Have you ever seen a security guard just wave people through?
 

I took the Chunnel last fall (England to France), and it was a busy morning. As the line to get through security grew, the guards abandoned the scanning and searching and just started waving everyone through. Seemed odd to me, because I would assume the Chunnel would be a target of terrorists. <BR> <BR>Is this common? Has anyone seen it elsewhere?

I only saw this once & it was early on the Monday morning after American Thanksgiving weekend at Pearson Int'l Airport in Toronto. I had one small carry-on bag w/me & looked groaningly at the long, long, long customns line, but had queued up. A security guard approached me & asked me if that was the only bag I had. (It was.) I had my passport & my ticket (flying to America) in my hand & she said "Please come with me." I thought "Oh, God, now I'm really going to be late, she'll go through my carry-on with a fine-tooth comb. Turns out she wanted to just expedite things & brought me around a back way to the boarding area. She did this with some other passengers, too. This is the one & only time I ever encountered this. <BR> <BR>N2

I think this is worse... Last week I was boarding at O'Hare, carrying a denim jacket with my keys in the pocket. When I walked through the scanner with my jacket over my arm, the thingy beeped. So I draped my jacket over the walkway gate, walked through the scanner sans jacket, and then picked up my jacket from the other side and went to the gate. Those security guards had NO IDEA what was in my pocket, neither did they care.

Please to be telling me where is sleeping security guards.

Both ends of the spectrum: In Munich, I beeped when I went through the check point to board a plane to the US. The guard ran the tubed around me and I still beeped. She waved me through! <BR> <BR>At Heathrow, the day after Diana Ross was searched, I was body searched for the first time by a female guard. I hadn't beeped or anything--it must have been a random check. It really IS humiliating and they really DO "pat" you down. I've never had that happen before or since.

This didn't happen to me, but it was a big news story in my town a few years ago. <BR> <BR>A woman walked through the security area to wait for an arriving plane. She was looking for something in her purse, she realized that her (licensed) handgun was in her purse, but security had not stopped her. She went back over to the gaurd to ask him if he had even seen the gun in her bag. His reponse was something along the lines of "Yes, but you look like a nice person; you weren't planning on shooting anyone were you? (ha-ha)" <BR> <BR>Security has since been tightened up.

The Chunnel is a train service. How many train services in the US have any security checks at all? Apart from the Chunnel the only other train service that I know of that has security checks is AVE the Spanish high speed trains. I have certainly been on ICE, TGV and HST without checks. <BR> <BR>Why check passengers? If I wanted to wreck a train I would do it trackside. <BR>

Why have security for the Chunnel? Because you could kill everyone on board as the water rushed into the tube. Also, the Chunnel took a long time to build, so it makes a better target than a small section of track that could be re-laid over a weekend.

Actually, the water wouldn't rush into the tube. The tunnel is deeply buried under the sea, and I don't know what kind of bomb it would take to make an opening from the tunnel to the bottom of the sea. <BR> <BR>But there are some specific security issues, like fire. And indeed it could be a convenient symbolic target, ensuring a great deal of free advertising for a terrorist group which would put a bomb down there.

No, no, no. It would be a big ol' suicide bomb -- big enough to destroy the train and compromise the tunnel, too. I went to Harvard, so I know it can be done.