Month: November 2010

The tactic of using an airplane as a missile was only valid until 9:57 AM on 9/11/2001. An airplane full of ordinary Americans figured out the security equation over a field in Shanksville, PA. The hardened cockpit doors made double-sure immediately thereafter.

So, the public risk has been eliminated. There are private risks – getting on an airplane with no security screening would be minimally more risky than getting on an airplane with full strips and body cavity searches, but there’s a tremendous privacy and cost benefit to the former. The risk differential is a smaller margin than encountered when deciding what kind of motor vehicle to drive, but these are the kinds of risks a free society leaves with the People to decide.

Food for thought:

1. Has the TSA ever caught a potential bomber?  

2. Have they had a 60% failure rate in tests getting weapons through?

3. Have potential bombers tried and failed because the passengers overwhelmed them?

4. Are there hundreds of other ways to blow up a plane TSA isn’t screening for?

5. Are they screening for the kinds of devices that took down Pan Am Flight 103?

6. Can we achieve perfect safety? 

7. When did the tactic of using planes as missiles become unworkable?  

8. Does TSA have a tremendous amount of direct and indirect costs?

9. Are these searches patently unconstitutional?

10. Should a private airline be able to require its passengers to have such screening?

11. Who said these?  “Give me liberty or give me death.” “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

12. Given all of the above, is this really about safety or is it more likely about conditioning?

1. No, 2. Yes, 3. Yes, 4. Yes, 5. No, 6. No, 7. 9:57AM, 9/11/2001, 8. Yes, 9. Yes, 10. Absolutely – there’s probably a small market for it, 11. Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, 12. You decide.