two thoughts after living in the UK for a little while:

1. I have learned to take the noon or later LHR-IAD or LHR-ORD flights, instead of the 8am or 10am flights. You cannot get to LHR early enough with any reasonable train from outside London (and I don't even try to get there more than 1.5hr in advance,unless subjecting yourself to a neck numbing early slow train ride, for a huge sum of ££), and you will otherwise have to stay in an extortionate LHR hotel overnight (with £4 hotel bus ride, thank you).

2. You may have forgotten, or maybe it's just not in the US news much, but the UK is home to most/all of the recent terrorist plots against airports and airplanes, etc. The Glasgow airport car attack, shoe bomber (though laughable, he was not acting on his own), and the London attacks, (and foiled car bombs just a few months ago). These are not just to be brushed off as single incidents in quirky Britain -- they're a warning sign of significant underground activity. And more seriously, in the UK it is a *domestic* terrorism problem, I believe worse than any possible tangible threat in the US right now. Unlike our US experience, where the terrorists were foreigners and visitors and (in hindsight) more easily identifiable, the UK is home to *native* citizens who wish to carry out these kinds of organized acts. There are whole veritable cities of disenfranchised minorities in the UK which their intelligence services have identified as places where extremist philosophy is attracting followers. Recent reports (2006), although I am no expert, say that the UK is "al-Qaeda target #1".

Why am I saying this? Well, if there is anywhere that needs to watch out for security issues, it is the UK, because it is a necessary check on their reliance on a sort of honor system of behavior. After living there, I can tell you, you would be surprised at how loop-holey their system of financial credit checks, driving licenses, and general recordkeeping is -- relying on their citizens to behave as they should.

So while the SSSS when boarding at LHR may seem a little extreme to you, I think that if there's anywhere I'd want it to be used, it's on flights from the UK. I'm not saying there aren't things that could be improved -- many things about LHR and BAA are outright ridiculous. I have spoken to the BAA security supervisors several times about some silly policies at T3, and received pretty unsatisfactory answers. But regardless of that, when it comes to real security procedures, the UK does have a problem and I think these gate checks are necessary (but need to be done correctly).

The thing I think is silly is that the people doing the gate screening look to be (to my eye) no more than the same low wage x-ray technicians you passed by 20 minutes before. Whereas, for example my experience in AMS-DTW for example, or other countries (although this was a while ago), the people interviewing you at the gate were actual federal police. I wonder, what would these BAA gate people even do if they came across someone really suspicious?