The headline story in today's Mail on Sunday was about a group of airline passengers who mutinied and got a couple of their fellow passengers kicked off an aircraft that was waiting to take off. The two victims of this crazed mob were acting in a manner the passengers regarded as suspicious - they were speaking Arabic. Story!

After reading that article, I have comprised a list of security precautions that mean that you have a fair chance of not being attacked by a mob and then arrested if you are going to have to travel by air in the near future:

Never check your watch - it loooks as if you are coordinating a terrorist strike.

Never wear thick clothes - you might look as if you are concealing a bomb despite all those security measures you would have had to smuggle it past. Better yet, don't wear any clothes at all.

If you must have a conversation with someone, make sure it is in the Queen's English. To a paranoid moron, other languages such as French can sound a tiny bit like Arabic. Anyway, it's a foreign language so your fellow passengers will assume you're up to no good.

Be cautious with your reading material. The Koran is a definate no, and you should avoid reading crime novels and political thrillewrs - you might look as if you are looking for a few tips. 'True' stories of hijackings and air disasters should also be avoided.

Don't wear a beard!

If you follow these measures, you will probably be feeling rather paranoid - that's good as exhibiting signs of paranoia will help you to be part of the crowd. Or mob.

On my future trip to Germany, I'm going to take my laptop with me and have a long network lead with the end sticking out of the bag. Hmmm... maybe I'll also wear my watch with the alarm on it that I can't seem to turn off...

The bit I don;t understand is which moron decided to ban liquids on flights out of Lonond airports but allow laptops on board.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a certain liquid element to batteries? Could you not split a laptop battery into two compartments, fill each with different substances which, when mixed, create an explosive of some sort and just walk straight onto a plane despite any security measures that they've cooked up the past week or so?

So... to summarise, the security measures that were cooked up at the last minute are a little bit stupid. don;t get me wrong - good intentions and all, but not well thought out.

Anyway, back to the first post in the topic - it is a bit daft isn't it. You can see where the airline had no choice but to get the plane off the ground without the two men on board or face delaying flights, but I only hope they install (if they don't already have them) CCTV cameras on planes so that these things can be dealt with properly after the event.

After all, speaking Arabic isn't a crime yet.

The Shoe Bomber and one of the suspects arested over the airline plot were white, British converts to Islam. Next time I'm on a plane, it isn't the Arab passengers I'm going to be watching suspiciously

You need to be watching out in the surrounding areas of major airports.
Planes mights start to be falling down from the sky due to some morons with shoulderborne missile launchers.
Untimely Earth-to-plane contact tend to be very messy affairs as seen in the Concorde crash to name one.
So do under no circumstance buy any real estate near an major airport unless you are the one who wants to bring civil aviation to a grinding halt (Are you getting this MI5, FBI, PET....).

I know this is starting to sound a little clichéd by now...

... But it's starting to look like the terrorists have won, isn't it?

... It isn't encouraging to see the politicians pushing the "fear" attitude at every turn, either. We're close approaching the stage where no non-english materials will be allowed on public transport in case they contain hidden terrorist messages that the authorities can't understand. Don't stand too close to the kids speaking pig latin - Don't want to join them when they get led off in hand-cuffs, eh?

Let's face it, until we put people into cryostatis before letting them fly, there's always going to be a risk. That's an inherant part of freedom. You either have freedom, or security. Not both. The media is buttering us up for the secure way of life, and it's working.

Orwell would be proud to find out how right he was.

Just to further this thread a bit.

I was in London yesterday to drop my girlfriend off at Kings Cross Rail Station. Coming out of the Underground there were LOTS of police standing around and 2 airport style metal detectors had been set up. I think it was just a random search for offence weapons rather than anything terrorist related, according to my friends who live in London this happens faiely regularly.

However, the point of my post is: there was a large queue of people (30-40?) who had been pulled out by the police from the throng of people using the underground waiting to go through the scanners. Every single one of them was either Black or Asian, relatively young and male. Not a single white male to be seen among them apart from one middle aged geezer who was blind drunk.

What was it the Stephen Lawerance enquiry said about institutionalised rascism? So long as shit like this keeps happening we're never going to win this alleged war against terrorism.

Oh, that reminds me - Hitler would be proud, too.

I haven't got the heart to tell the authorities that there is such a thing as white muslims...

sorbicol - it has nothing to do with institutionalised racism and everything to do with statistical probability. it's known as profiling and is the still supported throughout the system of governance. the portable metal detector thing has proved surprisingly successful.

accounting troll - it goes to show how easily led the sheep are these days. I blame the media and the lack of common sense of their audience. no hostile is that dumb... well not usually.

You see Mikal that's the easy answer that lets you off the hook. It was institutionalised racism - the police didn't even look at any white people at all. The profiling you're talking about is "Are they Black or Asian? Are they young and Male? In that case they must be a potential Terrorist, thug or drug dealer and we'll run them through the scanner". That's not profiling, and believe me when I tell you they were stopping practically every young Black/Asian male through that scanner if they weren't with their family or parents.

I appreciate your sentiment but there were plently of young white men at that tube station who I would have felt easily qualified in the "Could be carrying a dangerous weapon" and could of gone throught the scanner. That's point - the police weren't even looking out for them, just the Black and Asian dudes. Just because it's the supported system in Government at the moment doesn't make it right. Profiling shouldn't look at the colour of your skin and in this case it clearly was.

However I do agree that the scanners are probably extremely successful. I'm not disagreeing with the idea of setting them up at underground stations, but at least try to mix up the race of people going through it, you know?

/rant mode off.

Sorbicol - you haven't seen this anti-crime system in use in other cities. Where I am the majority of those pulled are white with a few asians at the train station. I'm also experienced in counter-terrorism from my army days with a severe hangover from those with irish accents but I only pay attention to those who have brigade tattoos and tattoos from the maze nowadays even though I'm not part of the system anymore. Biiter experience in Boz taught all of us that it didn't matter what sex or age the person was, if they were from a party group then until otherwise proven they were considered hostile. 20 years after time in Beirut and the same groups still control half the city. My experience is different to yours so therefore I will always be more sympathetic.

At least 30% of London population is no longer British according to red ken.

To carry on with the subject of paranoia, this guy wasn't allowed to wear his shirt on a plane.

While it could be argued that wearing a "#1 Terrorist" shirt could cause panic on a plane, it could also be argued that those doing the panicking were complete idiots. Who would also panic if they saw a building out one of the plane windows, for example.

Fairly retarded, but a private airline can dictate what passengers can and cannot wear. If it was a government airline, it might have been different, but I doubt it.

I think this guy says it best.