Originally Posted by
MSY-MSP
..., the goal of terrorism is to make you feel not safe in your day to day life. If you are constantly looking over your back or not doing things that you normally would, then terrorism works. The targeting of airplanes has been done simply for the "publicity" factor that it gives the organization. Basically it is saying "see what I can do despite your best efforts to stop me."
(Highlighting mine.)
I agree with the first underlined bit. The second may be true in terms of "publicity" but does not need to drive the gov't response.
Of course this is
FlyerTalk, so we should pause to consider that for
most people in the Western world, flying is not part of "day to day life". While I don't fly as often as many here, my friends and family think I fly "a lot." For my friends, things like concerts (ahem), shopping centres, train stations, office buildings or restaurants are "day to day life." They may fly a few times a year for work, or once every three years to see Grandma, or never.
Yet governments focus on air travel threats, such as modified electronics, based on an assumption that terrorists are concentrating on air travel, rather than on things that are really "day to day life" for most people. Or maybe it's just easier for governments to be seen to be "doing something" by adding more layers of security at airports than dealing with the underlying problem of terrorism.
In my opinion, the terrorists have already succeeded in making air travel miserable. Billions spent in direct costs by governments, plus untold billions more in lost productivity by passengers arriving hours early; acres of landfill of harmless shampoo and water and yogurt and small pointy things; thousands shuffling shoeless through packed checkpoints, waiting to be groped by rude gov't "agents"; the humilation of cancer survivors and amputees and breast-feeding mothers - in the category of "disruption" it takes the gold medal.
So to me it seems unlikely that they would undertake a technically complicated and costly scheme, like modified electronics, to add yet another layer of misery to air travel which affects mainly frequent flyers, rather than creating a fear in the day to day lives of a different demographic such as, say, teenage girls and their parents.
