Beware the Kayaking Terrorists!

By BJ Bjornson

I read this story a couple of days ago, and I must say, I haven�t seen an �expert� on a region so clueless of the actual realities of said region since the Bush administration.

Airport security may be tightening up across Canada, but people flying within the northern territories do not face any screening, worrying a security expert who warns terrorists could use the North as an entry point.

Currently, airline passengers flying from Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Whitehorse to cities in southern Canada must go through full security screening, including metal detectors and carry-on luggage scans.

But passengers travelling within northern communities � for example, between Iqaluit and Yellowknife � walk directly to their departure gates without undergoing any security screening.

Terrorists could take advantage of those lax security measures to get into North America, said Robert Huebert, a political science professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in Arctic studies.

"If you can get to the [Arctic] shore by some form of maritime transport, then you can get onto one of these aircrafts without being checked," Huebert told CBC News.

"Then you can get yourself to Yellowknife or to Whitehorse, and then basically have someone meeting you and then get onto the highway system."

It�s really hard to know where to start with this. I mean, does this idiot have any idea just how hard it would be to acquire marine transport into the high Arctic? Even in these days of a warming globe, there is a fair amount of ice floating around in the summer, and the region remains impassable through much of the winter. It would be far, far easier to land your marine infiltration craft along some of the far more southern thousands of miles of practically unguarded coastline.

Even more importantly, these communities are incredibly small and isolated, to the point that a significant fraction of the population treks out to the airport to check and see who might be coming to visit the community. There is generally no other possible means of transport into the communities, excepting the odd cruise and/or transport ship, and yet we�re supposed to believe that some terrorist, having managed to brave the icy waters for thousands of miles past where he could have landed close to some multi-cultural melting pot with easy blending in possibilities, is going to wander in off the land and stroll into the airport to fly south without raising any eyebrows? This scenario makes the proverbial sore thumb seem like an expert in camouflage.

And after all of this, the guy still needs to meet an already in-country friend to drive him the rest of the way to where there are actual terror targets. (It is probably worth noting at this point that said highway system doesn�t start in Yellowknife, it goes pretty much all the way to the Arctic Ocean.) This really seems like a whole lot of work for relatively little benefit. Further to all this, what exactly is the point of this massive detour? Is there anything this guy is bringing with him that can�t be made in Canada or the U.S. that requires such a dangerous sea voyage to transport?

Listen, if these terrorists you�re all so worried about have the kind of money and expertise to carry off such an implausible infiltration through the Arctic, we should be very, very concerned, given they can get into North America far easier, with far less hassle and expense, and without arriving in an area where they are almost certain to be noticed immediately as out of place. The only plausible reason I can think of for this �expert� to bringing up this kind of idiocy is that he owns shares in one of the security companies selling the expensive devices used for screening and sees all those tiny hamlets without such devices as an excellent growth opportunity.

As an aside, given this is the day devoted to annoying the TSA in the U.S. by opting out of the scanners, I should note that I just finished traveling to the U.S. (where I attended Skepticon 3, about which I hope to have a post up soon) and though I went through security checkpoints several times, I was apparently lucky in not having either the scanner or the pat-down used. The only real difference from going through the checkpoints in Canada was the rather ridiculous need to remove my shoes each and every time. The only other thing of note was that during one of my trips, I completely forgot to remove the liquids from my carry-on and place them in the little plastic bag. Didn�t even slow me down. Whoever was screening the bag either didn�t notice or didn�t care, I only realized it later when I got to my hotel. In honour of that, I give you Adam Savage and his far more troubling TSA screw-up.




Don�t you feel safer?

Nuts

By BJ Bjornson

?Nothing like a post title with a double meaning.

Air Canada must provide a buffer zone on flights for people with nut allergies, the Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled.

The airline must consider passengers with nut allergies as disabled and give them specific accommodations accordingly within 30 days, the agency says. It has also ordered Air Canada to come up with an appropriate section of seats where passengers with nut allergies would be seated.

. . .

"An exclusion or buffer zone where passengers within that zone will be advised that they can only eat foods that are peanut-free or nut-free and that they will only be offered peanut-free or nut-free foods as part of Air Canada's onboard snack or meal will also address the risk of other passengers eating peanuts or nuts," the agency said in its ruling.

The only bright side I can see is that nobody will have to fly next to the folks who came up with this decision.

Should We �Israelify� Our Airports?

By BJ Bjornson

Steve�s post the other day regarding the selective outrage at Michael Yon�s experience at U.S. customs has got me thinking even more on the issue of airport security. It is pretty much always an issue on my mind since I happen to live in an area where air travel is the only method available to me, meaning I have little to no choice but to undergo whatever new indignity the powers that be decide to impose on North American air travelers. Suggestions regarding leaving rude messages for the folks examining my junk aside, this article regarding how the Israelis have managed to produce a far more secure system with far less hassle to the traveler has certainly peaked my interest.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for � not for hours � but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.

Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" � behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.

"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"

On this point I would disagree. Behavioural profiling has never been a problem so far as I am aware, it is the racial profiling that some have been agitating for that raise hackles and complaints.

The rest of the procedures listed follow the same sort of logic, focusing on the person rather than the objects they may be carrying as is done in North America. This part in particular caught my notice.

Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.

. . .

Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson � the body and hand-luggage check.

"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.

"First, it's fast � there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

This far from a minor point now that I think of it. I�ve been in more than a few line-ups waiting to go through security where a properly equipped suicide bomber could cause far more damage than if they got through and blew up the plane itself.

Now, I�ve never flown to Israel, so I cannot confirm whether or not their security is as hassle-free as the article makes it sound, but the thought of getting from the parking lot to the tarmac in a maximum of 25 minutes certainly sounds really, really nice given some of my experiences just flying domestically in Canada, which I understand is far nicer overall than flying to or within the US.

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

Working hard to dampen his outrage, Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves.

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit � technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

While the corporate culture common to all bureaucracies is at least partly to blame for our inefficient security, I would note there is at least one other problem that keeps our security forces from acting as Israel�s does.

You�ll note that Israel�s security forces are highly-trained and well-motivated. For our security to match theirs, we would need to have a similarly professional and motivated security corps. The problem we have is that if you want a highly professional and motivated security force, you have to offer the kind of pay and benefits highly trained professionals expect. While I don�t have an exact figure for what pre-boarding security screeners get paid, I think its fair to say that it isn�t exactly a highly sought after career path for the ambitious and talented.

As Dave has noted here a few times recently, security is often a trade-off between costs and benefits, and while the powers that be seem more than willing to spend huge sums on the kinds of toys that make looking at things much easier, the tend to be far more miserly when it comes to paying the folks who operate them.

From experience, I can tell you that the best defense organizations have from security breaches are the soft, almost intangible ones comprised of their staff�s ethics, morale, and willingness to make the right kind of decisions. Number-crunchers hate them because they don�t lend themselves to easy measurement or statistical analysis, which is why you see every attack, foiled or otherwise, met by increased hard controls in our airports. More screening of bags, fewer carry-ons, no liquids, scan the footwear, whatever. It�s also why the Israelis do so much better a job. Their security is focused on the kinds of controls that work the best.

Add to that the normal airline treatment of their passengers as little better than cattle, and you can begin to understand why our security services look at impersonal things rather than focusing on personal reactions as their touchstones. Security is set up like a assembly line, with the focus on scanning as much stuff as possible, with little to no regard to personal discomfort, privacy, or convenience. With the added caveat of squeezing as much profit as possible out of the lucrative security contracts, which generally explains the pay screeners receive.

One further point of note:

"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. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody,"

I don�t know if we don�t trust anybody, but given our security forces� tendency to handcuff/arrest/taser/shoot anyone who gives them even slightest bit of trouble, if that, I would say that it is to some extent reasonable as to why we have a hard time trusting them.

Probably pointless the way things are done, but I can only sit back and dream of the day that they redesign the system to ensure that passengers get from the parking lot to the tarmac in a maximum of 25 minutes rather than the current minimum of (I�m guesstimating here) 45 minutes to an hour and maximums too ridiculous to be believed.

Swine Flu Mania

By BJ Bjornson

Outside of certain vice-presidents and much of the mainstream media, a lot of people are starting to put this whole "Swine Flu" thing into perspective.

If I were to say that this year 30,000 Americans would die from the flu, you�d probably think I was offering an alarmist take on the current swine flu outbreak. In fact, I would be offering an extremely optimistic take on influenza in 2009. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the country sees about 36,000 flu-related deaths in a normal year and around 200,000 hospitalizations. It�s standard for between five and twenty percent of the population to contract the flu in any given year.

Given all that, not only do we face the risk of an unusually bad pandemic of �swine flu� we also face a risk of panic. Apparently, very high levels of flu-related hospitalizations and deaths are actually pretty normal. But the media doesn�t normally cover them as national news stories. The heightened awareness of swine flu risks, however, means that anything flu-related is going to get dramatically inflated attention.

I think avoiding panic is one of the biggest concerns right now, and its nice to see most now using the WHO numbers for Mexico rather than the much larger "suspected" figures. As the above quote shows, even the suspected cases wouldn't count as a major surprise for an ordinary flu in a country of Mexico's population, but the way it is being treated by the media makes it sound far worse than it probably is.

Not that it hasn't kept certain people from taking advantage of the situation. Though I will have to disagree with John in that it would only be a gaffe if they didn't intend to say it. With this crew, the "kepp-the-dirty-brown-people-out" is unfortunately completely on-message, even if it is entirely ridiculous.

All that said, I'm forced to admit that this story had me shaking my head.

Three young Port Perry women who are Ontario's first confirmed cases of swine flu returned from Cancun on Friday with symptoms but spent the weekend at the local casino and visiting friends because their local hospital never advised them to stay home.

And even after 21-year-old Justine Stevenson was informed on Tuesday afternoon that she has the virus, no one has told her mom to close her home daycare business.

I can't wait until they just quarantine North America.

Nice Going, Biden!

By BJ Bjornson

Face it. We've all been kinda waiting for something like this from Biden.

Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not recommend taking any commercial flight or riding in a subway car �at this point� because swine flu virus can spread �in confined places.� A little more than one hour later, Biden rushed out a statement backing off.

Nothing like starting a panic regarding commercial air travel and mass transit. Just the sort of thing the US needs right now with the economy in the dumps.

All in all, I prefer the gaffes where most of the damage is done to himself and his allies.

Swine Flu Spreading

By BJ Bjornson

It appears that the swine flu is expanding its reach internationally.

Nova Scotia and British Columbia have confirmed cases of swine flu, while new cases of the infection have been found in New York City, as health officials around the world test for a virus linked to a more serious outbreak in Mexico.

Nova Scotia's chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said Sunday the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed late Saturday that four young people in the province are recovering from "relatively mild" cases of the disease.

. . .

B.C.'s Centre for Disease Control on Sunday confirmed cases of swine flu involving two people from the province who recently returned from Mexico.

. . .

New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall confirmed on Sunday a group of Auckland college students who returned from a three-week visit to Mexico on Saturday "likely" have swine flu.

"Ten of the 13 students who had flu-like symptoms have proven positive for influenza A and the swine flu is a subset of influenza A," he said. So we're going to send the swabs to Melbourne for further analysis. We should have that information in a matter of days, but our officials here think it's highly likely they have."

This is likely to be for more widespread than already reported due to the relatively large number of people who travel to Mexico. So far, however, I haven't seen any indication that the cases outside of Mexico are proving fatal, which is good news and may indicate that there are other environmental factors responsible for the Mexican fatalities.

If not, this could get pretty ugly, as unlike the SARS outbreak in 2003, we know that flu is pretty easily transmissible.

Anyway, most of this is speculation at this point. Over at TMV, the resident doctor has a good run-down of advice for everyone. Top of the list: Don't Panic!

Transportation Regulation equalization

By Fester:

The draft House stimulus bill contains roughly $40 billion dollars for transportation.  Three quarters of that money is dedicated to highway construction and maintenance while a quarter is allocated to mass transit, including a the possibility of SUPERTRAINS.  I would prefer a 50:50 split or an inversion of the ratio, as my consumer surplus is much higher with mass transit, and I think the societal surplus is higher as well.

However, a 3:1 highway to mass transit split is a dramatic improvement from typical federal funding ratios.  The last major transportation law funded highways at roughly 5:1 over all other alternative modes of transit.  A good chunk of this ratio is purely political.  The law was written when the majority party's base and swing lives in the suburbs and exurbs.  Mass transit makes far less sense in low density areas, and when the votes are lined up, the marginal decision will be supporting the majority's preferences.  Furthermore, there is some serious interest group bundling aimed at political capture.  Developers, construction firms, some unions push hard for a form of construction that they understand and can exploit for their own interests.  Again, this is just politics.  Finally, the regulatory hurdles for highway construction are far lower than the hurdles faced by any other federal transportation project.

I think one of the major goals that mass transit and urban density advocates need to push for in both this stimulus package and the 2009 transportation bill is equalization of regulation.  For instance, a highway project just needs to show that it will add capacity to the regional system and that it serves some need.  It does not have to address induced traffic which is the traffic generated by the addtion of a new road to a network as previous trips that were not taken are now taken because it is closer.  Mass transit projects have to meet this hurdle AND also show that the project will reduce travel time on both the route and the system as a whole.  Mass transit has an induced traffic demand. 

Another example of car centered subsidization is the parking and mass transit tax subsidies.  Right now, employees can put up to $205 per month in a tax free parking reimbursement account or $100 for van pooling and $105 per month for a mass transit pass.  In all cases, the employee is able to deduct up to the cost of work transportation expenses or the above limits without paying taxes on it.  I use this plan for my bus pass.  However, as you can see, the plans greatly favor driving and parking.  Equalizing the subsidy limit by a dollar cost averaging of actual expenses would strongly encourage more mass transit utilization.

There are numerous little tweaks and twirls within both federal law and federal regulation that favor highway and car usage.  Equalization of the playing field would be a massive push for mass transit.