Caz, I agree with you that we are unnecessarily paranoid in this country. Americans seem to believe that al Quaeda is a vast international organization with a military-like command structure starting at Osama Bin Laden, or whomever took over for him after his untimely (read: took far too long) death, and going down like a pyramid through many levels of generals, majors, and lieutenants to the average grunt with an AK-47 and a shemagh wrapped around their head. They view it like Kaos, Spectre, Thrush, and Cobra - ruthless terrorist organizations from popular fiction which are all more cartoon caricatures than reality.

I also agree that patting down the cat was overkill.

Swiping the carrier for an ETD test was not. The carrier itself could easily be used to conceal a pretty large amount of explosive.

Then again, I and many on FT have also exhibited some paranoia of our own - we suspect that the ETD tests done at airports are not just testing for explosives, but are also testing for drug residue (without the knowledge of the TSOs who are operating the machine). Thus, a positive results in a full pat down of the person and a minute hand inspection of all of their belongings, ostensibly to search for explosives, but of course the real reason behind it is to find smuggled drugs. And yes, the idea of drug smugglers using a cat carrier to bring in illicit material is way less ludicrous than the idea of a terrorist using a cat carrier to bring a bomb onto a plane.

All of that being said, I also need to point out that you're talking about a cat, not a human child, so continuously calling it a "baby" is misleading and somewhat disturbing.