Should airlines and airport security companies employ such people?

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 30 total)

  • robsmith100
    Participant

    If anyone is in doubt of the BA recruitment process, check out the link below for further details:

    http://www.britishairwaysjobs.com/baweb1/tpl_ba01.asp?newms=info5

    Looks pretty comprehensive to me.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    Tom, I have no knowledge of whether people work as legals or illegals, hence my on the fence comment. This is certainly a very sensitive subject and one that is unfortuantely subject more to “policital correcteness” than sensible security procedural checks, otherwise, if you cant provide a criminal background check, there should be no offer of a job or career in what is essentially a secure and controlled environement.


    silvertray
    Participant

    “On a recent flight to the US I couldn’t help but notice the thick irony of the bizarre situation in which an Asian Muslim of Pakistani descent was quizzing me and, later at the gate, I was singled out by another similar chap (this time of Bangladeshi descent) for a more detailed search. The irony emanating from the fact that these are precisely the sort of people Homeland Security and the US government agencies in charge of combating terrorism look out for and robustly question upon arrival in the US.”

    What a racist comment.

    How on earth would you have known their decent? Did you ask for it or did you just assume? For all you know they could have been born in the US.

    I work for BA and we were asked in training…’What do terrorist look like?’ and the obvious answer is ‘like you or me’.

    White, black, Asian whatever, anyone has the potential to be a terrorist. It seems your gripe was that you found it outrageous to be pulled over by a ‘brown person’ as they are the terrorists.

    Get a grip. You will find that security often work long shift hours that could be argued many ‘homeland’ people simply wouldn’t want to do.


    Sparepocket
    Participant

    May I point out, Silvertray, it isn’t actually difficult to ascertain a person’s “decent” (sic)…you merely have to look at their names and accents and intonations. Intelligence agencies the world over have reams of data based on those three characteristics, not to mention DNA samples from convicted terrorists/criminals.
    I agree, terrorists do look “like you and me”(sic) which is why I am happy to be questioned in detail because it is people with my skin colour and of Asian descent (along with various Saudi Arabians, Qataris, and Kuwaitis)who are, of late, responsible for various acts of terrorism (London, Glasgow, Mumbai)and will continue to be responsible for various acts of terrorism.
    I don’t have a problem being singled out because at least it shows that the security personnel are targeting the right ethnic group (but the wrong person, alas. I almost went to Sandhurst so I can’t possibly be traitorous).
    The next time you’re at LHR I’m sure you’ll find lots of “homeland people” (did you mean ‘homeboys’ by any chance?) manning the metal detectors and the screening machines.


    flyer27
    Participant

    I am disgusted at the narrow-mindedness of so many of you. Has it not occurred to any of you that the former BA worker was in fact a British Citizen? He may have been born in Bangladesh, but he came over to the UK to study and live. It is a real shame that so many people judge on skin colour. As far as you racists are concerned, anyone who looks like a muslim is a terrorist – I think you need to be much more open-minded.. terrorists are less than 1% of the muslim population, so it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack when it comes to spotting terrorists.


    HanoiRocks
    Participant

    its fair to say that not all muslims and-or arabs are terrorists but most terrorists are muslims and-or arabs and this can be statistically backed up.


    silvertray
    Participant

    Sparepocket, your argument is one sided.

    You claim BA should not have employed this person, or people like him, and you only argument on how to this is based on ‘the fact he might have been pakistani’ and assume they will be a terrorist. That would be racist.

    ‘its fair to say that not all muslims and-or arabs are terrorists but most terrorists are muslims and-or arabs and this can be statistically backed up.’

    – What you mean by that is that a lot of terrorist perceived by YOU are Muslims, I’m sure many of Muslims might view the American government as terrorists.

    Remember Margaret Thatcher once called Nelson Mandela a terrorist.


    flyer27
    Participant

    Silvertray – nice to see you are not part of the crowd of narrow-mindedness that we’ve seen in these posts.

    It’s so sad to think that many people victimising Muslim groups are part of a Business Traveller community – but that goes to show that this belief is beyond class and social status.

    Aren’t we supposed to be the open-minded, democratic society that we so often suggest in the media? Guess not.

    The sad truth is that there is a clear ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality in today’s society. If you’re born into a white family and have no connections with a person of a different ethnicity, then you don’t care that many muslims are being misjudged as potential terrorists every day… there is a HUGE misunderstanding here, driven by prejudice and media sensationalism about terrorism.

    I also wanted to say – it wasn’t long ago when the IRA were setting off bombs in London…. back then, people got on with life. There was none of this terrorism hype in the media. And terrorists who were… white? Who could have thought it?!!!


    NTarrant
    Participant

    And Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams were also terrorists and so the list can go on. If you go back to 1981, most terrorists had Irish accents, but it was only a small minority of Irish folk were terrorists. In 2011 the same can be said today of Arab/Muslim people. In the UK today the treat of terrorist violence is from this group, where as in 1981 it was the IRA.

    Perhaps in 2041 it will be a different group of people.


    Sparepocket
    Participant

    “White terrorists” have been around for millenia, starting with all those who opposed the Roman Empire (including those who inhabited the British Isles), the American revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks,the Stern Gang, the IRA, the Bader-Meinhoff Group,the UVF (and the media, if you look at the archives, were certainly not reticent about Loyalist and Republican violence) etc.,
    There is indeed “a clear us and them mentality”. Haven’t you noticed the way passengers on a bus in, say, deepest, whitest Chelsea stiffen up when a tourist from the Middle East hops on board?Likewise on the Tube.
    You can’t force people to be open-minded if they are afraid.


    flyer27
    Participant

    Afraid? I would say brainwashed by the media to feel afraid….people seem to believe in all the media propaganda. Terrorism sells papers…


    O.C.D.P
    Participant

    Surely by the virtue that Messers Mandela, McGuinnes and Adams were fully paid up members of, and active participants (whether in planning or execution) in the shadier side, of political groups involved in terrorist activity it would not be unfair for them to be classed as terrorists, not withstanding their subsequent rehabilitations.
    In terms of security against terrorist threats, no matter how abhorent it may be to open western societies, profiling on critieria such as race, religion, age etc are very effective.


    Sparepocket
    Participant

    EL AL focus their security on a certain ethnic group and that has helped reduce the number of terrorist attempts on EL AL’s aircraft. Infact, I don’t think there have been any in years!
    If people have a problem with racial profiling at airports then maybe they should consider alternative forms of transport.
    I’m fairly certain the French and Spanish authorities routinely profiled people of Basque descent until a few years ago so it isn’t a case of just one group being singled out.
    You may rant and rave but,ultimately,the various governments that have been directly affected by terrorist attacks (the US, UK, Spain, France, Russia, and India) are not about to put a stop to profiling.


    Bucksnet
    Participant

    TominScotland, I for one am certainly not xenophobic or racist; the point I’m trying to get across is about someone being a British national or a foreign national and the inability of being able to do full background checks on people who are not born here.

    MartynSinclair, “Its easier for a foreign national to get work at airports becasue unlike a British national whose murder or rape conviction could be seen, a foreign national’s cant be seen as there is no way to check.” this is the point.

    TominScotland, “a significant majority of those living within the Heathrow catchment area are second and third generation migrants and certainly legally entitled to work there.” yes they are and I’ve no problem with that; full background checks can and should be done.

    MartynSinclair, “if you cant provide a criminal background check, there should be no offer of a job or career in what is essentially a secure and controlled environement.” spot on!

    flyer27, the ex-BA worker in question was not a British citizen and his skin colour is most certainly not a problem.


    Sparepocket
    Participant

    Would it be unconstitutional and a breach of human rights if any non-EU national was coming in to the UK to work and had to have his fingerprints recorded in a law enforcement/immigration data base (linked to INTERPOL’s records and/or a worldwide database of convicted criminals)? After all,every non US national flying into the US is finger-printed at Immigration.
    Those non-EU nationals with criminal records would immediately be flagged up and then there wouldn’t be any embarasment (for the employer) down the line.

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