop mean people and bad things happening on airplanes, but only if those flights originate from within the USA.
Now, I haven’t flown internationally in a good long while, in fact the last time was returning home from my mission in Argentina in 2001. But I do remember (not knocking the country I love) that security wasn’t an issue there nearly as much as it is here, and yet we were flying straight into the U.S. So, it seems to me that there’s a huge security gap when it comes to air security — just fly from somewhere that security isn’t tight.
Not to say that the entire airport security these days isn’t completely whacked anyway, but oh well. I’d rather drive anyway.
I mainly fly international, with the exception of London, their security is much less intrusive than ours. One time landing in Bruxelles I asked a customs guy why he didn’t search me and his response was, “You’re American, everyone knows how much the US search”
Bruce has a great blog.
well, I can only speak for some countries like the UK, Austria or Germany and there the checks are very strict. The UK is the only country I know though, where they check your shoes separately…