Sorry, Ron.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

You and much of your organization are marching towards the holy grail of a zero risk game. Identify a risk, put together another team, and mitigate it. Cost, effectiveness and effects on personal liberty has little balance in your equation.

Many in this flying population, and much of the rest of the world, are willing to accept some level of risk to maintain reasonable levels of privacy and freedom to travel without undue hassle by our government. Yes, there will be incidents from time to time, and they will be sad and tragic, but they are minuscule as compared to the other risks we tolerate every day.

I (and many others) feel that there is no end to the expansion of the TSA and DHS. The attempts of your organizations to enforce silly cr@p as of late onto small, private aircraft and airports is another perfect example. Subways, rail, sporting events -- we don't know when it will stop. How about the parking lot at the grocery store or shopping mall?

I now need government permission to travel TO Mexico in my small plane, which by the way weighs less than your car and carries far less, yet I can drive and walk in a southerly direction across that same border with impunity. Up until now, the "permission to exit" tactic has been reserved for a very small number of countries like North Korea and Cuba.

We had 50,000 traffic fatalities last year, Ron. How many terrorist attacks would we have had with reasonable security, limited to secured cockpit door access and more traveler friendly bag and personal inspections? Looking for items that were a real danger to the aircraft, not corkscrews, bottles of water, slices of cheesecake, and cashboxes?

See this picture below, Ron??



This is a photo of a gate outside the passenger terminal, aircraft side, at an unnamed California airport. This gate is 3 1/2 feet high. How many people do you think were involved in procuring and installing this silly excuse of a gate? Do you want to know how many people reach over the gate every day, and open it from the unlocked handle on the back side? It is another example of money spent ineffectively, but there is now TSA compliant controlled access on paper.


Keep it simple, keep it subtle, keep it effective, and stop treating me like a criminal. We are willing to accept a level of risk to keep you and your organization in a less intrusive and more accountable position.