What an extraordinarily candid piece. Most of the stuff in the mainstream media about these scanners portray them as though they would have stopped the underwear bomber in his tracks.
Maybe one of these days some politician will have the guts to step forward and will admit openly that securing air transportation while keeping it affordable and safe is not possible at current traffic levels.
Since negligence is a hot knife cutting through limits on personal liability I think this startup would last right up until its first minor accident, after which point the officers and backers of such a venture would spend the remainder of their natural lives in court trying (and failing) to keep the injured parties from taking every penny they have...
I managed to go through the "security theatre" twice this past weekend while traveling from Canada to the US (first flight canceled). I was actually impressed with the rigorous patdown, and the hand search of my carryon (and in one of them the security officer engaged me in conversation), which was made much easier by the severe restrictions on carryon luggage. It was, in fact, impressively layered - this entire process was at the gate, after the usual stuff at the security entrance.
On the plane, they just discarded pretty well the entire protocol. Once you were on the plane, there were no real restrictions.
And I had to put a bunch of expensive electronics and camera equipment in my checked luggage, which made it to my destination completely unscathed. Which makes the whole carryon process much more viable. If passengers were convinced that checked luggage is treated securely, quickly and with proper care, then we wouldn't have to bring the kitchen sink in our carryons.
It's not entirely relevant to your point but anyone with a film camera would be concerned with checking their camera gear (well films at least). Similarly, most airlines charge extra for checked luggage while some staggering amount of checked luggage is delayed, lost for a small time (weeks-months) or lost indefinitely.
Heh I'm currently in Germany and the BBC is one of the few English channels available. The experts they've interviewed to date have all said things along the lines of "scanners and physical checks won't stop embedded explosives", "the terrorists will simply use internal explosives next" and "we have no means of screening for explosives". As one HN commentator mentioned: "state of the art for explosives detection is a labrador retriever".
Putting aside the fact these experts have just told terrorists where security gaps are (perhaps its a false admission to try and catch terrorists offguard?) it is deeply concerning if these security gaps do exist and that increased security measures will do nothing more but infringe privacy.
Maybe one of these days some politician will have the guts to step forward and will admit openly that securing air transportation while keeping it affordable and safe is not possible at current traffic levels.