[Charles-P]

‘canucklad ‘ I can only agree with your sad assessment. As much as I admire the way the Israelis deal with security I hate the fact it is needed.

I think your comments also apply to the increasingly military look of the police. Although I understand why SCO19 units need to look the way they do I don’t get why the 50 year old local ‘Bobby’ who walks the beat near my mothers house in rural Surrey needs to be dressed in tactical gear !

[dutchyankee]

Charles-P, living part time in Russia, I have done some flying to the regions, and for sure, many of the airports I have encountered are laughable. Security checks can be solely for show. There is always the initial x-ray of your baggage before entry into the terminal, and yet in some airports many just walk around the machines and are not stopped (Samara old airport was tragic with this). Smoking I find is very much more controlled in buildings throughout the RF, but I guess in some places as you mentioned it is hit or miss. Carryon baggage takes on a completely different meaning for a lot of flights, especially to the independent countries I like to call the ‘stans.’ Huge, plastic, taped bags, often four or five per passenger are lugged onto flights, and placed every where in the cabin, accept the aisles. It makes coming back to LED like finding Nirvana.

[Charles-P]

A few weeks ago I came through the hand baggage check and metal detector arch in Cairo. All fine except the detector was very obviously not switched on and there was no image on the screen of the monitor for the baggage ! My agent laughed and said this was more of a job creation scheme than it was a security check.

[SimonS1]

@Charles 08.41 – you may like to refer to G4 staff as ‘monkeys’ but their job is not to do profiling and ask those questions. I suspect much of the profiling has already been done before you reach that point. Or maybe you really do think the profiling of travellers is outsourced to agency staff being paid the London living wage.

As I said earlier it’s easy for the Turkish authorities to be wise after the event. Not sure whether your use of capitals on ‘informed’ is for my benefit but the citizens of Ankara are suggesting they might have been better off being “informed” a week or do ago.

In any case I’m not sure if you think you are sharing some inside news from your “informed sources” but the links to ISIS were reported In the media here 2 days ago.

[Charles-P]

“you may like to refer to G4 staff as ‘monkeys’ but their job is not to do profiling and ask those questions.”

I disagree.

[SimonS1]

So you really do think the profiling of travellers is being done by outsourced contract staff on minimum wage. Amazing.

[Charles-P]

SimonS1 – 13/10/2015 10:10 BST

“So you really do think the profiling of travellers is being done by outsourced contract staff on minimum wage. Amazing.”

That is not what I said.

[canucklad]

The Russian narrative is particularly noteworthy, especially when you consider the horrors that terrorists have brought to the people of Russia.

And ,Charles, that reminded me, I forgot to include my most demoralising question…..
“When will we ever learn our lessons? “

On the whole profiling question, all of us in the UK , have probably been profiled more than any of us could possibly imagine, or be comfortable with !!

[JohnHarper]

Since we moved to Cyprus at the beginning of the year I have transited IST at least every other week. I find they target security very well and they certainly use profiling rather than worrying about 10mls of liquid. I also find the process a lot less stressful than I used to find LHR simply because the staff are well trained, very polite and courteous like almost anywhere else in the world except the UK.

On the occasions I travel to the UK now I look at security almost as an outsider. The staff at LHR are abrasive, rude and I don’t trust the process there for a moment. They are not trained to think but to enforce a myriad of pathetic little rules. As I’ve said previously the only purpose of it is to keep the worried worried and hassle everyone else.

I find LGW marginally better and I’ve tended to book services to there a bit more often than I might have done even though you don’t get the TK long haul business products and it’s the south terminal rather than T2. LGW security staff do display a modicum of sense and occasionally courtesy.

[Charles-P]

‘canucklad” ““When will we ever learn our lessons? “

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás

[dutchyankee]

@canucklad

What’s interesting is when you live in Russia, the police presence on the streets is impressive while also a bit oppressive. They frequently stop people entering and exiting metro stations, mainly those of certain ethnic back grounds, checking their papers, bags, etc. It gives a certain air of safety. I truly never feel unsafe when I walk around St. Pete even late at night, in the main districts, and I use public transport a lot, and again feel very safe. Rail stations, the same. But when I fly, the security checks seem less impressive, less thorough, especially for a country you so rightly say has been targeted in the past.

[AnthonyDunn]

@dutchyankee – 13/10/2015 10:26 BST

A certain air of safety – or intimidation if you happen to be from one of those ethnic groups (mainly from the Caucasus and Asian republics).

This rather reminds me of my last experience at PEK where, of the hundreds of passengers passing through security, only my (fellow white, middle-aged British male) friend and I were stopped and subjected to the full panoply of explosives checks, bag searches and body frisking. It was so obvious that we had to laugh.

[Charles-P]

I have never had a problem with profiling if done with some obvious intelligence behind it however because of various pressure groups (membership 20 nut-jobs) we reach the stage of political correctness that saw the wife of George Bush stopped for a TSA body search at LAX despite the protests of the Secret Service detail. We have truly reached the absurd.

[dutchyankee]

@AnthonyDunn – 13/10/2015 13:35 BST

Absolutely true, it is intimidating if you are on the receiving end. My better half is French-Italian and used to be regularly stopped during the 90’s in Moscow to check for visa/passport. It was explained by a colleague that it had to do with having olive colour skin. In Russia, the unfortunate reality is that the most heinous terrorist attacks have been carried out by those from the Caucasus region as well as a number from the CIS. Russia strictly controls entrance now from the CIS, instituting a new more strict tax regime for all CIS citizens working in the RF except for those from Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Having witnessed a theft gone wrong on a Public Bus, committed by a small gang of 5 Tajiks, its not nice to say, but the small number do cause the entire ethnic population to receive a very negative reputation. I’m not saying its right, but it’s what happens.

[Charles-P]

‘dutchyankee’ the ethnicity of those who commit crime is often a tricky subject and one that the police and media often keep away from. I remember one morning in London a phone in show on LBC ( a news talk radio show) that was discussing the fact that some 75% of knife crime in London is perpetrated by those of an Afro-Caribbean heritage. There were people who called in absolutely outraged that this fact was being discussed. The presenter was trying to link knife crime to urban deprivation and poverty (which the AC community is disproportionately affected by) but that was irrelevant to some callers. He had said black men carry knives and therefore he was a racist.

The police in the Belgium city of Gent were subject to an investigation after the chief of police stated (accurately) that car crimes such as no insurance, no driving licence etc is almost entirely a problem in the Turkish community within the city.

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