
Hitchens: The truth about airplane security measures - drewr
http://www.slate.com/id/2239935/
======
michael_dorfman
I think he nailed it right here:

 _In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold
letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most
people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to
expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere
sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and
sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers
from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab
made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do
it._

~~~
ghshephard
Note - the rule about people standing up wasn't done to prevent Mad Bombers
from doing so. It was to quickly identify which people _might_ be a mad bomber
to the Air Marshals and Airline Staff.

Remember this rule had to be put in place quickly (And also note, for a
limited period of one week) - while we tried to figure out if another attack
was imminent. Think about how stupid we'd all be feeling if someone else had
run _the exact same attack_ - we may not be able to defend against the
unknown. But at least we can avoid handing out the freebies.

~~~
drewr
As I understand it, the terrorist was the only one in the NWA indident who did
not stand up. He sat there while others got out of their seats to try and stop
him. How does the policy address this scenario?

~~~
ghshephard
It prevents people from going and taking something out of Carry-On, or going
to a bathroom, just prior to landing - giving everyone else a chance to see
him doing this and stopping him.

Presumably, the concern was that there would be a repeat of this attempt to
set a bomb off _just prior to landing_. One of the major reasons why the
Christmas underwear bomber was stopped was he was in his seat.

The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off a
bomb in the bathroom. The rules in place for the next week are to call
attention to those people.

~~~
electromagnetic
> The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off
> a bomb in the bathroom.

That would have been the logical from the start, with the shoe bomber.
However, intelligence and committing a suicide bombing appear to be mutually
exclusive, in that there doesn't appear to have been a single intelligent
suicide bomber to date.

If any of these terrorists were intelligent, they could have rigged a time
bomb from a damn cellphone, laptop or any carry on electronic device that
allows timed outputs. Yet the suicide bombers climbing onto planes appear to
have forgotten a few steps in their devices, like blasting caps or remote
detonation. Being next to the bomb and surrounded by people kind of make it
difficult to perform a detonation, especially when you're trying to light your
heels on fire. Consider this, the TAPT placed in the shoes would have
detonated just as readily if he'd banged the heels of his shoes together like
he was trying to clean them, and no one would have suspected a thing, but
common sense doesn't exist when you're trying to blow yourself up for
illogical reasons. [Edit: IIRC knocking was the primary cause of premature
detonation in improvised explosives, so why this wouldn't be your plan for
detonation if it works too well already is beyond me]

------
blhack
I feel like the way the TSA is responding to all of this should be familiar to
anybody that has ever worked in IT.

It's a lot like the people who refuse to use OSS software (with some
exceptions like redhat) because it doesn't come with a service contract; when
something goes wrong, there is nothing to point at and go "See! We did
everything we should have to prevent this!"

The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this
happens again because they did nothing to prevent it.

With this, they're doing _something_ and people, on some level, like it or are
at least comforted by it.

~~~
rdtsc
Nevermind that they still have not justified their existence by stopping at
least one bomb from going through. Rules, directives will long number and
dashes between them, expensive x-ray detectors, is just the theatre, they
still have not done their job, at least once in all these years.

Some will say "well their very existence prevented any terrorist from even
trying to get a bomb through" which is just as valid as "their very exitence
prevented pink elephants from Mars from landing and stomping us all to death."

> The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this
> happens again because they did nothing to prevent it. With this, they're
> doing something and people, on some level, like it or are at least comforted
> by it.

In general terrorism and security theatre is about managing perceptions. They
are two sides of the same coin. Terrorists are not in the business of killing
as many people as possible they are in the business of scaring as many people
as possible. Likewise the reponse of the government -- TSA is not in the
business of making traveling safe, they are in the business of _seeming_ to
make traveling safe.

They provide the comfort of the witch doctor that tries to cure cancer by
shaking a rattle. Sadly people seem to buy it so far. As long as everyone buys
it, they will keep hanging around, feeling everyone up (with a back of their
hand of course), puffing air up womens skirts, making mothers drink their milk
and push disabled out of their wheelchairs. Nobody minds that much, so that
will continue and intensify as time goes on.

~~~
elai
Are you sure about not stopping one bomb? Their service is like the electric
company (and IT), you don't notice it until it stops working.

~~~
azm
>> Are you sure about not stopping one bomb? Their service is like the
electric company (and IT), you don't notice it until it stops working.

Are you kidding me! Utility companies don't try to place your gas line right
next to a bad electrical circuit breaker "to keep you safe". Yes analogies
always suck and this one is quite bad too, but it does illustrate the point.
TSA's job should be contain and respond, not investigate and prevent. The
latter should be left to investigative and intelligence agencies as that is
their forte.

This was some time ago and I have not flown since so it might have changed,
but things like: \- dumping all the contents of all passengers water bottle
into one big trashcan is stupid. Of course mentioning binary explosives will
only get me into a lot of trouble. \- spending 7m+ dollars on GE entry scans
that make a ton of whooshing noises but are not really any better than plain
ol' bulge under the shoulder check \- checking your shoes when you can mold
semtex or c4 into your belt just as easily and detonate it with something that
looks like a fountain pen \- turning on your laptop (what about the extra bay
- how much explosive can you pack in there?)

Lets face it, unless we as consumers force the politicians to implement
transparent, clear and measurable security policies and are willing to spend
the time to think about it a bit, this sort of stuff will keep happening again
and again and again.

------
ynniv
The sooner people realize that there is no such thing* as extremist terrorism,
the better. (* statistically speaking) The only success of modern terrorism
has been the media terrorizing us into spending money on expensive, needless
security equipment, government programs (TSA, DHS), and baseless wars abroad.
Obviously the reward structure is complicated as the media does not make these
devices, run these programs, or wage these wars, but none of these expenses
would be plausible without the constant yelling that emanates from every media
device I encounter.

I mean, think about this: the poor terrorists-that-we-call-terrorists _blow
themselves up_ ... and we don't even listen to their message. (Which is
usually "hey, leave us alone pls, kthnxboom") Then some yokel gets his 15
minutes to tell us how we need to spend billions on something he's getting
kickbacks for. Who here is using terror more effectively?

Once the public has realized that there is (statistically) no root-cause
terrorism, we can have appropriately relaxed security once again. And more
money.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
_We don't even listen to their message (which is usually "hey, leave us alone
pls, kthnxboom")_

People do not blow up buildings, crash airliners, and wreck passenger trains
because they want to be left alone. They do these things because they want to
be feared, or barring that, paid attention to.

~~~
narag
Are you intentionally misunderstanding? It's very clear what the person you're
responding to meant. Of course the message is delivered in a way that begs
attention. But the message _is_ "leave us alone."

~~~
mnemonicsloth
_But the message is "leave us alone."_

Meaning what? Stop satellite broadcasts of Baywatch? Stop consuming oil?
Change our minds about Israel's right to exist? Decide that honor killing
isn't so bad?

Al Qaeda have already shown they are cynical enough to employ teenagers as
suicide bombers, mosques as headquarters, hospitals as munitions dumps. Waging
war against the Great Satan makes them a headline act on the global stage.
They've probably even figured out a way to get paid for it. Isn't it possible
that the Al Qaeda leadership -- who let others take on the suicide missions --
just _like_ this state of affairs?

Is it so hard to believe that their narrative of grievance and justification
is self-serving, and exists primarily to help them recruit more ammunition?

------
karzeem
I think people are rightly responding more to the stupidity of the new
security measures than their ineffectiveness. Those are slightly different.

We can debate the usefulness of a security measure, but the real problem is
that the TSA is acting as if this was some kind of unknown attack vector. What
have we learned that we didn't know before? Did we not know that people could
hide explosives in their underwear, or in their body, or, to take just one
more example, in prosthetic limbs? Is this news to anyone? So why the new
rules?

Since these are all long-known methods of attacking an airplane, it makes no
sense for the TSA to wait until an actual attack to implement "preventative"
measures. Either implement the measures long beforehand or decide they're not
useful and never implement them. What they're doing is like waiting for your
hard drive to crash before you make backups.

------
meelash
I was nodding my head throughout most of this article until I got to this:

 _"the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will
kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and
trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, homosexuals, and
dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated
slaughter victims."_

This kind of insane toeing of the official line of good vs. evil is exactly
the counter-productive foolishness that allows the security services to carry
on with their ridiculous "responses" to these events.

Putting our heads into the sand about the actions WE have taken and supported
in the past 100 years that have motivated these attacks does no one more
disservice than ourselves. Just a few weeks back there was an extremely
revealing article with statistics on the number of Muslim civilians directly
killed by American forces in the past 30 years and vice versa.

Even when these attackers ARE explicitly motivated by religion, it is on the
basis of worldwide injustices of our government that that religious motivation
is invoked. It is never a question of killing because that is all Americans
are good for, as is often implied in pieces like this.

~~~
alabut
I'm glad to see that someone else noticed the last paragraph. It totally
hijacks the rest of the article by conflating his excellent rant against
security pantomime theater with his proposed solution of doing nothing, mixed
in with a bit of racism.

 _"We had better get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless
and planned assault."_

Seriously? After bitching about the ineffectiveness of the TSA, the best idea
for a replacement is to raise our hands and say " _oh well, shit happens and
planes go boom_ "?

------
nir
Interesting interview with Bruce Schneier here:
[http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruc...](http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruce_schneier_on_the.php)

FTA: "A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life;
it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage."

------
ghshephard
The TSA leadership consists of bright, passionate, dedicated individuals. I
doubt any of us, given the information and resources at their command, could
make significantly better decisions than they have.

I read Bruce Schneir's interview with Kip Hawley back in 2007, and came away
with the belief that we have a team in place that has some significant
knowledge of managing aviation security:

<http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html>

As for what happened on Christmas, Bruce concisely describes a fairly common
mantra about aviation security:

"Basically, there are three broad ways of defending airplanes: preventing bad
people from getting on them (ID checks), preventing bad objects from getting
on them (passenger screening, baggage screening), and preventing bad things
from happening on them (reinforcing the cockpit door, sky marshals)."

And, with the exception of not getting millimeter-wave/back-scatter technology
in place for full body scanning (which would have trivially caught the
Christmas underwear bomber - and the lack of this technology at security
checkpoints is perhaps the one real-failure of the TSA), I think the TSA has
done an admirable job.

Note - one thing most people don't understand, is that by creating a rule
which states "You must sit down in the last hour of flight" - the goal isn't
to prevent mad-bombers from standing up, it's to make it very clear which ones
the mad bombers are for the Sky Marshals and Airline crew - it's for a week,
and the rule (hopefully) is given a pass for those who clearly need to go to
the washroom, need a blanket, etc...

~~~
krschultz
Don't let facts dilute a good populist and/or libertarian rant against "dumb"
government.

Is nobody noticing this guy got on a plane in another country? Why the
mindless hammering on the American TSA?

~~~
CWuestefeld
I don't see anyone raising a fuss about the attempted attack itself. The fuss
is all about the TSA's silly response to it.

------
webwright
Reality: With a few hot water bottles strapped around me, I could get
staggering amounts of liquid onto a plane. I would theorize that VERY few
people have both the skills and the desire to actually suicide bomb (or even
hijack) a plane... Otherwise, why isn't it happening more often?

Planes running into buildings are pretty spectacular, but even if we removed
ALL security measures, airport security would be WAY down on the list of
things that result in needless death.

There are infinite cheap/free ways to terrorize people if you're willing to
die. There is no way to be secure from it short of spending gazillions on
preventative measures.

Being terrorized by lunatics will always be a cost of being hated. We should
stop spending significant money on it, consider it a painful cost of being
free/prosperous, and focus on not being so worthy of hate.

------
akamaka
I'm getting really sick of these articles about how stupid airline security
is. This type of complaining is in the same vein as end-users bitching about
how the IT department locks down their computers and forces them to change
their passwords. We're not the experts here, and more importantly, _we're not
the one who have to clean up the mess after a terrorist attack._

The fact is that we have had a history of ignoring early warning signs, and
that when we have taken action, we have been succesful. Terrorists make
mistakes, and when we ignore them (like the Bojinka plot), it has directly led
to disaster (9/11). On the other hand, since lugagge scanning has improved, we
rarely see bombings like Lockerby or Air India any longer.

I think the end-user vs. IT department analogy is one anyone who agreed with
this article should ponder on. When a low-level employee causes a security
breach, he's not the one who has to deal with the effects. The experts have to
come in and fix the problem, andm management has to bear the responsibility.

Similarly, in the event of an airline catasrophe, it's the emergency services
who have to pick through the wreckage andook for bodies; the airlines and
their employees who suffer financially. Pilots and flight attendants who know
they are at highest risk, due to the ime the spend in the air. And leaders of
countries, who can have their entire presidency redefined in a single day.

I'd rather hear their opinions than those of a professional troll lime
Hitchens.

~~~
blhack
Not so fast...

Some of the people criticizing the TSA (like Bruce Schneier) are _absolutely_
experts on security.

You're also right, the analogy of IT vs the users is a valid one. In this
case, the IT department has told the users that they are no longer allowed to
browse the web between the hours of 3:30 and 3:38 because it was during this
time that somebody downloaded and installed a virus.

Instead of actually addressing the root of the problem (our users can download
and install viruses), the IT department has put a band-aid over it so that
they can say that it has been fixed.

~~~
dugmartin
Not that I'm disagreeing with you but I wonder what the TSA could do to
address the root of the problem?

~~~
CWuestefeld
Why ought the TSA do anything? (or really, why ought we to have a TSA?)

There are scads of targets that ought to be attractive to terrorists: sports
arenas, various tunnels and bridges, power generation and transmission, etc.
None of these get anything like the security attention, despite their
potential to cause far greater harm than the WTC attacks did.

I have the mental picture of a building with many doors. We're putting solid
steel doors, deadbolts, triple padlocks, etc., on one door, while the other
entries are nothing but screen doors. This is ridiculously ineffective in cost
and freedom.

------
mrduncan
I thought that the following comment (second from the top) on the story was
interesting and bared partially repeating below. I'm not saying that the TSA
should be issued automatic rifles, just that it's thought provoking:

 _After that, it was a third metal detector (not x-ray this time) and finally
a full on frisk by another representative of the national military. Let me
tell you, this was not a friendly pat, pat like what TSA gives you. This was a
full on search like I was an enemy prisoner that they were concerned had a
knife hidden somewhere on me.

After all of that, they stuck me in a windowless room with all of the other
passengers until our flight was ready to board (About 1/2 an hour). There were
no shops, no bathrooms, and only one room with men and women with automatic
rifles posted at the exits.

What it gave me the impression of was people who had had issues with hijacking
and terrorism before and REALLY didn't want it to happen again. People who
didn't give a shit if I was inconvenienced or annoyed because they knew that
it would be far more of an inconvenience for me if some asshole blew the plane
up over the ocean somewhere._

------
brown9-2
_For many years after the explosion of the TWA plane over Long Island (a
disaster that was later found to have nothing at all to do with international
religious nihilism), you could not board an aircraft without being asked
whether you had packed your own bags and had them under your control at all
times._

Is this true? TWA Flight 800 crashed in 1996. Weren't screeners asking
passengers if they packed their own luggage before this?

I believe Hitchens is also wrong on the second point here:

 _These two questions are the very ones to which a would-be hijacker or bomber
would honestly and logically have to answer "yes." But answering "yes" to both
was a condition of being allowed on the plane! Eventually, that heroic piece
of stupidity was dropped as well._

My understanding was always that this question was designed to weed out any
cases where a second party might have covertly sneaked explosives into your
luggage without your knowledge.

~~~
kelnos
Yes, my understanding is that it makes the person stop and think for a moment,
"oh, hmm, wait a sec... I did leave my bag alone when I went to the bathroom."
Of course, my assumption is that most people would still answer "yes" to the
question anyway, to avoid being inconvenienced by a search.

------
barmstrong
Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm curious what others think about the idea of
privatizing airport security and getting rid of the TSA.

In other words, let each airline compete (and innovate) with it's own security
solutions, and spend it's own money to implement them. This would essentially
bring the power of the free market to bear on the problem. A terrorist getting
onto United (for example) with a bomb would be a huge PR problem and a mark
against the _airline_ not the TSA, causing them to lose business and
competitors to scramble to learn/capitalize on it.

As it stands if you have a complaint against how the TSA is handling things,
there isn't much you can do. But if airlines provided their own security,
passengers could "vote with their dollars" on who was finding the right mix of
effective security vs. inconvenience to honest passengers, and the best
solution would be rewarded economically.

Btw, I realize this would probably never happen given the political climate,
but I also can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work better than the TSA.
Thoughts?

~~~
fuzzmeister
Considering it would take the deaths of around 300 people for an airline's
security to be proven insufficient (and thus not a good place to spend money),
I'm not sure if that's an ethical idea. Personally, in such a situation, I
would always go with the most safety-focused airline, no matter the
inconvenience.

~~~
borism
All airlines are safety focused, those who are not don't survive for long.
Unsafety is very very expensive in this industry.

Putting a burden of airport security on airlines will be a final nail on their
collective coffin though.

Besides, many airports (at least here in Europe) already have private
contractors doing airport security. So what? It doesn't matter who does the
job, they simply implement the policies regulators impose.

Now having private entities producing ad hoc security policies with primary
goal of maximizing returns - that's what I call a Disaster.

~~~
barmstrong
I don't think it would crush airlines from a cost point of view. Remember that
the TSA is not free now, and we are paying for it through other means.

As it stands, TSA is paid for by taxes (from both airlines and consumers).

In the privatized scenario, airline companies and consumers pay less in taxes,
ticket prices increase to pay for private security.

You could call it a wash in the worst case, but in reality it would likely end
up as a net gain to society because privatization has a strong history of cost
savings over government solutions:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Pro-privatisation>

Regarding what you said about "they simply implement the policies regulators
impose" - this isn't full privatization of course. In the scenario I'm
imagining each airline would have the freedom to chose their own policies and
there aren't regulators.

Finally, just wanted to look at what you said about a focus on maximizing
returns leading to a disaster. This is the counterintuitive argument and
greatest discovery of capitalism in my mind - that a selfish focus on
maximizing your own benefit can actually lead to the greatest benefit for
society as well.

Think about how an airline would actually maximize their returns. They'd
probably need to get more customers right? To do that they'd have to convince
customers they provided the best product at the best price. Customers aren't
dumb. You couldn't just provide "security theater" that had little actual
benefit, customers would call your bluff. So you'd have to actually convince
them you were doing a better job for the cost. What I'm getting at is that
maximizing returns is the most honest way we've ever devised to get real
results - either you're doing a good job (and people let you know by giving
you their hard earned dollars) or you aren't and your company is
unapologetically weeded out (bankruptcy, acquisition, new management). It's a
lot like natural selection.

Yes, at some point there will probably be an airline who makes the mistake of
using short term thinking - (cutbacks on security which aren't apparent at
first but lead to a disaster). But this is a self correcting problem in that
if it comes back to bite them their business will likely be sued out of
existence. (You can't say the same for the TSA.) It's unlikely to happen often
though. I think in the same way you trust a Mercedes over some brand new car
company who is only focused on short term thinking, customers would buy
tickets from airline companies they trust with long track records. This is
another way of saying the market rewards long term thinking companies when
appropriate.

Naturally, some companies will spend less on security and offer cheaper
tickets - this is actually a good thing - it segments the market for people
based on their risk tolerance. If you think the whole thing is overblown and
know the real risks (as someone mentioned above you are more likely to be shot
by your neighborhood police officer then die from terrorism) you get cheaper
tickets!

Anyway, this is a long winded explanation, but the gist is that free market
competition has been shown to produce better results in areas like this. I'm
perfectly willing to admit it doesn't work in all cases. I just haven't heard
or thought of a good reason why it wouldn't work here yet.

------
abhay
The sad reality is that we've more or less given our government emergency
powers to issue such ludicrous directives to the airlines and for what? Some
semblance of security? I guess Ma and Pa Kettle feel more safe on the airlines
on their one round-trip flight they take every two years to see the grand
kiddies but for those of us who fly more than that, it's a pain in ass and
we're smart enough to realize where the holes are in security. I've heard
plenty of instances of people bringing things that they didn't expect they
could through security by mistake.

Our representatives in government aren't going to revoke these powers any time
soon unless we ask them to.

~~~
lutorm
I'm with you, but people asked for it. Until Americans come to terms with the
fact that _the world is a dangerous place_ , this will continue. Every lawsuit
that pins liability on someone else for someone's actions that they should
have realized could have an adverse outcome reinforces this mentality.

It seems the only deaths Americans are willing to accept as part of life are
car crashes. All other causes are unacceptable and should be sued or enforced
out of existence, even if they constitute a small fraction of that number.

~~~
stevenbedrick
Agreed 100%, but you forgot one more category of deaths that Americans seem
more than happy to live with: deaths from preventable or easily (and cheaply!)
treatable medical conditions, as well as deaths from medical errors (one
commonly-cited IOM report places the total annual number of preventable deaths
due to medical error in the same ballpark as the number of people killed in
traffic accidents).

~~~
lutorm
Yeah, maybe... It sure seems like there are a lot more medical lawsuits than
traffic death lawsuits though.

------
ghshephard
El Al is frequently tossed out as an example of great security, but, really,
they aren't that impressive:

o They have a grand total of 37 airplanes in their fleet.

o They engage in aggressive racial profiling.

o Their passenger pattern typically consists of people flying to and from
Israel. It's pretty straightforward to identify the aberration in that crowd.

o By simply using the filter of "You are likely among the
racial/ethnic/cultural target-crowd that is likely to be a terrorist" and then
applying selective screening, you pretty much eliminate a fairly major vector
for attack.

Admittedly, one of the reasons why profiling takes place at El Al, is that is
because it works for that particular target. The United States, even if it
were willing to engage in profiling, has a much broader set of attackers -
you'd end up finding everyone included in your profile.

But, because the United States doesn't have the same straightforward problem
of identifying who the _attackers_ are, they need to engage in "defense in
depth" that El Al has the luxury of not requiring. Ergo - no large volumes of
liquids (Note - the bottle size maximum is likely related to the highly oxygen
reactive properties of the target liquids - you can't really combine them into
one large bomb after the security checkpoint - and the small bottles aren't
large enough to do _too_ much damage. A few people might be killed, or
seriously injured - but it's unlikely you could bring a plane down within the
restrictions of the TSA liquid size)

Shoes, likewise, with their metal inserts and large and easily concealed
compartments, need to be scanned in the X-Ray machine.

Here are some simple steps that would dramatically increase security:

o Eliminate Carry On Luggage. This would be an issue on long flights for the
work crowd though, as well as people carrying food/supplies for babies,
anything valuable that they don't want to check, and people with medical
requirements. Some Canadian Ports of entry were effectively doing that this
week though.

o Full Body Scans with Back-Scatter/Millimeter Wave scans. This is way
overdue, and the number one tactical failure of the TSA. Start your stopwatch
- within 48 months 100% of inbound international passengers will be subject to
some type of Full Body Scan or Pat Down. It will be interesting to see if the
same thing will occur domestically.

o Full Pat-Down for all passengers - They actually did this at YVR a couple
days ago. Slowed things down a little, but that's because they didn't have
enough staff to do it quickly. They need to get over their tendency not to
search sensitive areas if they want to ensure it's done with 100%
effectivness.

o Bomb Sniffers/Dogs - I'm surprised nobody has automated this more
effectively yet.

Note that any _one_ of these last three would have caught the Christmas
Underwear Bomber - in fact, would likely have dissuaded him, and a large class
of attackers, in the first place.

~~~
kelnos
My problem with these (except the last one) is that they are invasive. Sorry,
but I'm not willing to be treated as a potential criminal _quite_ to that
degree when all I want to do is travel from point A to point B.

As others have pointed out, the mm-wave scans amount to strip searches. A full
pat-down just has too many associations with a criminal arrest. Eliminating
carry-on luggage is probably more under the "inconvenience" category, but it
is, as you somewhat note, an inconvenience that would be a significant problem
for a lot of people.

Bomb sniffers -- especially if they're machines that are used passively --
sound like a good idea. Better scanning equipment that doesn't violate my
privacy, but is able to do an adequate scan of both me and my belongings,
without the need to take off my shoes or remove things (laptop, bag of
liquids, etc.) from my luggage, or to limit the quantity of liquids I can
carry... we need all these things.

With the amount of money supposedly being thrown at "making us safer" on
airplanes, why have these scanners not been invented and mass-produced yet?
It's been over 8 years since 9/11, and, technology-wise, we just have a few
poorly-deployed pieces of technology (the air-puffer things, whatever they do,
and the mm-wave scanners that have been a PR nightmare) and no actual
universally-deployed solutions. I've been seeing signs at airports for a while
now claiming that they're "working on" a solution that will let us keep our
shoes on... but this solution hasn't materialized. Gimme a break...

~~~
ghshephard
Okay, I'm curious. How do you defend an airplane from someone with PETN
stiched into their underwear carrying a liquid detonator in their (small)
shampoo bottle without a Body Scan or Pat Down?

This attacker screwed up and got tackled before the detonator was able to set
off the PETN - the next one will likely be smart enough to set off a bomb in
the bathroom.

I actually am very interested in hearing what alternative approaches there are
out there.

~~~
kelnos
I honestly don't know. I'm not a security or explosives expert. Maybe you
can't defend against an attack like that.

But maybe that's ok. Maybe preserving our privacy and avoiding making us all
feel like criminals while we're traveling is worth a successful attack every
now and then.

Yes, I know: easy for me to say, not having been on that plane, and never
having lost anyone to terrorism. But I'd argue that the people who _have_ been
victims of terrorism (directly or indirectly) are way too close to the
situation to be able to make a decision like that for the rest of us.

What is so _magical_ about planes that make them such huge terrorist targets?
How many passengers are on your average commercial flight? 200? 300? Hell, you
could kill that many people just by setting off a bomb in the pre-security
section of a decent-sized airport on a moderately-busy day -- and it would be
comparatively trivial to accomplish.

------
jbyers
Hitchens would be much more readable if he cut the overwrought (and
parenthesized) banter by a third.

~~~
blhack
I don't think his goal is to be "readable".

------
kordless
Looks like someone had to stand in a line at the airport over the break.

