Originally Posted by GradGirl
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This entire repetitive dialogue is missing the forest for the trees. The target on 9/11 was office buildings. Big office buildings. What justifies the enormous expense focused only on airplanes? This is just an irrational, emotional response. There have already been plenty of terrorist plots, worldwide and in the U.S., that targeted buildings and crowds directly without the intermediary of airplanes. A huge problem with the frisk-everybody-who-flies security model is that it ignores vast classes of other risks as it pours all available security money into a very low-value security measure. As the Eileen McNamara of the Boston Globe put it, "It is easier to frisk one another than it is to take the time and care required to figure out who hates us and why."
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I agree - and don't see the need for increased searching and stuff, but don't forget that airliners were a popular target for terrorists when we were less prepared for hijacking. There's good sense in trying to prevent a captive group of passengers from being taken hostage in a structure than can transport them virtually anywhere in the world. That doesn't mean that shoe searches are really logical, but the "old skool" screening for guns and bombs should be maintained.