
How Israel handles airport security - epo
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
======
SandB0x
I have dual Israeli citizenship and have flown to and from Tel Aviv quite a
few times.

* The line interviewers are smart people, and it's seen as a good first job after military service. In other places this might be seen as a dead-end or undesirable job.

* The atmosphere in Ben Gurion is very calm because everyone feels safe (or at least I do).

* The only time I've seen any mild panic was due to my (late) great-aunt. She was a neurosurgeon, but could be alarmingly absent-minded in daily life. She'd taken my sister and I to the airport for our flight back to London, back when we were both in our teens. For some reason, my great aunt had a kind of small suitcase on wheels with her that day, and when my sister and I stood in the queue, she left it next to us and went off to find the bathroom. The line moved forwards and the suitcase didn't. The security guards spotted this fact within about 30 seconds, and started asking whose the bag was. We didn't realise it was my aunt's, and after nobody claimed it they started ushering us all back and making radio calls. When my aunt came back we all got an earful from the security staff.

~~~
tshtf
If you were an Israeli Arab, do you think you'd feel the same way about the
situation at Ben Gurion?

~~~
SandB0x
What situation? The one where everyone flies safely?

You might get a bit more attention as an Israeli Arab, or as a foreign
national, but the profiling is mostly behavioural. They might have a look
through your things, but then again they they gave my dad's luggage a load of
attention on a recent trip and he's an air force veteran.

It's also more or less impossible to distinguish (visually) Israeli Arabs and
Sephardim/Mizrahim. You're not going to get hassle for having darker skin.
I've got a hunch you haven't been to Ben Gurion or Israel, but if you did and
had a hard time then that's a shame and I hope you have a better trip at some
point in the future.

(And siculars I'm not an Israeli Arab, but valid question. I don't want to
clog this place up by discussing politics, so I'm leaving it here.)

~~~
idan
BS. Rebuttal follows.

The screeners have no problem distinguishing Israeli Arabs and Sephardic Jews.
30 seconds of conversation -- if not simpler cues such as clothing -- will
resolve any ambiguity.

Israeli Arabs might not _always_ be hassled, but they are certainly lined up
for "increased scrutiny" more often. A lot more often. I have enough friends
who can attest to this experience.

I cannot count the number of times I've flown via TLV -- let's say that I've
departed a few hundred times over the course of my life. How many times have I
been taken aside for any kind of additional screening?

Zero. Never. Ever. Every time I have flown, I've received the abbreviated
white-jew-boy questioning about my bags and whether they've been out of my
sight. That's it. Nothing about me, ever. Obviously, they deem me to be
inherently safe, else it would be wise to randomly subject me to extra
screening once in a while.

Without getting into the advisability or ethics of racial profiling, we do it
unabashedly in Israel, and that's a fact. Unlike the US, the threat profile is
relatively narrow: Arabs and/or Muslims, and the one-time Japanese
freelancers. Ergo, it makes practical sense to invest the majority of your
screening resources in one place.

As harmless-looking, pasty-white, computer-geek Israeli Jews, we feel the
touch of the security apparatus more lightly than everybody else. Don't let
that fool you into thinking that everybody has it as good as we do.

~~~
SandB0x
Idan, I don't think you're really contradicting what I've written (especially
with the Sephardic thing). I didn't deny that racial profiling took place at
all, nor did I debate its merits or ethical status, I was asserting that it's
not in any way the only factor. About your friends, it could be partly self-
fulfilling. If they think they're going to be given extra treatment they might
understandably act in a more nervous fasion, and as a result get flagged.
However I'm just speculating here.

As a fellow pasty white computer geek I've had my bags looked at on a number
of occasions and some equipment swabbed, same goes for relatives who live in
Israel. A British-Asian friend of mine went on holiday to Israel this year and
didn't get any hassle at the airport. This is all the data I have to go on.
I'm not doubting your account at all, but neither is mine "BS".

(Anyway, didn't mean for that to sound so aggressive. Drop me an email and we
can get a beer next time I visit and talk airports and code.)

~~~
ig1
As a brit I'd be more worried about them stealing my passport then giving me
hassle directly :-)

(For those not aware: Israel got caught cloning passports of Brits travelling
through their airports for identity theft purposes, despite the fact they had
made an earlier promise not to do this again)

~~~
dc2k08
It beggars belief that the EU is allowing the transfer of it's citizens
sensitive personal data there.
[http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1112/12242831...](http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1112/1224283152213.html)

~~~
bh42
Am I am saddened that I am no longer surprised that this is happening.

------
aresant
Article leaves out the very real and very big catch:

"Israel values its security, and pays for it. According to an analysis by
Bloomberg News, Israel spends around 10 times more per passenger than the
United States does."

A little more on that:

"[An analyst] estimated El Al's security bill at $100 million a year, which
amounts to $76.92 per trip by its 1.3 million passengers. Half is paid by the
Israeli government," Peter Robison wrote. The United States, in comparison,
spent in 2008 $5.74 billion to monitor and protect 735,297,000 enplanements,
or around $7.80 a passenger."

The TSA system is a production line - hire cheap unskilled labor, and train
around a process and manuals.

In the USA the Israeli version would be very difficult in addition to very
costly.

That doesn't even take into account the question of the uproar the system
would cause with the suggestion of racial profiling.

References via:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a...](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFyfihM1e3G4&refer=politics)

and

[http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay...](http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport)

~~~
credo
I disagree on both counts.

1\. Costs: I think the value of preventing a terrorist attack greatly
outweighs the $76/passenger cost of screening. Besides, it contributes a lot
of value to the economy by (a) reducing the long lines we have in our airports
today and (b) eliminating the unnecessary intrusive procedures

2\. Racial profiling: Behavioral profiling is not the same as racial
profiling. Besides do you really think that the low-paid unskilled TSA workers
don't currently do any racial profiling ?

~~~
nodata
Can I ask how are you comparing costs here?

76 dollars per passenger is an obscene amount of money: look at the dollar
totals. In terms of lives saved, the TSA is already a gigantic waste of money.
You could save a lot more lives per dollar by doing hundreds of other
different things.

~~~
alex_c
$77 per passenger is a huge amount, especially compared to the cost of a cheap
domestic flight. But what is the hidden cost of the clusterfuck that American
airports are becoming?

I would gladly pay an extra $38 per flight if it meant going through a sane,
competent, and, if not pleasant, at least not overtly hostile system.

~~~
harisenbon
Why not even make it opt in?

Ticket price plus a 38 dollar "treat me like a human being" tax.

I'd pay it.

~~~
aberkowitz
What has it come to when we have to pay more, just to be treated as humans?

~~~
chopsueyar
Capitalism?

------
idan
I am a dual citizen (IL/USA), have flown in/out of many airports around the
world, know my way around a security apparatus.

Every time the TSA pulls another ridiculous stunt in the name of "security",
these Israeli airport security consultants get interviewed to death. Here we
go again!

As before, every article on the subject stops short of highlighting the
uncomfortable truth which precludes the TSA adopting the Israeli model: a lack
of brainpower among TSA screeners.

The article correctly points out that the Israeli model is more about
evaluating the person and less about evaluating their luggage. Problem is,
evaluation implies good judgment -- a quality demonstrably lacking in enough
TSA agents as to make a generalization accurate. The TSA does not employ the
quality of manpower that it needs to in order to base its operations on
subjective character evaluations.

Even if the TSA were able to foot the bill and hire/train such manpower, it
would _still_ be unpalatable to enough people in the US that such a system
would fail. Evaluation is inherently subjective and discriminatory. There is
no impartial way to say "I'm deciding whether or not you represent a threat."
Some agents will let their personal views influence their judgment. Some
passengers will inevitably feel persecuted for their skin color, rightly or
wrongly. Several lawsuits later, the system would be neutered to the point
where agents are no longer free to exercise their judgment, and we're back to
square one.

Finally, it's worth noting that the security expert in the article is spinning
a rose-tinted tale of airport efficiency experienced mainly by Jewish
passengers. Ask an Israeli Arab and you'll likely hear a tale of exasperating
interrogations and adversarial, dumb agents -- much like the TSA.

I wrote more on the subject a few months ago, in a comment for a similar
article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025173>

Feel free to ask me questions, I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.

~~~
idan
Another way of looking at things: implementing the Israeli security approach
in US airports is like trying to switch a large enterprise (say, IBM-large)
from classical waterfall software development to agile methodologies. It's an
almost impossible task because not every team can handle the flexibility,
ambiguity and self-responsibility of agile.

------
icegreentea
While many of the Israel procedures might be kinda hard to implement in the
States or Canada (or elsewhere), there's really a few that really should be
looked at. Like the whole containment thing.

"First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that
can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the
few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a
point a few metres away.

Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a
suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is
blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further
investigation."

I mean... you gotta admit. That just makes so much sense.

~~~
daten
Consider how many bottles of liquid the TSA confiscates in a day because they
might be explosives. Now imagine actually treating each of those as if the
agent really believed it was a threat in the style described in the article.

Does this still make sense?

~~~
TravisLS
In fairness, I get the feeling the TSA doesn't actually think any of these
bottles of liquid are explosives, since they just throw them in the public
terminal trash cans.

If they did treat every water bottle as an explosive, then yes, this procedure
would make a lot more sense than evacuating the terminal.

~~~
aplusbi
Exactly - if they don't really think they are explosives, then why are they
confiscating them in the first place? Either dispose of them properly or just
let people on the plane with bottled water.

~~~
tzs
They don't think they are explosives. They think they might be precursors to
explosives.

~~~
chris_j
It's more subtle than that. They don't think they are explosives. They are
merely ensuring that no liquids are taken through security. If no liquids are
taken through security then no liquid precursors to explosives are taken
through security. What's more, if it is known that no liquids can be taken
through security then the bad guys won't even bother to take liquid precursors
to explosives through security. This begs a number of questions but, in the
meantime, security personnel can throw confiscated liquids into the trash
without worrying too much about it.

~~~
jemfinch
> What's more, if it is known that no liquids can be taken through security
> then the bad guys won't even bother to take liquid precursors to explosives
> through security.

So the bad guys will just find another way to get their precursors through
security. TSA's focus on _things_ just forces the bad guys to adapt; instead,
it should focus on the bad guys themselves.

> This begs a number of questions

No, it doesn't. It may _raise_ a number of questions, but that's very
different than "begging the question", which is a philosophical term for a
circular argument. Please stop misusing this phrase and contributing to the
general decline in modern English usage.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Language changes and evolves naturally over time, but that doesn't necessarily
imply a decline. There's a point at which enough people use a word or phrase
incorrectly that it becomes the correct usage (see can vs may). I'd argue that
point has definitely been reached when the "incorrect" usage makes it into the
dictionary. But the bigger point is that it seems completely ridiculous to
think that your particular style of English is somehow the canonical one, and
any variance from that standard constitutes a decline. English is composed of
so many former errors, bastardizations, and amalgamations of other languages
that I don't see how anyone can get too worked up this issue.

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beg>

~~~
jemfinch
Language exists for communication. I consider it a decline when perfectly good
idioms must be laid to rest and replaced with newer phrases because widespread
misunderstanding and misuse have led to inevitable confusion when the idiom is
used in its historically consistent sense.

I know it's fashionable to profess a relativist/descriptivist approach to
grammar, but when people use words and idioms in ways inconsistent with their
historical meanings, the language is degraded: it becomes more difficult to
express ideas that could formerly be expressed quite simply and clearly. When
I'm forced to say "That argument assumes as a premise the conclusion it
intends to prove" instead of "That begs the question" communication efficiency
and accuracy are diminished, and we all suffer for it.

We do not apply a descriptivist approach to our children's language use. If
they misuse a word or phrase, we correct them, because we know that their
misuse will disadvantage them in pursuing the _goal_ of language,
communication. We use a prescriptive approach in elementary school, in middle
school, in high school, and in college. There is absolutely no reason why that
same prescriptive approach, the one that preserves the utility of language and
respects its goal, cannot continue to be used by the world at large. Fashion
be damned! Leave your descriptivist ideology in the linguistics department. I
care for communication, not ideology.

------
coffeemug
I cannot believe people bring up Israeli airport security as an example of a
system the U.S. should model. The security agents are neither intelligent, nor
well trained, nor polite. The entire system is based on racism and I would
take TSA security over the Israeli model any day. People were complaining here
about a pat down search in public by a TSA agent equaling sexual harassment. I
was actually taken to a public bathroom by an El Al agent and strip searched,
purely because my last name "sounds Turkish".

From my anecdotal experience, El Al has security personnel that appears
trained to a naked eye, but in reality is extremely ineffective, flawed, and
unethical. I had the misfortune to go through El Al security four times. These
all occurred in a span of two weeks, roughly in the same circumstances (I had
to fly into Israel, fly out, fly back in, and fly back out). I can tell you
that the outcome of their screening is heavily inconsistent and highly
dependent on the prejudices of the particular agent doing the interview, and
not necessarily on advanced training procedures.

I had the same answers for their questions every time. Two of the times the
agents were Israeli jews who immigrated from Russia. Since we share a common
background, both let me pass after very few questions because my trip details
seemed perfectly reasonable to them. The other two times, I was interviewed by
jews of clearly middle-eastern descent - both had no understanding of my
cultural background, and both thought my trip details were extremely
suspicious, subjecting me to a detailed search. So the outcome of the
interviews was effectively random, which means they might as well perform
random searches.

The interviews were highly unethical, inappropriate, and degrading. Even more
importantly, they were completely ineffective, resulting in a random outcome
highly dependent on each agent's personal prejudices. I don't know what good
security looks like, but I can tell you that this most certainly isn't it.

~~~
shin_lao
You are just one data point.

~~~
darklajid
That's only true in this very limited set here. Add me as a second one:

I'm white, male, as uninteresting as it can get (heh..). A little geeky
perhaps, but I'm > 30 and every now and then have to prove that I'm > 18 for
purchases or contracts. You know - the "Ohhh, you are really an adolescent?"
type of guy. I shave every ~2 weeks and you probably cannot tell if I'm one
week into the routine if we meet.

Still: Every single trip to IL ended with me being on the list of the
suspicious people.

* I only did business trips and had a letter of the company that expected me (already crap on its own, but.. different thing)

* I travelled there several times and I'm sure they are good enough to correlate travelers from our german branch to our headquarter as being "probably genuine"

So.. A guy, plain as can be, fitting none of the discussed racial profiles
(and no, I'm not shitting my pants during interviews either, so don't start
the "you behaved erratic" thing), being targeted everytime: Another datapoint
for the problems of the system.

I don't know _why_ I was targeted. I can only confirm that for me, every time
I fly to Israel, these guys do waste time and money on me (and annoy me in the
process, but let's ignore that for now), producing no result. Efficient? Not
for me..

~~~
berntb
That security system is obviously designed with an acceptance of quite a few
false positives. (Are you a political extremist?)

Maybe harassing you is white noise? (Pun mostly intended.) That is, to throw
off attempts to analyze the security?

------
nivertech
Yeah, we have the best airport security in _Israel_ ;)

I witnessed a case, when a guy, who joked with the "profiling" girl, was
escorted to his jet by security guard.

I second, that profiling is not by race, but behavior (and maybe accent).
Their questions can be funny and sometimes even rude.

Still it's better than removing your shoes, posing naked and getting
radiation.

------
ihodes
You get the feeling, going through Ben Gurion, that these are professionals
working the security line. They're efficient, polite but terse, and thorough.

They definitely do behavioral profiling, but racial profiling they do not:
Arabs and Americans and Israelis, etc, could go through without minimal
questioning, but there were obviously people security paid more attention to
than others.

I also didn't feel like a criminal going through their airport, which, in
stark contrast, I did as soon as I got back to the US and went through customs
and then TSA again.

------
DanielBMarkham
_Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a
suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is
blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further
investigation._

Or we can take naked pictures of children and grope people, taking hours to
board planes, and evacuating the entire terminal at the first indication of
trouble.

I really don't like my own tone of voice -- it sounds like I am ranting. But
I'm not. At least I don't think I am. This is just common sense. Small, agile
decentralized systems with an emphasis on layers and innovation are going to
beat treating people like they were F-15s passing down the assembly line at a
defense plant. This factory, top-down mentality has got to go.

I guess I'm just still amazed that we gotten this far out of whack. If you had
told me we would be doing this, even right after 9-11, I wouldn't have
believed you. Body scans? Invasive searches? Sure thing. Not a problem. Sign
me up -- as long as its rare and happens on an ad-hoc basis. But what we have
now? It's a total travesty. The lunatics are truly running the asylum.

(Ok, maybe I am ranting)

------
idoh
I had a first hand experience flying out of Israel with the questioning side.
For various accidental and benign reasons I got a little extra questioning,
which was on the topics of: do I speak Hebrew?, what synagogue do I go to in
the US?, and why didn't I have any checked luggage?

In the end I gave the guards the phone number of my relatives, and they talked
to them, and that's how I got through the checkpoint.

So anyway, they do seem to focus on the person and their circumstances, and
not on what that person is or is not carrying. Also, the guards were not the
typical process-following types that you'd see at the TSA. Their job is to
engage you in conversation, and make decisions without following a flowchart.

------
srean
Despite the overwhelming possibility of being downvoted it needs mention that
the Israeli model _as_ _practiced_ may not be that good an example for US to
follow. It has been documented by several respected human rights organizations
and UN that Israel's security measures are often used as a proxy for
punishment and harassment for disagreeing with the official govt line.

In spite of some erosion of liberties in US in the last decade or so, the
American society continues to be orders of magnitude more open and free. I can
confidently say that the way I will be treated by the American authorities
does not depend on whether I or any of my family members were critical of
American policy, neither is it dependent on places in US that are on my
itinerary. Mention anything that remotely leans towards the UN view of the
occupation to the Israeli security, or that you intend to visit any place in
the occupied territories your experience will diverge dramatically (in its
defense, personal anecdotal indicates that this may be regardless of whether
you are Jewish or not).

It still would have been acceptable had that selective part of the treatment
made the airport, the flight or Israel any safer. But it is not clear to me
that the specialization based on the views of a traveller does. I am wary of
copying a model that has a tendency for abuse unless I see convincing
counterweights in place. All depends on the implementation details and the
operational processes.

~~~
krelian
Did you even read the article?

~~~
srean
Why wouldnt I ? Predictably enough, it seems the downvotes have started
ringing in.

------
BRadmin
This article is from 2009 and was submitted back to HN then - and had some
insightful comments.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024850>

------
ja27
"Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive, so un-Israelified?"

Because L-3 / Lockheed Martin / Haliburton / etc. don't sell training in
behavior tracking / FACS? Isn't it all just a money-grab by the usual
suspects?

------
jakarta
The biggest problem with adopting the Israeli model IMO is with resources. You
would have to spend a lot of money training and hiring people who would be
good at behavioral profiling.

The other problem is that Israel is a tiny country, they only have two
international airports -- so they can focus all of their resources on those
two airports. That's not the case here in the US.

~~~
jaspero
I don't think resources are the problem. You can decentralize TSA jobs. San
Francisco area just needs to monitor one airport or three bay area airports.
So, I think decentralization is the key and saying that US has too many
airports is not an excuse.

~~~
foobarbazoo
You can enter any major airport securely by flying in from a smaller, regional
airport. So you need to secure those.

But you can get into a smaller, regional airport securely by flying in from an
even smaller airport. So you need to secure those too.

We have _a lot_ of airports in the US that need to be secured.

The better response is to tell Americans that airplanes are a terrorist
target, just like busses (which _are_ bombed all the time in Israel, thanks to
their stellar airport security making airlines a harder target), and to remain
vigilant.

That is all. Taking off our shoes, submitting to naked photographs and (just
for fun) radiation is beyond laughable. It seems people would rather be
demeaned than live in (an irrational) fear. Sad.

Even sadder: more Americans will die by choosing to drive rather than fly.
Somehow, I doubt Big Sis sheds a tear.

------
BlazingFrog
Although it was fairly explicitly pointed in the article (by Rafi Sela), I'm
not seeing much of it discussed here. I think a big part of it is cultural.
Americans may object to this but I believe that, by virtue of having been
shielded from any major aggression on its territory outside of 9/11, they
don't know how to react to threats in a reasonable way. Most of what has been
done by the government since then resembles more knee-jerk, fear-tainted
overreaction than a sensible response to a grave, but also well documented
abroad, problem. Mr Sela uses the "Americans-take-too-much-shit-from their
government" line but I believe this is simply out of inexperience in dealing
with these issues.

------
shimonamit
I was once late to the airport (in Israel) where I was scheduled to pick up my
mother. I parked the car and ran towards the gate.

A guard was standing at the entrance with her hands crossed doing nothing by
observing. When she saw me coming she made a few quick steps towards me and
signaled me to stop and stand aside for questioning. I felt a bit
uncomfortable, first because it was abrupt and I was being singled out, but
also because she was behaving like a shepherd dog trying to seize my eyes
(which I later understood why). She was very polite and dismissed me after
presenting my ID and answering a few short questions.

This got me thinking about the silent perimeters, and how smart it is they
were only engaged when triggered. The take home lesson for me was: smart earns
respect. They were a step ahead of me and I was responding, not them.

------
daten
The TSA has already attempted the behavior profiling..

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/behavioral_pro...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/behavioral_prof_3.html)

------
doron
This solution is all well and good (i will disregard issues of legal liberties
afforded in this country for the moment)

But it doesn't scale,Israel has one single main airport, the US has dozens of
points for international entry, and many more domestic. It is easy and fairly
cost effective when you have one location you have to worry about.

~~~
zephyrfalcon
"But it doesn't scale,Israel has one single main airport, the US has dozens of
points for international entry, and many more domestic. It is easy and fairly
cost effective when you have one location you have to worry about."

People say this, but it makes little sense to me. Compare having one factory
that makes a product, vs having a hundred factories that make that same
product. The latter is much more cost efficient per factory.

------
maurits
So, I have been to this airport traveling as a press photographer, which means
you have an interesting itinerary and lots of interesting bits of kit in your
luggage.I can add a little human aspect to this article. Last time the guy in
front of me at the for mentioned first shielded baggage screening was
suspected of having an explosive prompting the entire security machine to life
and an evacuation. A false alarm and 30 odd minutes later I am again standing
in line, pretty wasted at 5 in the morning. During the whole process the staff
stayed very polite and very efficient, making the process quite painless.

Every time I get treated rude and unpleasant by security staff/goons in my own
home-country airport for really no good reason what so ever, I think about
this. I feel that a little manners & humanity would go a long way in getting
support for security measures.

------
thesz
There are two notions of directing people, named after German words:
Auftragstaktik and Befehlstaktik.

Auftragstaktik: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics>
Befehlstaktik stands for "detailed order control".

It looks like Auftragstaktik is used in Israeli airports and TSA employ
Befehlstaktik.

To quote an article about Auftragstaktik: "Ironically, since WW2, only the
Israeli Defence Force seem to have come close to matching the Wehrmacht of WW2
in the exercise of command in this style".

So, they just use their military training and applied it to another field. And
people from military works as screening officers at airports, for that being
very good first job after military. Very clever.

------
moo
What I hear is the Israeli border guards have juvenile, petty behavior. What
comes to mind is denying Noam Chomsky entry into Israel back in May. Also the
border guards who put 3 rifle rounds through Lily Sussman's MacBook. 21 year
old Lily had Arab letters stuck on her MacBook's keyboard. Before anyone tells
me I haven't been to an Israel airport, I haven't been to the moon either but
I still know it is mostly rock. Link to shot MacBook incident:
[http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/video-interview-
with-...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/video-interview-with-macbook-
bullet-girl/)

------
stuaxo
Just because it's runs more efficiently doesn't make it more desirable, it is
after all - a militarised society, I don't particularly want to go to the US
at the moment as it's moving that way.

------
ck2
Doesn't Israel also destroy the homes of any bomber's family? (seriously,
google it)

That is more likely the deterrent. So should the USA do that too for all our
domestic terrorists?

~~~
maxawaytoolong
I don't know why you were downvoted because house demolitions are indeed
official policy in response to terrorist bombings.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Defense_Forces#House_dem...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Defense_Forces#House_demolitions)

~~~
tome
Just one reason from many: because it doesn't deter anyone without a house in
Israel.

------
Tomek_
I'm not sure if I'd really feel better when surrounded by armed soldiers and
being questioned a couple of times on my way to the plane (also inside the bus
that takes me to the airport as I understand) than if I would just have to go
through a security gate, eventually take off my shoes and get my baggage
scanned by x-ray. I mean, I was a couple of times questioned at the airport,
with the usual questions ("did anyone other than you have access to your
baggage?", etc.) and once they ordered me to open my baggage - and that didn't
make me feel more safe or anything like that, rather uncomfortable and a bit
pissed of, in a "wtf? do you seriously think I'm gonna explode the plane or
what?" way. Shortly speaking, I prefer to go through all those gates, have my
baggage checked by security guys themselves ("go ahead, there's nothing
there") than being bothered by some questions and be "under suspicion". Don't
know, maybe it's just that I'm from Europe and we don't care.

~~~
aberkowitz
The current system in the US strictly follows a flowchart. It has no
preparation for anything other than "generic terrorism".

With an infinite set of previously unthought of plans, this is a system
terrorists can game to their advantage. The Israeli system requires competent
individuals trained to adapt to any scenario.

------
danielnicollet
_"This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that
looks suspicious," said Sela._

Sorry but what do heavy metals have to do with airport security? is this just
typo or have I completely lost my understanding of basic explosives chemistry
and other terror related topics?

~~~
barkingcat
I don't think you have a real understanding of terror related topics as it
applies to Israel. In an area of the world where getting ak47's is easy as
heck - you can go a few countries away from Israel and buy them at open air
markets - it makes a lot of sense to make sure no one is carrying guns and
other weapons made with heavy metals into your airport.

The security is made of layers - just because they are checking for heavy
metals doesn't mean that they don't know anything about (or are ignoring)
plastic explosives or ceramic guns.

~~~
nosse
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_(chemistry)>

I've always though that heavy metals mean stuff like uranium and lead...

~~~
danielnicollet
Exactly nosse! I meant "heavy metals" versus "metal". The latter makes sense.
The former doesn't. I am sure you can hurt people with manganese for instance,
but a gun would make more sense, no?

------
steveplace
This kind of analysis has a major flaw: these two countries are apples and
oranges, by sheer size. We've seen this before: when pundits comment on
relative outperformance of infrastructure, education, etc., they forget that
the US is a really, really, big place-- and things may not scale as well.

Israel has 2 international airports. The US has quite a few more. So the
solutions presented here may not scale well as there is no true "funnel."

------
koevet
The same article was commented by Bruce Scheiner on his blog.
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/adopting_the_i...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/adopting_the_is.html)

Very interesting comments, bottom line "Israel model does not scale well".

~~~
epo
True but no one is suggesting that the USA should mimic the Israeli system
slavishly, they should however learn from it and devise their own system with
the intention to detect and deal with the potential bad guys as early as
possible while disrupting every one else as little as possible.

Henry Ford did not invent car manufacturing nor did MacDonalds invent the
beefburger, they just made mass manufacturing scale well. The USA needs a
transport security system which works at American scales and doesn't tick
people off.

------
ffffruit
It all sounds absolutely reasonable (and dare I say pleasant) but how well
does something like this scale? I am thinking Heathrow with 5 terminals with,
I guess, 10 different entrances each where people arrive from.

------
SkyMarshal
_Published On Wed Dec 30 2009_

Wow, this is an old article. Interesting how the idea seemed to get completely
ignored by the MSM and government for the past year, while things just get
worse at the airports.

------
dmn
Related Article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1897940>

------
harscoat
Flew there with my girl friend. We were very happy to be there 2 days only
after sudden invitation to see a prospect. So when we handed our passports to
the interviewer to get the Israel (Holy land!) visa Stamp, we were laughing of
sheer joy to be there. Interviewer glared at us and asked abruptly: "what
makes you laugh?!"

~~~
harscoat
Hey guys who downvote: we were happy(!!) to arrive in Israel where friends of
mine (who did Aliyah) where waiting for us all rejoicing themselves. That
should be a ok/secure reason and attitude when arriving landing at the desired
airport! (It turned out to be one of the greatest trip of our life: TelAviv,
Jerusalem, the Dead See and the most fantastic En Gedi kibboutz).

~~~
epo
Perhaps it was a rather boring anecdote and seemed almost off-topic.

------
amichail
Here's a Facebook approach to airport security:

[http://www.google.com/buzz/amichail/TgPjwEJCJup/A-simple-
sol...](http://www.google.com/buzz/amichail/TgPjwEJCJup/A-simple-solution-to-
eliminating-terrorism-on)

~~~
nodata
or.. we look at the number of people who have been killed in terrorist
attacks, and compare it to _everything_else_. Then spend the money on the more
important stuff first.

~~~
aneth
Maybe we should look at the number of times the US has been invaded by a
foreign army, and conclude a military is not necessary...

~~~
foobarbazoo
Half a dozen? Do tell, how often is too often?

------
darklajid
I want to chime in here as well.

Disclaimer/Disclosure: I plan to relocate to Tel Aviv soon (from Germany), the
company I'm working for has its headquarter there. I like the country, try to
learn the language etc.. But:

Every time I do the flight I'm nervous about the problems that _will_ come up.
Coworker needed to strip to his underwear. Another one had his bag completely
devastated several times. My (german, local branch) boss has probably more
stamps from IL in his passport than anything else and does the trip routinely:
I've never seen him getting through without problems, taking apart the hand
luggage and asking lots of weird questions, sometimes for hours.

There are some procedures in place to make this easier in the future. For a
while companies can now announce guests/coworkers etc. in advance and make
their life easier by providing names, passport numbers and dates of
arrival/departure in written form. But that takes time and sucks if you need
to fly over "now".

Regarding the "safe" feeling: Nope, cannot confirm that. In Frankfurt the
normal check-in is like this:

* Check in and get your ticket

* Pass the boarding pass control

* Pass the security (think ~TSA) control

* Move to the gate and board

For El Al it's like this:

* Talk to a "Security officer" about your plans to stay and your luggage. Who packed it? Where? Did you leave it for a second? Did someone ask you to bring something to IL? etc..

* Get a ticket and a token with cryptic (probably: "Search this one, Yes/No") markers

* Pass boarding pass control

* Pass security (~TSA) control

* Go to the gate

* Pass IL security, taking that token (and, every single time I traveled) sit down and wait for an officer.

* Answer lots of questions, let them check your luggage (again)

* Move to the gate, guarded by security officers with submachine guns (remember: We're still in FFM, Germany at this point...)

In Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion, it's the same. The most upvoted post was from someone
with an Israeli citizenship. Yeah - right. There are two lanes in Ben Gurion,
Israeli and "Other". The latter is crap, takes ages, needs you to be there
while they x-ray all your luggage (this is before you get a ticket, so you are
present with your check-in luggage as well). Lots of questions. And, from
experience, you end up at a desk where someone tells you to open your (check-
in) luggage, to search your underwear and private possessions in front of you.

Seriously: This is _not_ better than anything you US guys are currently
complaining about. And no, this does _not_ make me feel safe, at all.

Edit: Something I completely missed to mention: The article actually tries to
tell you that the process is quick and effective. Maybe (not sure) it is for
people with an IL passport. For me it means being at the airport 3 hours in
advance, instead of 45-60 minutes. Otherwise I'm just not able to make it. My
next trip is schedule to depart at ~3 am, I know that I'll be on the _german_
airport at 0:00 - for the sake of this efficient process. Same on the route
back. What an improvement..

------
liad
have flown out of israel dozens of times.

before you get anywhere near the terminal you are stopped and men with uzi
submachine guns look in the car and ask a couple of questions.

these guys are razor sharp and know exactly what they're looking for.

you feel safe and nervous at the same time

------
berntb
After reading this discussion, I'd be sorely disappointed if I ever flew
in/out if Israel and wasn't checked out carefully. :-)

But they are probably good at profiling curious tourists too.

Reminds me of when me and a few friends bicycled around Northern Ireland once
in the 90s. If I made a querying hand gesture to military at checkpoints if we
should get over for questioning, they laughed, without even hearing my non-
native English... ("More stupid tourists that just want to get close looks at
our bullpups.")

