Busting a TFR

Albany Tom said:
I disagree. We're out of range of any possible hostile AF. But even if it weren't safe, why should we have extra protection for people who are not any more important than anyone else? It's a simple risk equation. What's the worst case event that could be caused by a temporarily lack of federal leadership? Supreme court justices and cabinet members can't be appointed for a while? Bit of a delay signing bills into law? Fewer press conferences? The outage of an Amazon shipping facility would cause more economic damage to the US. Our people in government do have an important role to play in society, but they aren't, but ANY stretch of the imagination, all that important.
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Wait… Are you suggesting the POTUS should have no more security than you or me?

It’s not about protecting the person, as much as it is protecting the office.
 
Kritchlow said:
Wait… Are you suggesting the POTUS should have no more security than you or me?

It’s not about protecting the person, as much as it is protecting the office.
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No, but I am suggesting that any added protection needs to be balanced. During the 1950's, perhaps 60's, protecting that office was arguably equivalent to protecting the country from imminent destruction. That's simply not the case anymore. Amazon warehouse may be a bit of hyperbole, but not all that much. Most of us here have lived through some sort of threat of government shutdown caused by party arguments, and the largest impact is that people don't get their SS checks on time. I'm NOT minimizing that, too many people are living on the edge, but it's not the end of the world.
 
You are important to your friends and family. The elected leader of the most powerful nation in the world is important to quite a few more people than that. And as far as I know, no POTUS has ever been assassinated by a foreign air force, so that seems to be non sequitur.
 
Foreign AF is absolutely on topic, as the exclusion is entirely about aircraft. The only serious threats to any buildings there are the transport category aircraft that are permitted, and military. The passengers are keeping the airliners safe, and the Canadians long ago stopped giving us a hard time for 1812.

As far as important goes, many people are concerned about protecting our leadership. And, to an extent, we need to do that, the same as we protect our landmarks, historical buildings, etc. The stereotypical Hollywood movie disaster, where chaos ensues from a loss of leadership strikes fear into the pubic, I agree. But it's silliness. A hurricane or snowstorm effectively shuts DC down for a few days every couple of years. Nobody but the news media notices. Sure, the elected people function, but the offices are effectively shut down. As far as the military threat goes, we beat the hun a hundred years ago. The redcoats are our friends now. The battles we're fighting and losing are economic, not military. We don't need to ring DC with SAM's like it was Hanoi in 1972.

For an example, a misguided terrorist group attempted a cyber attack on a major US industry about 10 years ago. But they didn't attack the industry itself, they attacked the regulatory agency that is charged with keeping that industry in line. They were partially successful in their attempt. The result? Absolutely nothing. It meant the industry has slightly less effective regulation for a while.

We don't have kings or princesses. We have a large collection of barely functioning people arguing amongst themselves while keeping the various bureaucracies that report to them confused. It's not bad system - very few if any are better. But the people running it aren't all that special. I'm certain that we'd be better off if they were picked by lottery, similar to jury duty.

All of this nonsense started after 9/11, as we all know. But the biggest impact to people on that day wasn't to anyone elected. It was to regular people and their families, to FDNY and other first responders, and to military and civilians at the pentagon. The majority were NYC residents. But we persist with protections around DC. Why? In my view because the majority of those elected leaders feel self-important, entitled, and perhaps scared. Again, not saying they don't have any value or aren't worth protecting. They are targets for numerous groups of nuts. But I am suggesting, again, that they aren't any more *important* than anyone else on the planet. They're just at slightly elevated risk of attack than the average person. What I don't understand is why anyone would defend their "specialness". This isn't a Jimmy Stewart movie. None of them are the wonder children that will lead us to a promised land.
 
Albany Tom said:
No, but I am suggesting that any added protection needs to be balanced. During the 1950's, perhaps 60's, protecting that office was arguably equivalent to protecting the country from imminent destruction. That's simply not the case anymore. Amazon warehouse may be a bit of hyperbole, but not all that much. Most of us here have lived through some sort of threat of government shutdown caused by party arguments, and the largest impact is that people don't get their SS checks on time. I'm NOT minimizing that, too many people are living on the edge, but it's not the end of the world.
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Well, respectfully, you and I are far apart. I see absolutely no correlation between a government shutdown and protecting the POTUS.
 
Kritchlow said:
Well, respectfully, you and I are far apart. I see absolutely no correlation between a government shutdown and protecting the POTUS.
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I think so, and that's ok. Out of what, 45? now, I think I have some respect for about a half dozen. All that I'm aware of, with maybe one exception, made some significant mistakes in office. That's understandable, as they're people. Just people. I suppose I get the whole "potus" thing, but it seems a bit sentimental. They're just people fulfilling a role. An important role, sure, but not the most important one, in the grand scheme of things to me.
 
Albany Tom said:
I suppose I get the whole "potus" thing, but it seems a bit sentimental. They're just people fulfilling a role. An important role, sure, but not the most important one, in the grand scheme of things to me.
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An important role is absolutely correct. You may not like the one in the office but he is the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet at the moment and must be protected from all enemies foreign and domestic. For many years I have disagreed with the people in power regardless of party as the entire system is corrupt. As another pointed out it isn't so much the person but the office that is to be protected.

But I also agree with those that correctly state that the methods used need to not be so burdensome to the little people ...
 
Daleandee said:
An important role is absolutely correct. You may not like the one in the office but he is the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet at the moment and must be protected from all enemies foreign and domestic. For many years I have disagreed with the people in power regardless of party as the entire system is corrupt. As another pointed out it isn't so much the person but the office that is to be protected.

But I also agree with those that correctly state that the methods used need to not be so burdensome to the little people ...
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It's not about like or dislike, or even good/bad/evil in my view. It's more about significance. They oversee the executive branch, sign bills into law, and appoint justices. An important job, but just a job. Day to day it really doesn't matter that much. Do we need to protect them? Sure, absolutely. But we don't protect them because there's anything special about any of them. We protect them simply because we don't want nuts of the world get the idea that they can influence our system by force, any more than they already have. (Primarily because that would just be a messy PITA.) That's it. We don't need any of F-15's, TFRs, or SFRA to do that.
 
If I were president and enjoying an iced tea and lunch on the patio at Camp David, I wouldn’t want the secret service whisking me away and disturbing lunch for some idiot who never learned what a damn TFR Notam is.
 
Albany Tom said:
No, but I am suggesting that any added protection needs to be balanced. During the 1950's, perhaps 60's, protecting that office was arguably equivalent to protecting the country from imminent destruction. That's simply not the case anymore. Amazon warehouse may be a bit of hyperbole, but not all that much. Most of us here have lived through some sort of threat of government shutdown caused by party arguments, and the largest impact is that people don't get their SS checks on time. I'm NOT minimizing that, too many people are living on the edge, but it's not the end of the world.
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In the 1960s as you quote, a president was assassinated by a terrorist ****ed over economic support of Israel, later his brother / presidential candidate was assassinated. In the 80s there was an assignation attempt on Regan where he was shot.

I doubt we will get to many people running for President in your world where they are expendable as long as people still get their SS checks.
 
Reagan was shot. Jerry Ford also a target (and would likely have been hit if the gun hadn't misfired). George Wallace was shot while campaigning for president. Who knows how much more was blocked by the steps taken. Until the rise in terrorism on domestic soil, presidents were always bigger targets than the average citizen.

We've had two dumbasses land/crash into the P-Area (including the FRZ). Of course, the stupid thing is the response to some of these. Rather than telling people to hunker down in place and stay away from the windows, we have them running around outside like an elementary school fire drill which is arguably riskier.

The scarier TFRs are the economic ones like at stadia and Disney.

Of course, George Washington has been dead for over two centuries and there's still a P-area over his house.
 
Clip4 said:
In the 1960s as you quote, a president was assassinated by a terrorist ****ed over economic support of Israel, later his brother / presidential candidate was assassinated. In the 80s there was an assignation attempt on Regan where he was shot.

I doubt we will get to many people running for President in your world where they are expendable as long as people still get their SS checks.
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Look at lists of most dangerous jobs. Roofers, fisherman, stuff like that. But the most dangerous never seems to make those lists. 4 out of 46 killed on the job. Pretty grim odds
 
Albany Tom said:
The flight restrictions immediately after 9/11, for nyc and dc made sense for the short period of time when we really didn't know what was going on, or what was next. Twenty years later, it's just silly. The US national airspace system is either safe, or it's not. Carving up little bits of it as more important than any other doesn't make sense.
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I agree. I agree with this, and the Patriot Act and many of the early on WuFlu regulations. But the justification for the Patriot Act has disappeared, and it is now more of a threat to our freedom than the things "They" are telling us are threats to our freedom. All of this junk should disappear. No more post 9/11 TFRs. No more P.A. No more WuFlu regulations.
 
luvflyin said:
Look at lists of most dangerous jobs. Roofers, fisherman, stuff like that. But the most dangerous never seems to make those lists. 4 out of 46 killed on the job. Pretty grim odds
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How many fisherman were killed by assassins?
 
Salty said:
What good is a 3nm tfr? Even with a slow plane that gives you two minutes to do something. What are you going to do in two minutes?
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I don't know, but the prohibited area around Mt Vernon is 0.5 miles in diameter and only 1500' tall. However, it's also inside the DC FRZ, so it's probable most pilots never consider it.
 
Clip4 said:
How many fisherman were killed by assassins?
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While not a fisherman but an engineer on a cargo ship, my wife's nephew was apparently thrown off the ship by a couple of guys that hate Asians. There is not enough evidence to bring anyone to trial so the guilty one's got away with murder.
 
Zeldman said:
While not a fisherman but an engineer on a cargo ship, my wife's nephew was apparently thrown off the ship by a couple of guys that hate Asians. There is not enough evidence to bring anyone to trial so the guilty one's got away with murder.
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My condolences to your wife, her family and you.
 
Clip4 said:
In the 1960s as you quote, a president was assassinated by a terrorist ****ed over economic support of Israel, later his brother / presidential candidate was assassinated. In the 80s there was an assignation attempt on Regan where he was shot.

I doubt we will get to many people running for President in your world where they are expendable as long as people still get their SS checks.
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...and MLK 5 years later. A TFR wouldn't have protected any of them. The world was worse off because of it, but it also didn't come to an end, either.

I worked with some of the people that, 20 years ago today, were trying to find their friends buried under tons of rubble in NYC. There was a no fly zone in effect for NYC during that cleanup. There isn't now. There shouldn't be over DC. I had the freedom to fly down the Hudson, just last year, and circle the Statue of Liberty. The people living in Maryland and Virginia deserve the same freedom I have in NY. Getting back to normal is how we win when dealing with nuts, not becoming a paranoid country that starts attacking each other. That's how the nuts win.

We live in a country that isn't a kingdom. Where the president is allowed to SERVE the people. It isn't the other way around. There's a reason that titles of nobility are banned by the constitution. The founding fathers were pretty bright, and they were more than aware that people have a tendency to put their leaders on pedestals. Yes, we need to protect them, to keep them reasonably out of harms way, as so many others ARE in harms way every day, defending the country. So whatever security is in place needs to be balanced. There is no such thing as perfect security. Trying to get there leads to an exponential increase in cost for infinitesimally small gains. We're in that area right now.

As far as candidates go? They're all smart people. Not all good, not all honest, but they're not dummies. They're driven by either ego or a sense of duty....more the former than the latter. The job wears people out - take a look at before/after pictures of almost any president. They're under constant criticism from large groups of people, no matter who they are. But they're safer now then they've ever been, and it's not because of SFRA or TFRs, or any laws that have been put in place in the interim.
 
Albany Tom said:
..There is no such thing as perfect security. Trying to get there leads to an exponential increase in cost for infinitesimally small gains. We're in that area right now.
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This applies to everything and is the natural progression of all efforts to improve things collectively, where an authority can enforce behavior by spending other people’s money. You can never arrive at “good enough”, because the more safe something is, the fewer incidents happen, and the fewer incidents that happen, the more sensational and shocking they are when they do, the more publicity they receive, and the more cries for even more safety measures. As you try to approach 100% safety the cost rises to infinity.

As individuals spending our own money, we do the calculations (maybe subconsciously) and arrive at a point where we have good enough safety for the max price we are willing to pay. I’ll put smoke detectors in my house for example but I won’t install a sprinkler system. My “good enough” might differ from yours.
 
Albany Tom said:
...and MLK 5 years later. A TFR wouldn't have protected any of them. The world was worse off because of it, but it also didn't come to an end, either.

I worked with some of the people that, 20 years ago today, were trying to find their friends buried under tons of rubble in NYC. There was a no fly zone in effect for NYC during that cleanup. There isn't now. There shouldn't be over DC. I had the freedom to fly down the Hudson, just last year, and circle the Statue of Liberty. The people living in Maryland and Virginia deserve the same freedom I have in NY. Getting back to normal is how we win when dealing with nuts, not becoming a paranoid country that starts attacking each other. That's how the nuts win.

We live in a country that isn't a kingdom. Where the president is allowed to SERVE the people. It isn't the other way around. There's a reason that titles of nobility are banned by the constitution. The founding fathers were pretty bright, and they were more than aware that people have a tendency to put their leaders on pedestals. Yes, we need to protect them, to keep them reasonably out of harms way, as so many others ARE in harms way every day, defending the country. So whatever security is in place needs to be balanced. There is no such thing as perfect security. Trying to get there leads to an exponential increase in cost for infinitesimally small gains. We're in that area right now.

As far as candidates go? They're all smart people. Not all good, not all honest, but they're not dummies. They're driven by either ego or a sense of duty....more the former than the latter. The job wears people out - take a look at before/after pictures of almost any president. They're under constant criticism from large groups of people, no matter who they are. But they're safer now then they've ever been, and it's not because of SFRA or TFRs, or any laws that have been put in place in the interim.
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Terroist weren’t flying planes into buildings kill people in the 60s
 
Albany Tom said:
Nor have they in the last 20 years, and not because of SFRA, TFR's, or the TSA.
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So you think today that groups of Arab descent people can board US commercial aircraft with box cutters and mount a major attack on US infrastructure and the TSA processes in place do not provide a deterrent? I going to have to disagree.
 
Clip4 said:
In the 1960s as you quote, a president was assassinated by a terrorist ****ed over economic support of Israel, later his brother / presidential candidate was assassinated. In the 80s there was an assignation attempt on Regan where he was shot.

I doubt we will get to many people running for President in your world where they are expendable as long as people still get their SS checks.
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And none of those were assassinated with a general aviation aircraft. Maybe security is better spent elsewhere.
 
Clip4 said:
So you think today that groups of Arab descent people can board US commercial aircraft with box cutters and mount a major attack on US infrastructure and the TSA processes in place do not provide a deterrent? I going to have to disagree.
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I think we learned a valuable lesson on commercial airplane security 20 years ago. The TFR's were a necessary step in the short-term but I think my point of the post is have they grown out of hand without any real tangible reduction in threats?
 
Dave Anderson said:
I think we learned a valuable lesson on commercial airplane security 20 years ago. The TFR's were a necessary step in the short-term but I think my point of the post is have they grown out of hand without any real tangible reduction in threats?
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I would agree the stadium TFR is totally worthless other than to prevent banner towing.
 
I’ve always wondered why they chose box cutters…I normally carried a significantly larger blade on the airlines at that time.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I’ve always wondered why they chose box cutters…I normally carried a significantly larger blade on the airlines at that time.
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Was your blade legal? If not, there is always the chance of getting caught. Box cutters were legal, so no chance of not getting them on board.

But, I think you knew that.
 
Kritchlow said:
How do you know that?
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TFR's and SFRA's - because no one has successfully hijacked a jet in the US in 20 years. Those two things, at best, are last ditch defenses. The actual bad guys know that a 3000 lb Cessna isn't an adequate delivery platform.
TSA - because while there have been hijacking attempts in the past 20 years, none were stopped by the TSA. All were stopped by passengers on the aircraft.
We have a habit of preparing for the last conflict. Since this is all theater, maybe that's by design. Whatever the next "thing" is, it most likely won't be a repeat.
 
There might be a repeat, but I don't think it will be soon. If there's a hijacking now, 1) the planes are full and 2) everyone will assume they will be killed, so at least some will fight. That has to get out of the common memory before they can do the same thing again.
 
Albany Tom said:
TFR's and SFRA's - because no one has successfully hijacked a jet in the US in 20 years. Those two things, at best, are last ditch defenses. The actual bad guys know that a 3000 lb Cessna isn't an adequate delivery platform.
TSA - because while there have been hijacking attempts in the past 20 years, none were stopped by the TSA. All were stopped by passengers on the aircraft.
We have a habit of preparing for the last conflict. Since this is all theater, maybe that's by design. Whatever the next "thing" is, it most likely won't be a repeat.
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1) You included TSA
2) It’s impossible to know if the others had a deterrent effect.

Again, it certainly wasn’t because Al Quida and ISIS chose to be good guys.
 
Kritchlow said:
1) You included TSA
2) It’s impossible to know if the others had a deterrent effect.

Again, it certainly wasn’t because Al Quida and ISIS chose to be good guys.
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If there's a deterrence, for an actual organize group, it's more likely that we spend something like 3+ trillion dollars and took over an entire country just to get the last nut that tried it. In terms of TSA, there are numerous reports of all sorts of things slipping past them, and again, attempts that have been stopped by passengers. TFR/SFRA, I don't see how that's a deterrent to a one way trip.

After Oklahoma City, they put jersey barriers around a lot of federal buildings, so you can't park trucks right up beside them anymore. A reasonable solution. They didn't close the roads within a four block radius.
 
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