Unfortunately, they're only protesting that it be used against pilots. They say nothing about the rights of their passengers. From the article (emphasis mine):
"the practice of airport security screening of airline pilots has spun out of control and does nothing to improve national security"
They would have deserved more kudos if they had stood up for passengers' rights as well.
I am not a pilot, but I find the fact that they have to be security screened to be pretty darn annoying, and I'm glad they're protesting. A pilot does not need a box cutter to crash the plane. They have full control over the plane by definition.
Well, the value of a sympathizing pilot that is willing to smuggle in truly dangerous stuff is probably higher than the value of the average guy that is willing to crash a plane with himself in it. Using the (unscreened) pilot, one could generate a stream of well-armed terrorists.
Sorry, I don't think you're addressing what I meant, and I don't see the relevance of your latest statement to what I wrote. Can you please explain?
In the scenario you described, the pilot dies ("A pilot does not need a box cutter to crash the plane. They have full control over the plane by definition."). Hence I am guessing your point is that we only need to be worried about suicidal pilots (who can't be stopped anyway, and who are very few in number), the risk of which it very low.
I was trying to point out that if you don't check pilots at security checkpoints, we will also have to worry about non-suicidal pilots (which is a much larger population), the risk of which is non-trivial.
Again, am I missing something obvious in your two statements? I am not supporting the TSA's gropers, I am just saying that pilots need to go through the same security procedures as the cattle. Otherwise there's a security hole. Are you disagreeing with this? If so, you haven't backed it up, as far as I can tell.
My hope is that if pilots and flight attendants are forced to be groped everyday, they will stop groping us cattle too.
