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Following the attempted terrorist attack in Detroit, a number of folks cried that it was time to implement the security model favored by Israeli airline El-Al, which has never suffered an attack despite the obvious threats.

Basically, they get all medival on their passengers, screening everyone very thoroughly, along with other measures.

Here’s a typical, by no means unique, column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, arguing that El-Al takes security seriously, while American airlines just want to make money.

But it’s not going to work.

Megan McArdle links to this explanation of why you can forget about it here:

Hi, I’m an Israeli who is at least passably familiar with how the security apparatus works here. A few comments on your comments:

1. Scale

Scale is an issue, but nobody in the thread has touched on why. The Israeli security model is (as noted in the article) more about the passenger than their baggage. This approach is both effective, time-consuming, and “racist”: the profilers have a conversation with each passenger; as I’m an Israeli Jew, I always get the abbreviated treatment — focusing more on where my bags have been since I’ve packed them. As a foreigner, you get a much more in-depth grilling. As a Muslim? They want to know your shoe size, and then a whole ‘nother screener comes over and asks you everything all over again, just to see that you keep your story straight. Like they say in the article, the conversations they have are not so much about what you say as how you say it. The screeners are taught to iterate a few levels deep into your story and see that it doesn’t break down under scrutiny.

Naturally, this process supposes that A) the threat is foreign and mostly limited to one ethnic/religious group, and B) screeners have this sort of time.

In the US, racial profiling is… unpalatable, and if each passenger / family got even a perfunctory 1-minute Q&A session with a TSA security officer, the system would crash. The US is dealing with a larger threat profile, and a whole different order-of-magnitude of traffic.

2. The security screener’s job: manpower, training, history

Normally these are intelligent men and women, usually students or twentysomethings, who pass a series of exams and then pass a several-month course. The hours are craptastic but the pay is decent, and a lot of students prefer it to shiftwork or waitressing. Passing the course is difficult but not arduous, and in the end you are really being taught guidelines on interrogation and then set loose to use your judgment — if you have a red flag to raise, then you just call over a senior screener who has more years of experience.

The reality is that there are few enough openings that the program can be selective. I’d say, as a generalization, screeners here possess above-average intelligence, whereas your average TSA screener seems to be a working stiff, blindly following some not-too-complex screening algorithm in a three-ring binder. The number of screeners requisite for staffing all of the US airports precludes the TSA from exclusively employing screeners with the ability to make “judgment calls”. There just aren’t enough smart people with the desire to work a screener’s job in the US.

Now before you say it in the comments, recognize that this isn’t just a matter of getting over our objections to race-based screening. That would be one hurdle (though maybe a diminishing one, given Obama’s acknowledgment that country-based screening does make some sense).

Beyond that though, where are we goign to get this amazing security force? If you don’t trust the TSA now — and nobody we’ve heard will endorse it — then how do you expect the TSA (or whatever we call it) to manage a security operation that requires so much training and intuition.

Plus, the scale and cost aren’t worth it. Remember, terrorist attacks are very, very rare. Sure, they’re specularly attention-grabbing, but as an actual threat, it’s not huge, so adding billions in lost dollars and time to the already miserable civil aviation system would be a horrible idea.

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See Also:

• Odds Of A Terrorist Attack: 1-In-16,553,385 Departures
• Security Breach At Newark Creates Travel Hell
• New Security Measures At Air Canada Force Mass Cancellations And Delays Across The Northeast

Every Thursday, we address reader questions and feedback on video.

Tomorrow, Vincent Fernando – our Bangkok-based contributor – will answer reader questions in a video segment, which we’ll post at about 11AM ET.

Vincent has been writing extensively on gold, emerging economies, oil, China, and most recently about modern-day bucket shops for Clusterstock and The Money Game.  

So If you have anything to ask him, fire away. You can do this until 9:00 AM ET on Thursday, in three ways:

• Leave a question in the comments below
• Tweet your question and include the word “#tbilive” (TBI Live)
• Send an email to kangelova@businessinsider.com

We won’t have time to get to all questions, but we’ll pick a few we think everyone else might be interested in.

Thanks for participating!

See Previous Q&A Segments:
– Clusterstock: You Ask, We Answer- 12/24/09
– Clusterstock: You Ask, We Answer – 12/17/09

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Russia is now the world’s largest oil exporter thanks to a new pipeline and port complex, as well as declining production in Saudi Arabia, reports Robert Morley of Trumpet.com.

The new complex, which Putin calls one of the “biggest projects in contemporary Russia,” will create a two-way gate through which Russia’s large Siberian oilfields will pour into Asia’s energy-thirsty economies.

It will be one of the largest oil centers in the world, with a capacity for 16% of Russia’s total exports.

Factor in Russia’s natural gas exports, and you could make the argument that Russia is now the most important energy power in the world?

Read the whole thing here.

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See Also:

• Goldman’s Jim O’Neill: Easy Money And High Oil Prices Make Russia The #1 BRIC For 2010
• New Russian Oil Dispute With Belarus Puts European Supply In Jeopardy

A trader passes along this chart, and wonders if it means a crash is coming in 2015. We’re not so sure… your thoughts?

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See Also:

• Technical Analysis: Use Fibonacci To Analyze Cow Prices!
• No, Really, Technical Analysis Works. Seriously.
• Proof! Technical Analysis Works!