Gangs and Security

Yesterday morning the police in Toronto swept across various areas to gather up the members of a gang here called the Crips.  Yes, Toronto is a world-class city, in that we have gang violence as well, so you can have some of that "back home" feeling of a car full of gang-bangers shooting at each other in public.

The operation was successful, in that there were sixty arrests.  The dangerous point, somewhat buried by the media was this:  Six known gang members were working on the ramp at Pearson Airport, the largest airport in Canada.  Ramp workers have access to the baggage holds of aircraft and are in a great position to steal, smuggle or generally cause much mayhem.

Which brings up the lax state of security at airports.  I’ve written about it before, that airport security is a massive game of bullshite theatre designed to look like something is being done, while the facts indicate that nothing has really changed.  Actually, things have changed.  The security lines are long, the passengers are treated like meat and the airlines can claim it is all in the name of "security" while crying poor to government. 

This opens up two questions.  First:  If we’re not actually doing anything constructive about airport security, then where did all the money go?  Second: When will this come back to bite us?

The first answer is easy:  Consultants and Those who Create Management Processes.

To get your Transport Canada airside pass you have to pass a couple of courses and a background check.  The courses are not that challenging:  "Should you put your head in a running jet engine?  Yes or No.  Who has right of way, an 800,000 pound airplane full of gas and passengers, or your 500 pound baggage tug?  Pick one."  The background check, as best I can determine consists of asking the prospective employee if they’re nice.

The airlines and the fixed-base operators don’t want to set the bar too high.  Ramp workers, generally, don’t make a whole lot of money, with some exceptions.  There are unions involved at some carriers, notably Air Canada.  Specialist positions, like fuelers, de-icers and maintenance techs are well paid.

For the vast majority of others, the labour situation is "get a warm body that breathes and will accept $9 an hour to hump bags into the hold of a two-hole 37.  And we have to clean a bunch of 757 lavatories coming back from the Dysentery Convention at 4 PM."

Needless to say employees that are treated like dirt, tend not to be the most motivated.  The first ones to go away in a layoff are the ones at the very bottom.  Offering a ramp rat $500 will get you half-ownership of their earthly soul.  In exchange for the $500 you can have them pick up or place packages for you, no questions asked.  This also explains why theft from aircraft baggage has not decreased since 9/11.  If you could double your weekly salary by stealing cameras, jewelry or other things, like booze and duty-free, why not?

Then we task them to be part of the "Security Solution" and issue a wad of press releases?  The logic is deeply flawed and the procedures are almost hallucinatory.  Which also explains why six of the gang-bangers arrested yesterday, work at the airport.  

As to when this broken system will turn around and bite us in the ass?  It already has and will again, as long as the process of vetting is this obviously pooched.  If the RCMP and CATSA were to do a real review of everyone’s airside credentials, the number of arrests would go through the roof of the old Canadian Airlines hangar, near Terminal 3. 

Theoretically, with strong airside security, there should be zero risk to you or I putting a camera, or jewelry in our checked baggage, if our system is as wonderful as the press releases.  The concluding statement is easy enough.  If someone can steal my camera from my baggage with no fear of being caught, what is stopping them from putting explosives in my baggage?  

Personally, I’d be rubbing unpasteurized cheese and home made salami on all the bags going out of the country, just to give the Agricultural Inspection dogs something to do in Frankfurt and Charlotte.  Those poor doggies sit around all day on hard airport floors sniffing nothing but sweaty tourist arses and unwashed underwear. 

The powers that be are great at thinking like bureaucrats and process heads, but fall miserably thinking like criminals.