Originally Posted by
medic51vrf
When a person posseses detailed plans on how to commit a criminal act (in this example making a bomb and blowing up an aircraft) and then places themselves in a position where that act can be committed (on an aircraft) the people hired to protect the asset (the plane) from the act (blowing it up) will (rightly or wrongly) view this as a potential threat due to multiple (if not all) of the elements of the crime being present.
While I truly understand where you are coming from, I must disagree. The distinction between someone who is likely to commit a crime (but has not committed one) and someone who has committed a crime is important. Once we start policing intent rather than action, the ability for government to abuse its power is just too great.
I understand that we have to do some of this, but I think we already do plenty. An extreme example of my argument would require that we allow guns on planes, since there is no way for the government to know if I intend to use it or not. This, of course, is now an absurd idea, but I think we have to draw the line somewhere.
The line, to me, and I believe also the Constitution, is that the bomb is immediately dangerous, while the knowledge of how to assemble a bomb is not dangerous. Weighing to costs and benefits, we allow one and prevent one.
There is a line.