As much as I hate "cut-and-paste", this is an article from Boyd Consulting which , in my opinion, hits the nail on the head, for those interested:
TSA's Rule: No Shirt. No Shoes. Now You Can Fly
US Aviation Security: Stupidity As An Art Form
There's no doubt about it. The bad guys are planning to hit us again.
The foiled UK plot is just one example. Not particularly sophisticated, but still an indication of a deeply-organized threat. Then we have the clowns running into Wal-Mart, buying, say, 100 cell phones, thinking that it won't be noticed. Again, an indication of very unsophisticated people, but still, people who want to kill us. On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, there's lots of "noise."
There's also the clear indication that the US aviation system is a sitting duck.
We've spent what, $15 billion? $20 billion? on "security" and all we have to show for it is an enormous bureaucracy, and a growing industry of politicians and bureaucrats like Kean and Hamilton writing books on the subject.
But, in light of the latest threat - liquid explosives - our intrepid Department of Homeland Security has implemented the ultimate counter-measures: Ban anything wet on the airplane. No water bottles. No hairspray. No deodorants, No toothpaste. No lip gloss. No mascara.
It's a breakthrough on the war on terror: Counter 'em with bad hygiene.
The Sheep Are Buying It. And, we've already seen Angie Airhead, the 6PM News reporter, on the scene at the airport, interviewing passengers stuck in hour-long screening lines:
Angie: How do you feel about these new security measures?
Traveler, standing tall, strong, and looking with great determination into the camera: "If it promotes the war on terror, I'll gladly give up my tube of Pepsodent!"
The only thing it promotes, moron, is tooth decay.
Some folks, reading and hearing the news, would jump right in and agree with the soon-to-be toothless wonder in that security line: Yeah, but if they're gonna use liquid explosives, whaddya suggest we do?"
We'll start with this: The US airport system is a sieve. The ramp areas are about as secure as an unlocked Lexus in the South Bronx. Those guys working on the taxiway? The people cleaning the airplanes? The people slopping the special sauce in the burger joints in the sterile area? The catering truck, and the people driving it? We covered it weeks ago - it's a fact, regardless of the blatant lies coming out of the TSA.
The point is that if really sophisticated terrorists want to get stuff onto the ramp at big airports, they probably can. So taking a bottle of make-up foundation away from mamma isn't going to do diddly to counter terrorism.
Next, these are suicide terrorists, remember. They aren't too concerned with where the explosives are, just as long as they go boom at the right time. So, they can put this stuff into their checked suitcases, conveniently cloaked and disguised as a bottle of cough syrup. True, when in the mixed and ready state, most of the typical street-variety explosive liquid substances can be unstable. But that covers the less sophisticated, learned-it-off-the-web variety of terrorist. A more erudite virgin-seeker may use more stable varieties of explosives. And, they can be set off remotely while the terrorist is comfortably seated in first class.
So Here We React, Again. The negligent people running the TSA have ignored the threat of liquid explosive detection for years. Right after 9/11, technologies were discussed that could ascertain if that bottle in the Samsonite was mouthwash, nitro, or a bottle of cheap hooch. But the TSA ignored them, because the TSA is a political bureaucracy run by incompetents who have had no anticipatory plan to counter anything.
Prime Example: Richard Reid sticks explosives in his shoe. The TSA reacts by requiring shoes to be put through a metal detector. A metal detector that can't detect explosives.
So, now we're all going to be sitting on airplanes, with no chapstick, no make-up, no lip gloss, and no mascara. Unless the terrorist is a part-time hooker, this won't do anything except make the coach cabin even less attractive.
Cell Phones & Laptops Next. The TSA's idea of security is "target removal" - not counter-measures to protect our way of life. The idea is that if something can conceivably be used as a terrorist device, or if something might be a target, the philosophy is to simply remove it. It's like circling the wagons tighter and tighter to make a smaller target. Not defending territory, but ceding it to terrorism.
Remember, too, that Kip Hawley, Michael Chertoff and the rest of these security cub scouts have no plan, no goals, no ideas about what to do next. So jumping into that intellectual vacuum we have the congressional likes of Reps Markey, Wyden, and Israel, et al., all of whom have their own crackpot, short-term, and generally inept ideas of how security should look.
Almost certainly, the next thrust will be to ban all carry-on. And that will zap the airline industry. Forget the gooey patriotic pap about how "Americans will do what they must to adjust to new security measures.." That's a load of yogurt. First, what we see today are not security measures. They are the actions of government officials who are totally clueless and essentially are having their strings pulled by events.
Secondly, a laptop is now a necessary business tool. They are devices that cannot handle the stress of normal baggage handling. Plus, there is a theft problem at the TSA that has popped up at a number of airports across the country. Finally, if a passenger has to wait in the baggage claim area for 30 minutes to get his or her cell phone back, that isn't going to fly, literally.
Banning all carry-on, particularly laptops and cell phones, will fundamentally alter the value and the utility of air travel for a significant portion of the flying public. Don't buy into the stuff about, "... well, we didn't have 'em thirty years ago..." That's precisely right. This isn't thirty years ago.
Run, People, Run. Instead of making us safer by crafting anticipative counter-measures to terrorism, and instead of developing programs that protect and defend our way of life, Chertoff, Hawley, and - deal with it - the entire Bush Administration have no plan except to have us run faster and faster away whenever there's a threat.
Another terrorist attack - on a plane, at an airport, in a subway, on a pipeline, wherever - is, unfortunately inevitable. The lack of planning and the lack of expertise in place that DHS and TSA nearly guarantee it.
We know the problem. We know the real threat. It's us.
