Hmmm. Let's see, instead of manning security checkpoints at a few hundred airports in the U.S., we could put enough operatives into the field to try to figure out what hundreds of millions (if not billions) of other people around the world are thinking and doing, and thereby KNOW that we can stop them all before they try to do anything harmful.

And when our government tries to do things concentrating on human intelligence like study patterns of calls from questionable overseas numbers, and listen to sat/radio transmissions involving overseas calls involving risky areas [i.e., calls to U.S. from hotbeds of terrorist activities], the civil libertarians again get up in arms, contending that rights are being violated.

How do you suggest we effectively concentrate on human intelligence? Even on just the foreign visitors in the U.S.? In the year 2000, there were 50 million visitors to the U.S. How do we investigate them on the "human intelligence" side to determine their likelihood of causing harm? And that's just the visitors. Doesn't include aliens living here. And sure does not include any kind of human intelligence on foreigners in their own countries who might have terroristic intentions.

Maybe we get about 10 million FBI agents here in the US to investigate all the aliens and visitors, and then get about 20 million CIA agents around the world, to investigate all the potential terrorists in other countries. That ought to do it.

So, just how do we EFFECTIVELY concentrate on human intelligence, instead of security screening? And how is it possibly going to cost LESS than the current program of security screening at airports?

Inquiring minds want to know.