As Bruce Schneier says when you ask amateurs to do frontline security you get amateur security. See something say something usually fails. You get too many false positives that it becomes noise and not intelligence and amateurs don’t actually know what to look for.
Sex trafficking is a serious issue but when you ask flight attendants to ‘see something say something’ you get flight attendants having a married couple detained for looking Asian or rather having what appears to be not a particularly modern relationship.
The Department of Homeland Security wants hotel employees to be on the lookout for sex trafficking and has a ‘you might be a sex trafficker if..’ list that includes bringing camera equipment and lots of electronics with you (bloggers), skipping housekeeping for several days (bonus points for ‘making a green choice’), and wearing low quality clothing (I’m not super fashionable). Paying with prepaid gift cards (for the miles) is another sign.
We don’t know most of the details yet about the terrible shooting massacre in Las Vegas. For instance we don’t know much about the interaction between hotel staff and the shooter. But the Texas Lodging Association is already calling for limiting the use of ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs in hotel rooms, and the length of time a guest can refuse housekeeping.
Copyright: kenishirotie / 123RF Stock Photo
In an email they call on members to emphasize ‘see something say something’ with their staffs, and to revisit standard 3 day maximums on do not disturb.
Hotel rooms can be used to shoot from. Sometimes they’re within sight of crowds. So it’s logical that greater monitoring of guests would come up, and to most people saying you can’t be left alone for 3 days will seem reasonable.
The truth is I’ve had housekeeping walk in on me while I’m changing at the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman despite a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. And I frequently get phone calls from the hotel “we noticed your do not disturb sign was out” (so why are they disturbing me)? As it is I’m not usually left alone for long.
Of course “It’s not yet clear if a do not disturb policy may have been a factor in Las Vegas.” And hotels aren’t airports — yet. The shooter brought guns into his hotel, will we soon submit to bag searches as we enter hotels?
I don’t know how long a guest should go in a room without housekeeping. That seems to me to be up to each hotel or chain. But it also seems unlikely that housekeeping entering despite a ‘do not disturb’ sign is going to uncover a rash of would-be mass shooters. There are over 5 million hotel rooms in the United States and the one person would change their tactics.
More likely we’ll uncover more grass, mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, uppers, downers, raw ether and amyls.
Its all silly and reaction to “do something” mentality. Like the gun debate or metal detectors at hotels. I work as a risk consultant and the way it works is you engineer out hazard if you can. For example you remove diving boards from pools. If you cant engineer the hazard out you try to limit the potential or exposure. Changing housekeeping to security is not likely to make a big difference. At least they will be able to tell us that they are there “primarily for our safety” so that the service quality can drop.
This shooting is different than previous ones cause there can be no argument that a good guy with a gun could have prevented the massacre. So pro-gun folks either have to say this is the price of freedom (I disagree but would be a rationale argument out of CATO folks) or try to prevent copy cat crimes with a raft of security theatre. The idea that a hotel cleaner making minimum wage struggling to get through her workday is the answer is insane. Further, what does the NRA do when a hotel calls security on a guy with a couple of guns and police storm his room. They would make a big stink about it and bring negative attention to hotel.
I’m not a big Trevor Noah fan but to paraphrase his recent response to the events in Las Vegas, “mass shooting, mass shooting, mass shooting……hotel security?” Hotel security, be it screening at check in or the limitations of the Do Not Disturbe sign are not the issue Gary. They are at best at the bottom, and I mean the very bottom, of the list in terms of considerations to prevent this type of incident going forward.
As a disclaimer I fully support gun ownership rights, but even I’m willing to concede that we as a society need to consider some limitations. The answer is most definitely not the limited use of the damn Do Not Disturbe sign though.
I’ve been traveling the worldwide Disney Parks recently. At the Disney hotels in Shanghai, the bell staff (politely) insists on taking your bags as soon as you walk in, and they have scanners that they run over them. In Paris, you have to out your bags through a scanner and walk through a metal detector as you get off the train, just to enter Disney property. Getting your stuff searched, or at least scanned, as you enter a hotel may be the way the hotel business is going, at least a part of it.
In some areas, I put the Do Not Disturb sign on my door permanently during my entire stay—because I don’t trust the housekeeping staff to be in my room when I’m not there. I just go to the housekeeping cart and get a resupply of towels, soap, etc when needed.
If someone refuses housekeeping for 3 days they should be investigated due to sanitary issues
I hate to say it, but we may be close to having security cameras inside of the rooms.
And what about extended stay hotels and time share properties. They often have limited housekeeping services to start with so no DND sign required. Will the almighty dollar give push back to greater security?
How about we place stronger limits on buying ****ing guns instead? Or is that concept too difficult for you redneck gun thumping conspiracy theorists? We need to ban all guns NOW.
@theblakefish
Do you have a maid at your residence at least once every three days? LOL. It’s not that hard to keep a place orderly without outside assistance.
RE: Ray: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Rahm Emanuel. You creepy left wingers are like vampires. While the blood is still flowing, you try to use it on your political agendas. Mr. Vampire, please go back to hanging in your cave, because it is daytime.
RE: Other Just Saying: And the “creepy right wingers (you one of them?) are like ostriches. While the blood is flowing you stick your heads in the ground because the obvious failure of your “any gun, any time” political agenda is on show. Mr. Bigger bullets, Bigger guns please take your head out of the ground and see the damage being done to our society with your “more, more, more guns” agenda.
@Als. I am not responding to any more vampires. I live in light and day time. Vampires live in the dark, night and in caves.
There was intelligent discussion going on in this thread until “Ray” decided to attack the the other side by making broad generalizations about other readers. So much that “Other” decided to retaliate to defend himself by doing the same and “Als” came to “Ray”‘s side because he was feeling attacked too, despite the fact that “Ray” started it in the first place.
This little tit for tat scenario above is a micro example of what’s going on in guns today with mass shootings. The initiator makes broad generalizations about a large audience and tries to kill them. The reactors feel the need to be “armed” to defend themselves, and everyone else picks sides, despite who started it, because they too, feel like they are being attacked. At some point, Ronald Regan would be asking us to take personal responsibility for ourselves and our actions and look at the guy who started it in the first place, and what to do to prevent others from making those same bad choices. Generally, this comes down to a mental health issue, and afflicts the “left” and the “right” equally.
If talking about having hotel maids stop gun violence in the USA is having an intelligent discussion then I am sorry I contributed to the interruption of said discussion.
I wouldn’t mind getting my bags quickly scanned by security upon entering a hotel… but what if they start limiting liquids of more than 3 oz from entering hotel properties??
<– half serious, half kidding. On a more serious note, I really hope they don't think housekeeping vigilance is the ultimate solution to mass murder prevention. (What will be? Who knows… and maybe that's why they are trying to grasp at any kind of solution they think would make people feel better… because issues like this is so difficult to deal with.)
It seems bringing 23 guns , mostly long guns , into the building would be conspicuous . I wonder if anyone noticed ?
Of course it is a reasonable expectation that a hotel will not pry too much into the activities of their guests .
Is this not the first , or first major incident with a hotel being a factor in terrorist activity ? I.E. : they did not reasonably expect this to occur due to previous incidents .
Let’s not , for the moment , argue over political culpability . We all should have terrible and lasting remorse that awful news like this is becoming all too common .
I am just tired of the ad hominem attacks against the “Repugs” (as CBS executive Hayley Geftman-Gold put it), shortly after any shooting.
Gary’s write-up on this was interesting and germane. It is scary how issues like sex traffic, guns (mentioned in this articles), drugs….etc are being used to impinge on everyone privacy. I do not want my bags searched every time I check into a hotel. I do not want maids wandering into my room willy nilly. I have had them catch me in the shower before. I might be with my girlfriend. I do not want them going through my stuff (theft anyone). WTH, I might have an old playboy in my bag (the horror).
As an aside, in Mumbai, major hotels and many of the shopping scan your bags before checking into a hotel. That was due to the terrorist Mumbai attacks of large hotels like the Taj Hotel in 2008 on continuing ongoing threats.
Of course the hotel are going to bump-up their security. Everyone else’s privacy get invaded and everyone else’s time get wasted when one person does something stupid. A guy has a bomb in his shoe…now I have to waste time taking off shoes in the airport. A passenger take a “liquid bomb” on a plane…now I have to throw away that coke I was drinking on the way to the airport. A couple guys hijack a couple planes on Sept. 11th….now I can’t keep that pocket knife with me on the plane. A guy has guns in his hotel room….soon we will be walking through metal detectors to get to our rooms. All these are bad results from something some idiot or idiots did, but EVERYONE pays the price. And if these security checks were in play before the idiots did these things; well, they would have probably did the bad thing anyways, but using a different method. They(the government, hotels, airlines, etc) needs to stop taking away EVERYONE’S right when an idiot does something stupid. There are upset people all over in the world, and they are going to find a way to hurt other people. But don’t make me pay for it. I want to be happy and have all my time available for me to do with what I choose. 99.99% of people are good and don’t want to hurt anyone. Stop letting the .01% take away EVERYONE’S rights.
“Other Just Saying says” you and the KKK agree! But you know that all White Supremacists are against gun control
I do not mind if someone wants to own a pistol, revolver, shotgun, etc. But do people really “need” a semi automatic weapon or attachments that can turn those into basically automatic assault weapons?
Keep your shotgun or revolver for self protection but I think we need some common sense – semi automatic and attachments to make them automatic are just not needed. Regulate the size of magazines that can be used so people cannot just spray bullets. To me these seem to be some common sense answers.
I do not have all the answers, Pandora’s box is open and it will not be easy to get them all of the streets but offer a no questions asked buy back program to help get some of them off the streets.
Back to the travel – Personally I have nothing to hide – so throw my bag on a scanner when I get to a hotel. If it makes me and other guests safer that is fine.
@Allen the Vampire: Deus te benedicat.
My housekeeper, who used to be a maid at Bellagio, told me she walked into a room one day and a guy was trying to commit suicide by running through the window. He tried 5 times.
HINT: Your head will break well before the window
Lets not try to overreact America and make our hotel rooms subject to a police state. These type of knee jerk reactions are never helpful. Its not like he would leave the guns laying around for housekeeping to find. They would be packed away. What next? The hotel staff is encouraged to go through our bags? I don’t like the government asking hotel staff to spy on their guests. These incidents are incredibly isolated and the intrusion on the privacy of EVERYONE else is certainly not justified.
I and I suspect many business travelers will not stay at a hotel in the US with any sort of “security theater”. So any hotel implementing anything puts itself at a distinct disadvantage. Won’t happen.
I’m fine with banning guns as long as we ban the possibility that a tyrannical government may attempt a coup in the future. Oh that’s impossible right? Tell that to the Venezuelans who thought they were just voting for their beloved Hugo Chavez 20 yrs ago. He just needed to “reform” their constitution so that he could redistribute wealth to the poor. Who could’ve guessed that kind of big government encroachment could turn out to be a bad thing right?
This is stupid. I strongly suspect he had the stuff packed up until the night of the event. He ordered room service and was rumored to have had a visitor (hooker seems most logical) so I’m sure he would have kept them out of sight. I fully expect 10% of cleaning crews go through my suitcase anyways so should we just expect 100% now? While we’re at it we should also require background checks for AirBnB, apartment, and condo purchases. In fact why don’t we all just treat everyone that lives anyone like the current residents of Trump Tower in NYC and while we’re at it force all folks that don’t own or rent a home (ie homeless) also submit to special checks and be required to report the bench they are sleeping on each night and if they move benches be required to report that within 12 hours. If we learned anything from this it should be that someone determined to do this stuff if by gun, truck, or whatever can find a way. Seems like the “why” should be the priority more over the “how.”
I’m going to be the outlier here. It’s a hotel so your expectation of privacy should be low. You are renting the room, and the landlord has the right and obligation to clean it every day and make sure it is not being used improperly. So as far as I’m concerned the hotel should ignore all DND signs between 12-6pm, with the exception of guests who have checked in that day.
If you are working from your room it takes about 10 seconds to open the door allow the maids a peak and then close it and request device at a more conebenient time.