And now, on to the fun part of this note. First they came for the nail clippers, but I did not complain for I do not cut my finger nails. Now they've come for the shampoo bottles, but I did not complain for I do not wash my hair. What's next? What will finally stop people in their tracks and make them realize this is all theater and utterly ridiculous? Lets cut the morons off at the pass, and discuss all the other common things you can destroy your favorite aircraft with. Bruce Schneier makes fun of such exercises as "movie plots", and with good reason. Hollywood, here I come!On the implausibility of the explosives plot. by Perry E. Metzger, 11 Aug 2006, Interesting People.
Perry then makes a good case that even prohibiting all cabin baggage, plus strip searches and body cavity searches, wouldn't be enough to stop the really determined suicide terrorist from getting through every airport and onboard security check. Please do go read that part yourself.
Then he gets to the heart of the matter:
So can someone tell me where the madness is going to end? My back of the envelope says about as many people die in the US every month in highway accidents than have died in all our domestic terrorist incidents in the last 50 years. Untold numbers of people in the US are eating themselves to death and dying of heart disease, diabetes, etc. -- I think that number is something like 750,000 people a year? Even with all the terrorist bombings of planes over the years, it is still safer to travel by plane than it is to drive to the airport, and it is even safer to fly than to walk!At some point, we're going to have to accept that there is a difference between real security and Potemkin security (or Security Theater as Bruce Schneier likes to call it), and a difference between realistic threats and uninteresting threats. I'm happy that the police caught these folks even if their plot seems very sketchy, but could we please have some sense of proportion?
I couldn't agree more. Besides, has it occured to anyone that by overreacting, governments are doing far more damage to their own economies and people than the terrorists ever did? Isn't that ridiculous?
-jsq
I once had my nose hair scissors confiscated before boarding a flight... begging the question: Would it be horrific or just comical for a terrorist to take over a plane with nose hair clippers? Probably both. But you'd better be sure the passengers would shove those things so far up his nose that even Allah would chortle. C'mon, gimme back my scissors...
Posted by: Clippers Tickets | March 09, 2007 at 02:59 PM