"I don't think it's going to help one bit," Prentice told CBC News on Sunday. "What terrorist is going to travel with their own name and passport?…
"These people are going to steal or create a forged passport and identification if they're going to do anything, anyway."
Whether it's guns or passports, I just wonder why people always seem to assume that somehow criminals will register their weapons and use their real passports when they decide to commit crimes?
And as with gun-control it's the slippery slope that concerns most people. Sure this may be a small measure now, with fewer than a 1,000 people on this list it won't affect most Canadians - yet will it always be that size? What if one day certain Christian groups are included as "terrorist" organizations?
I would argue that this is a cop-out for Transport Canada. Instead of doing what really needs to be done to beef up security in airports it's coming up with a no-fly list to make people feel safe.
You see we have nothing to fear anymore... Those terrorists aren't on my plane because they would be on the "no-fly" list...
What we really need to do is best described by Yves Duguay:
On other subjects Thursday, Duguay voiced support for the use of armed RCMP officers as sky marshals on selected flights in Canada, brushing aside claims by critics who fear the practice could lead to dangerous mid-air shootouts.
Duguay, who spent 25 years as a Mountie before joining Air Canada, said the officers are well-trained and act as a deterrent to would-be attackers.
Seeing armed soldiers at French airports is common as far as I've seen, and I'm sure it must be so in the rest of Europe. Getting trained armed professionals into airports is the best deterrent to terrorism. The Israeli airlines have known this for years.
Pan Am in the 80's started implementing a system called the "The Alert Program." The original administrator had the intention of turning Pan Am security more militarized and similar to Israeli Airline security.
Unfortunately I don't think the original plan was ever fully implemented. Part of that had to do with concerns of PanAm's union not liking the idea of not using existing unionized security personnel as part of the new program. The original administrator of PanAm's ALERT program intended to train people with prior military or policing backgrounds for the job. In the end the administrator was fired from his position because PanAm disagreed with his security philosophy.
We can't live in this fictional bubble we've created for ourselves to believe that "no-fly" lists will somehow keep us safe. If anything they will just lead to more bureaucracy, less freedom, and more government meddling.
As insecure as it makes us feel, I'd rather see the soldiers with guns in airports and know that I'm safe, than file some some paperwork and assume it.
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