Originally Posted by clrankin

What ever happened to the thought that living in society involved certain risks that people inherently accept by their choice to live in society?

Flying has certain risks that come with it. There is no way to make airline travel completely safe or guarantee that terrorists cannot do something to attack, destroy, or disrupt the air travel system or individual airliners. People should either be willing to accept these risks, as slim as they are, or simply not fly from place to place. (After all, isn't that the security maven's answer to everything-- "you don't have to fly"... What's good for the goose is good for the gander.)

Prior to 9/11 airline hijackings happened. So did airliner bombings. And yet somehow we all managed to survive without invasive scanning techniques, sexual assault-style pat-downs, and Little Johnny Peepants running around screaming "Be afraid! Be very afraid!" every 15 minutes. Prohibited items made it through, and so did the occasional person without being scanned, and that didn't result in wasting hundreds of peoples' time by initiating terminal dumps.

I'm willing to risk stepping on board with a terrorist that has swallowed explosives and is ready to blow himself up, rather than accept even more intrusive and invasive procedures. I'm willing to risk the remote detonation of a bomb, rather than risk TSA theft of my laptop or cell phone by having to put the items in checked luggage. I'm willing to accept the slim risks of air travel, and steadfastly believe that any other rational person should be too.

The TSA was a knee-jerk reaction to a terrible incident. Unfortunately some of its policies-- and much of its implementation of all policies-- hasn't done too much to make travel appreciably safer. Instead of making us safe, they've concentrated on the irrelevant and the mundane. They're more geared toward throwing out bottles of Aquafina and confiscating grandma's applesauce than implementing policies to ensure that everyone and everything going into the "sterile" area are properly screened. And they're more focused on enforcement of existing "rules" than they are on figuring out the next rule-changing scenario before it plays out somewhere. It's unfortunate, but true.