What else is new?

I must not be the only person who bitches about the state of air travel. I estimate that 99% of all people who travel will say that air travel sucks. The other 1% travel first class or have no sense of what air travel should be. I will give you an example. After a lot of funfair, Clear blue program was rolled out to mass populous at $99 per year with the promises of no lines and fast service. With your shoes on. So I didn’t sign up. I am that dumb. I will stand with the unwashed masses in the general queue while the clear blue line has no people in it. And I think that was the problem. No one signed up. No wait, people did sign up, but they didn’t get to keep their shoes on because the company that was manufacturing the device that blows the puff of air and then does the analysis – GE – didn’t actually say that you get to keep your shoes on. So after some time in the pilot program, TSA approved the use of those machines with Clear Blue system only to shut it down a couple of days ago. I am thinking because no one signed up.

The program was targeted at frequent fliers and people who didn’t want to wait at the queue with the unwashed masses. The problem is that the frequent flyers already did have the gold status and didn’t need to wait with the unwashed masses. So that’s about 75% of targeted audience for Clear Blue. The other 25% could not possibly sustain the cost of running the program at the current cost level and everyone who cared knew that they would raise the prices. And they did. Almost doubling it. That was the final straw that broke the air puffing camel. With no customers it was pretty evident that the end was near.

But I wasn’t expecting the program to just shut doesn overnight like it did. Literally overnight, the program closed, releasing its staff. The CEO resigned in March. That was another sign of things to come.

I’ll give you another example. I was flying recently from La Guardia in NYC to Chicago on United Airlines. I checked in online and didn’t have any luggage. My flight was scheduled for departure at 8.15pm. I was at the airport at 6pm. The flight was cancelled. Why? No one was able to give me a straight answer, but I think it was because there wasn’t enough passengers to justify flying. I was rebooked on a flight leaving at 7 pm. Great! The flight was supposed to leave at 7.00pm and land in Chicago at 8.45 local time, so a 2 ¾ hours flight. We landed at 8pm local time. Now Why would you list the flight time of 2 ¾ hours I the flight is only 1 ¾ hours? I’ll tell you why. On the way back, my flight from Chicago to Newark on United was scheduled for 6.15pm. Only it was 1 ¾ hours delayed. But, we boarded the plane, left the gate and sat on the tarmac for 1 ¾ hours. When we got to Newark, the flight arrived on time. And it left on time because it left the gate on time in Chicago. No explanation was given to why we are sitting in a tin can for 1 ¾ hours. They are probably watching me now because I dared to ask.

Another thing that bugs me is why there is so much document checking required when flying. You present your boarding pass with your id to the security guy before you get to present to another guy who checks it before you go through the metal detector and then you get it checked again after you went through. Once you are done there, you get to the gate and they check it again to let you on the gate jetty. Then there is a random security check where a TSA agent gets to check it again. Why? I just gave it to the gate agent to check. Then the stewardess checks it again. WTF? So there are possible 6 times that you have to give your boarding card and id to 6 different people just so you can get a pleasure of being charged for a drink. There is no need for the guy to check it after you pass the metal detector. Nor there is a need for the stewardess to check it. There is no need for random security check right after the gate agent checked it. Pointless. And why do I need to give my id to the person checking the boarding passes before you give it a TSA guy who checks it again 20 yards behind the first guy. Unless you can sneak into the walkway through the building walls there is no way that someone can get though without authorization. And do they not trust the Gate agent to check the ids that’s why they are doing random security checks? The problem, I think, is that a lot of these people have been hired after 9.11 and now there is not much use for them, but because they are government employees it’s hard to get rid of them.

The final question for now. Behind United check in desks at La Guardia, there were TSA agents. Why? There are only 3 people checking in people. And there are 3 TSA agents standing there observing. Why? Waste.

The UK government's official anti-terror law watchdog says that the thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under counter-terrorism powers simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/17/stop-search-terror-law-met

Terror law used to stop thousands 'just to balance racial statistics'

Thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under counter-terrorism powers simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics, the government's official anti-terror law watchdog has revealed.

Lord Carlile said in his annual report that he has got "ample anecdotal evidence", adding that it was "totally wrong" and an invasion of civil liberties to stop and search people simply to racially balance the statistics.

"I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice," he said. "But it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches."

The official reviewer of counter-terrorist legislation said there was little or no evidence that the use of section 44 stop-and-search powers by the police can prevent an act of terrorism.

"Whilst arrests for other crime have followed searches under the section, none of the many thousands of searches has ever resulted in a conviction for a terrorism offence. Its utility has been questioned publicly and privately by senior Metropolitan police staff with wide experience of terrorism policing," said Carlile.

He added that such searches were stopping between 8,000-10,000 people a month.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the "section 44 stops" allow the police to search anyone in a designated area without suspicion that an offence has occurred. But Carlile is critical of the use of the powers used by the Met police, saying he felt "a sense of frustration" that the force did not limit its section 44 authorisations to some boroughs or parts of boroughs but used them across its entire area.

"I cannot see a justification for the whole of the Greater London area being covered permanently. The intention of the section was not to place London under permanent special search powers."

None of the many thousands of searches had ever led to a conviction for a terrorist offence, he said. He noted, too, that the damage done to community relations was "undoubtedly considerable".

Examples of poor, or unnecessary use, of section 44 abounded. "I have evidence of cases where the person stopped is so obviously far from any known terrorism profile that, realistically, there is not the slightest possibility of him/her being a terrorist, and no other feature to justify the stop."

The Met has announced a review of how it uses section 44 powers. And the home secretary, Alan Johnson, is to issue fresh guidance to the police, warning that counter-terrorism must not be used to stop people taking photographs of on-duty officers.

Carlile uses his annual report to endorse complaints from professional and amateur photographers that counter-terror powers are being used to threaten prosecution if pictures are taken of officers on duty.

He said the power was only intended to cover images likely to be of use to a terrorist: "It is inexcusable for police officers ever to use this provision to interfere with the rights of individuals to take photographs." The police had to come to terms with the increased scrutiny of their activities by the public, afforded by equipment such as video-enabled mobile phones. "Police officers who use force or threaten force in this context run the real risk of being prosecuted themselves for one or more of several possible criminal and disciplinary offences," he warned.

He mentioned an incident in which two Austrian tourists were rebuked by officers for photographing Walthamstow bus station, in east London.