
The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother - ojbyrne
http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
======
intellectronica
The problem with the Israelification goal is that while Israel's airport
security method is second to none, it is not scalable, and therefore not
applicable to the US (or many other countries), at least not without major
restructuring. The problem of scale is manifested twice:

1\. Manpower - Israel has a huge pool of very talented young men and women who
already received very good training in the army and the security services. It
also budgets paying them well. Make no mistake, airport security in Israel is
no McJob, it is a prestigious, well-paid position, manned by the top classes
of society. America is relying on cheap, unskilled labour for these jobs, and
transitioning to an Israeli employment profile will bankrupt the system.

2\. Volume - Israel has only one major international airport (and even that
one is quite small). As far as airport security is concerned, it is a very
local problem which can benefit from focused attention. The US has to protect
hundreds of very busy airports, and they all have their unique weaknesses.

~~~
idan
Hi, I'm an Israeli who is at least passably familiar with how the security
apparatus works here. A few comments on your comments:

1\. Scale

Scale _is_ an issue, but nobody in the thread has touched on why. The Israeli
security model is (as noted in the article) more about the passenger than
their baggage. This approach is both effective, time-consuming, and "racist":
the profilers have a conversation with each passenger; as I'm an Israeli Jew,
I always get the abbreviated treatment -- focusing more on where my bags have
been since I've packed them. As a foreigner, you get a much more in-depth
grilling. As a Muslim? They want to know your shoe size, and then a whole
'nother screener comes over and asks you everything all over again, just to
see that you keep your story straight. Like they say in the article, the
conversations they have are not so much about what you say as how you say it.
The screeners are taught to iterate a few levels deep into your story and see
that it doesn't break down under scrutiny.

Naturally, this process supposes that A) the threat is foreign and mostly
limited to one ethnic/religious group, and B) screeners have this sort of
time.

In the US, racial profiling is... unpalatable, and if each passenger / family
got even a perfunctory 1-minute Q&A session with a TSA security officer, the
system would crash. The US is dealing with a larger threat profile, and a
whole different order-of-magnitude of traffic.

2\. The security screener's job: manpower, training, history

Normally these are intelligent men and women, usually students or
twentysomethings, who pass a series of exams and then pass a several-month
course. The hours are craptastic but the pay is decent, and a lot of students
prefer it to shiftwork or waitressing. Passing the course is difficult but not
arduous, and in the end you are really being taught guidelines on
interrogation and then set loose to use your judgment -- if you have a red
flag to raise, then you just call over a senior screener who has more years of
experience.

The reality is that there are few enough openings that the program can be
selective. I'd say, as a generalization, screeners here possess above-average
intelligence, whereas your average TSA screener seems to be a working stiff,
blindly following some not-too-complex screening algorithm in a three-ring
binder. The number of screeners requisite for staffing all of the US airports
precludes the TSA from exclusively employing screeners with the ability to
make "judgment calls". There just aren't enough smart people with the desire
to work a screener's job in the US.

Also of note: screeners here can be idiot asses just like anywhere. I've heard
stories from many business colleagues who traveled to Israel on business in
the last decade. During the rougher periods of disquiet, they suffered from
overzealous screeners who couldn't believe that despite "the situation," there
were some businesspeople who had to come here with equipment to demonstrate.
Just like the TSA, if a screener decides to make your life unpleasant, it is
unpleasant, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Past "experience" in the army is completely meaningless for this job. Despite
myths about the Israeli army, we are not all super-mossad-spies with extensive
training in terrorism and interrogation techniques. Even combat soldiers
aren't taught how to perform interrogations; they're taught tactics of battle.
The generally security-oriented mindset is fostered at a much younger age with
PSA's about unattended bags aimed at schoolchildren.

In the end, the system here relies on quality manpower, trained to employ
their judgment of whether or not a given person constitutes a risk. In the US,
"subjective" is merely a synonym for "pending lawsuit".

Amusingly, I don't think the system here would be as compromised by a
"procedure document" leak like the recently-infamous TSA docs. Like any good
security, it works just as well if you know how it works than if you don't.

~~~
10ren
"PSA"? Google suggest didn't have anything for "p security administration"

great comments btw, both your's and parent's (I have to post this b/c my
upvotes aren't being counted).

~~~
tl
Public Service Announcement?

------
Flemlord
Interesting article but it doesn't address the root issue. Israel has real
threats to deal with on a weekly if not daily basis. They're forced to take
security seriously and it shows in their procedures. Their security employees
deal with regular, serious threats and one would assume numerous close calls
have made them self-motivated.

On the other hand, North American countries only have one real threat every
10-odd years or so. In fact, the most recent attempt didn't even go through
North American screening. Since we don't have real terrorists often enough to
matter, I doubt American security will ever come close to the Israeli model.

What if you were building a software package that you knew would never have
any users? Could you motivate your team to care enough to make the software
great? Could you yourself be motivated to do a good job, or would you just go
through the motions?

------
dstorrs
Here's a question: how many terrorism attempts have there been against US
airlines since 9/11? For that matter, what is the total number of US flights
that have EVER been attacked by terrorists? I'm including both successful
attacks and ones where the attack was foiled.

This is a serious question--perhaps this is a much bigger threat than I'm
aware. But according to my risk assessment, airline terrorism is such a low-
order threat that it's just not worth getting exercised about. I agree that
the TSA accomplishes little or nothing, but I feel perfectly safe--the odds
that I will be on a plane that is attacked by a hijacker are almost
infinitesimal.

~~~
houseabsolute
> But according to my risk assessment, airline terrorism is such a low-order
> threat that it's just not worth getting exercised about.

Let me introduce you to a pair of concepts I like to call "symbolism" and
"morale." Americans like to feel safe, and up until about 2001 they felt
pretty safe flying in a plane. Then in a vast, symbolic gesture, terrorists
flew the planes into buildings. The American people's morale was so damaged by
this gesture that we subsequently allowed our government to drag us into two
wars that will do us no good and only harm in the long run. It will be
exciting to find out what we allow or even demand it to do next time.

So yes, it is a much bigger threat than you're apparently aware. Or are you
asking if the percentage chances of you being harmed are high? Probably not.
In fact, even if there were no security you'd probably still be safer than you
are driving along America's roads. But that's not all you have to worry about.

------
jonknee
That only works when you have a tiny number of flights at a handful of
locations are willing to spend through the roof. It would never scale. Their
largest international airport is tiny by US size--it wouldn't even make the
top 20. And that's just the US.

Not to mention that the US public would never put up with it.

Update: this puts it into perspective--El Al (the largest and most well known
Israeli airline) operates only 37 planes which would make it the size of a
small regional airline in the states. Allegiant Air is unheard of to much of
the US and operates 49 jets. Delta has a cool 449 and flies to more countries
than El Al has flights per day. Ben Gurion International Airport, the airport
mentioned and the largest in Israel, is roughly the size of Kansas City
International Airport. There's simply not a valid comparison.

~~~
pyre
What about the isolation of the suspected luggage in a bomb-proof area or
container? All that would seem to require is investment in the containers
and/or blast-proof shell. Why instead is the 'best idea' to try and evacuate a
bustling airport terminal with 100's or 1000's of people?

~~~
jonknee
The part that wouldn't scale and that we would never put up with is the
personal interrogations, highly armed guards covering entry points and all the
searches.

Go ahead and put some blast containers in place, but it would likely be a
waste since there are so few evacuations.

~~~
pyre
If these airports handle so much traffic that these methods won't scale than
how in the world is "evacuate the entire airport" even seriously considered as
a solution to _any_ problem?

~~~
jonknee
It's much more work to have half hour interviews with every passenger than it
is to evacuate a terminal every couple years.

~~~
kareemm
Did you even read the original article? It's a goal to move passengers from
parking lot to gate in 25 minutes. Half-hour interviews aren't a part of the
process.

~~~
jonknee
Perhaps if you're a local it's quick. But they also recommended to show up
three hours early for a reason... Long interrogations are quite common. If you
fit a profile they will drill you like you have Osama on speed dial. This was
a puff piece for how awesome El Al is, but the reality is their method only
works because of the small number of passengers (and their willingness to
accept racism).

[http://www.elal.co.il/ELAL/English/AllAboutYourFlight/AtTheA...](http://www.elal.co.il/ELAL/English/AllAboutYourFlight/AtTheAirport/CheckInTimes.htm)

~~~
nir
You're right it's a puff peace (the guy interviewed sells security services..)
and that some passengers get grilled, but wrong about the race angle: People I
know that got the longer question & search treatment include a French Indian
woman, a Korean guy and an Irish American from San Francisco. The only thing
they all had in common a certain profile - in their 20s, traveling alone,
little luggage, staying for a short period.

I got profiled a few times in other airports - a random search in Pittsburgh,
a less random one at Auckland, NZ, a few more I'm probably forgetting - all in
all, I prefer that to the process that subjects _everyone_ to a full on search
as they do in FRA and sometimes in LHR and US airports. That said, I suppose
if I was consistently getting profiled I'd probably be less game.

As for "3 hours early", you'll find almost every airline has this in their
website, to cover themselves. Except for very infrequent fliers, no one really
shows up 3 hours early. It's a small airport and usually pretty quick to get
through.

------
grayhacker
The procedural aspects of this sound good - multiple rings of security,
compartmentalization of risk, etc. - but I have to wonder how well systems so
dependent on the intelligence and intuition of individual screeners would work
in North America.

~~~
tptacek
It wouldn't. How many planes is El Al actually flying? How many planes do the
majors in the US fly? This idea does not scale. It puts society on the wrong
end of the cost equation.

~~~
ghshephard
Also note that Shin Bet security levels require El Al to spend on the order of
$100million/year to secure those 37 airplanes - and, when you are subjected to
"Selective Screening" - you aren't dealing with the TSA and their seeming
reluctance to actually _search_ you during a pat down.

[edit: I'd love to know what percentage of Muslims are subjected to "Selective
Screening" on El Al flights. The TSA/United States can't get away with the
same type of behavior that Israel can get away with. We have to treat everyone
the same to avoid the taint of "Profiling"]

~~~
BRadmin
"The TSA/United States can't get away with the same type of behavior that
Israel can get away with. We have to treat everyone the same to avoid the
taint of "Profiling"]"

The TSA operating procedure manual specifies that ALL citizens of 12 countries
(almost exclusively Muslim-populated ones) are automatically selected for
secondary screening.

Even my American citizen friends with Arabic names get "random screening" the
majority of times they fly.

~~~
tptacek
For what it's worth, I don't think decorum is the problem with duplicating El
Al for, say, UAL and AA. The problem is that we can't staff enough competent
people to execute at El Al levels of sophistication against our passenger
load. TSA screeners are close to the bottom of the law enforcement and
homeland security food chain, and the people we need to do this job require
more skills than the average metro police officer.

------
Zarathu
Oh, yes, because the Israelis totally have their shit together.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXtbB-4GWw>

~~~
djcapelis
This seems like a relevant comment, why is it downmodded?

Clearly if Israeli security forces are putting bullet holes through laptops as
part of standard procedure, that's not exactly the hassle-free friendly
security process the article implies.

~~~
mdasen
I didn't vote either way on it. That said, I can see a few reasons why it
might be downmodded.

On the surface side, its use of profanity and the attitude that I read from
the comment aren't useful for criticism. A more useful way of phrasing it
might have been along the lines of, "Focusing on the intent of the traveler
may help sometimes, but it can also lead to events such as this one where an
innocent person's laptop is destroyed based on a feeling." NOTE: I can't
actually watch the video because my laptop has no sound right now. The way one
phrases something matters and, at least to me, it seemed like more of an
emotional attack than a response to procedures that may or may not be good.

On the deeper side, one event does not a trend make. The comment author
provided a video about an event. It's somewhat like linking to a video of an
NFL game where the Chief's won and saying they're a good football team - or
linking to a video of the Saint's loss and saying they're a bad team. Sure, it
is evidence of badness, but it's one piece among 15 this season and the
majority of evidence points the other way. Now, going back to Israel, I'm not
making a claim that the majority of evidence goes either way. I am trying to
say that Israeli security deals with hundreds of thousands (if not millions)
of people every year and to judge whether they have their act together or not
cannot hinge on one piece of evidence.

And, to be frank, that's part of the problem with your reading of the comment:
it isn't part of Israeli standard procedure. If one has reports of it
happening in a systemic way, that's important. Heck, it's important that it
happened even once. However, an isolated incident can be tragic without being
indicative of anything. It was a bad thing that happened. It was good that it
got press (as I heard she got monetary compensation from the government).
However, a report from an organization that looks into this stuff and spots
trends is a more persuasive thing than one incident.

Although, if it were phrased more pleasantly, the author might not have been
downmodded. Then it might be seen as someone offering alternative evidence
arguing that the situation isn't as rosy as the original article implied and
that it's a more complex situation. However, the phrasing makes it seem like
the original author wishes for us to throw out all other evidence because of
one piece they have chosen to present and have that one piece preferenced over
others.

If I had wanted to bring that video into the discussion, I would have said
something like:

"The article paints a rosy picture of the situation, but it's one that turns
on human intellect and 'gut feelings' which isn't a great way to run a
security system. People sometimes have gut feelings (conscious or not) that
are biased on things like race, religion, gender, etc. and might single out
people not because of what's in their eyes, but something else. Likewise, it
could mean that sometimes people have gut feelings that are wrong - people
might be legitimately nervous not because they are planning something bad -
and that can lead to situations like [the video]. . ."

~~~
djcapelis
From the original story that the video is connected with: "Then they asked me
to wait. Since they had asked for friends and families phone numbers I assumed
they might be calling to verify my answers to questions or confirm I really
had extended family in Tel Aviv. An announcement played over the sound system,
interrupting my break in the sunshine. First in Hebrew, then Arabic, then in
English. It was something along the lines of, 'do not to be alarmed by
gunshots because the Israeli security needs to blow up suspicious passanger
luggage.'"

Perhaps not entirely standard procedure, but sounds like it's not an isolated
incident.

While I agree with you that the comment could have been phrased more
effectively, the reminder that this article portrays perhaps an overly rosy
interpretation of Israel's security practices was helpful, at least to me. It
seemed odd it would be sitting at negative numbers just because someone didn't
like the way it was phrased.

------
cool-RR
I just want to note that flights to/from Israel happen to be more expensive
than in other countries.

------
amichail
Why not put close relatives of those who attempt terrorist acts on the "no
fly" list?

~~~
intellectronica
That's a wrong thing to do for two reasons.

1\. It's collective punishment. Unethical unless absolutely necessary. 2\. It
would be ineffective. In most cases in the west the relatives of people who
ended up blowing themselves up didn't know about their involvement in
terrorist organizations and didn't condone their actions.

~~~
amichail
Collective punishment with close relatives is better than racial profiling,
massive inconvenience for everyone, etc.

And it would encourage people to be more alert about suspicious terrorist
activity within their family.

~~~
foldr
>Collective punishment with close relatives is better than racial profiling,
massive inconvenience for everyone, etc.

It's also better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. So what? We don't
have to have _any_ of those things.

Also, collective punishment is not better than massive inconvenience.
Convenience is never an excuse for doing something immoral.

------
mrav
hi i think about 2000 ameriacns die every day from heart disease righ why
bother with the airlines? just eat right... and btw i'm from israel

------
johnl
High security, little bother, totally worthless. Pick another country that
doesn't have the services or pick a different target that is as spectacular
and your security becomes worthless. Put in place a consistent security system
that is consistent with the threat.

------
dazzawazza
The bigger tragedy is that Israel has been living in a state of war for 50
years.

A little more effort toward peace and less toward locking down society and
we'd all be better off.

~~~
nir
I was born in Israel and lived there all my life till 2006. Ironically, it was
often the efforts towards peace that escalated violence: The 1992 Oslo Accords
were followed by the suicide bus bombings of the 90s, the 2000 Camp David
summit resulted in the suicide cafe/mall/club/etc bombings of the early 00s,
the withdrawal from Gaza facilitated Hamas' rise to power and so on.

All this isn't to turn this to a yet another online Mid East flame war, nor to
claim that Israel doesn't share the blame for what's happening or that
Palestinians aren't suffering at least as badly - just to note that anyone
from a conflict area will tell you life are _much_ more complicated than "a
little more effort towards peace" ;)

------
hkr
Too much talk, too little action. Airport security is to be treated seriously
by all countries.

------
fjabre
A sensitive subject to say the least.

I find it mind boggling that anyone would want to emulate Israel in any
capacity concerning security. They've had suicide bombers in cafes, night
clubs, school buses, etc.. and no matter what side of the fence you're on it's
pretty obvious that whatever they're doing is _not_ working.

~~~
quizbiz
You are wrong, it is working. The controversy is over the cost. There are
countless instances of identified and disabled devices. Who knows how many
deaths the metal detectors/security check at the entrance to nearly every
point of public gathering (malls, movie theaters, parking decks, etc.) have
prevented. Their inconvenience would not be acceptable in the US but I'm just
saying it does make a difference. Just last week, an explosive device made
from a gas canister and fireworks was found on Highway 443. Its a major road
between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, a road I have used several times since my
arrival here for my winter break.

Despite the record of suicide bombings in clubs et al, the Ben Gurion airport
has experienced no such acts of terror. None.

Israel is a technology hub, it attracted Warren Buffet's first investment
outside of the US, and its citizens live everyday normally despite the
threats. Israel's defense forces do what they deem as necessary.

It _is_ working. But many ask at what cost.

~~~
encoderer
+1 and that doesn't even touch it's added value as a deterrent.

------
eplanit
Yes, let's embrace the idea: adopting the stance of a country at constant war
since its beginnings, a focal point of worldwide disagreement. A country which
(from any perspective) seems nowhere near achieving stability or peace. Not
such a great model, on second thought?

Or, maybe we should go further at "Israeli-fying" our borders: more walls and
more military machines. Perhaps 'settlements' (er, um, neighborhoods) just
inside Mexico's and Canada's borders...!?

This statement is what is so alarming to me: "Do you know why Israelis are so
calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel
is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their
police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're
doing a good job.

Do we have such sweeping trust of our gov't/authority figures? Should we?
Should anyone? If this is "Israeli-fication" of thought, then please count me
out. Israel is a model of a worst-case security scenario (way of life) -- it's
not an ideal.

~~~
tkahn6
I believe this is a DH1 argument. You are not refuting or event attempting to
refute the main point at all.

