Children as tools of terror
 

While it seems a fair number of people are outraged by the patdown of the 6 year old, there are at least a few that believe it's justified "because of the world we live in." "If a terrorist knew his child would not be searched, he could use the child to smuggle his WMDs"

Suppose terrorists did use children as tools of terror. Why wouldn't they just pack the kid's school bag full of dynamite and use a detonator with a timer? Busload of 50-100 children turns into a big crater in the middle of the road. No worries about hiding it in the kids underpants or BDO's or K9's or ID checks, just a simple device using proven techniques?

But not the target that TSA is attempting to secure.

Again, TSA is trying to ensure that WEIs don't make it aboard a commercial aircraft. If you packed a child's backpack full of dynamite and asked the child to carry it aboard an aircraft, almost certainly the dynamite would be detected by the ordinary X-ray examination performed on (virtually) all carry-ons.

On the other hand, as has been demonstrated, items carried on one's person have a better chance of passing through a checkpoint undetected. Balancing the societal interest in keeping explosives off aircraft against the societal interest in personal privacy is, of course, a matter of debate.

Have no fear, the TSA has a watchful eye on school buses. :rolleyes:

More mission creep; the TSA will keep school busses safe For The Children™

Better yet, why not just recruit a suicide bomber to walk into the baggage claim area of LAS on a Friday night around, oh, 8 PM. He or she doesn't have to be screened to enter that area, and if you have ever been in the LAS baggage claim around 8 PM on a Friday, it is wall to wall people. You could easily take out a hell of a lot more people there than you could on a plane. You also have the added bonus of never being screened before you enter the area.

I think you are missing the point. A terrorists goal is to impose terror. All the efforts the TSA puts forth assume they will target an aircraft no matter if other more simple means are available.

If a terrorist was going to use his child as a mule to cause terror, why would he bother trying to get that child on an airplane when he could simply put him on a schoolbus?

So that is a reason to assult all kids?

So all other kids are going to have problems because one child might be forced to carry explosives?

Doesnt even make any kind of sence.

We are going to have a world full of molested and scared kids . Later grown ups.

Sure we should be aware. But not molest people. Amnd have hands on our privates out of the blue.

There is also going to be a lot of grown ups with issues.

Privates are for a reason privates.

I dont share mine with anybody except they are "invited". And I do think that is how most people think.

Why are we still debating this terrorist concept? The only terrorists in airports are the ones funded by the government. NOBODY WILL SUCCESSFULLY HIJACK A PLANE IN AMERICA AGAIN.

Terrorist did inflict some terror on 9/11 and TSA seems both happy and eager to carry on the mission of the terrorist into perpetuity..

And that's as it should be.

TSA isn't charged with fighting all forms of terror. TSA is charged with fighting terror specifically targeted at Transportation systems. There are other federal agencies who are tasked with fighting other forms of terrorism.

Charged with, sure. Actually fighting? They certainly seem more interested in marijuana-laced peanut butter and skinny girls in thin shirts than in anything that might potentially present a threat to the aircraft.

The problem with the picture is that they're performing the grope-downs on kids who couldn't conceivably hide enough materiel to present an actual threat to the plane.

I disagree. A child`s back is about 1 square foot. A square foot of sheet explosive can do a lot of damage.

This is an excellent point. Frankly school buses in general make excellent targets. I don't know how they do things now, but where I live the town used to park all the school buses in one big parking lot at night. The lot wasn't fenced or guarded. It would be comparatively trivial to pop magnetic remote controlled bombs to the undercarriages of 20+ school buses and time the explosions simultaneously around the time that the buses would be mostly full of children. For maximum effect you could do that in 100s of American cities at the same time, although the more cities you do the greater the risk of getting caught planting the bombs. Can you imagine the effect on the American psyche after 250 school buses filled with children from all over the country just blew up one morning?

Riiiiiight.

...and the much-vaunted backscatter scanners can't detect RDX or PETN.

...and "sheet explosive attacks" on US-originated flights have been attempted... how many times? Let's see... nothing into nothing... carry the nothing... divide by nothing..

That'd be zero.

Probably because while a square foot of sheet explosive might be able to "do a lot of damage," it's still unlikely to take the plane down. Might have a couple of passengers and a flight attendant or two pass out when they don't get their masks on fast enough, though.

It's simply not a credible threat.

^^^^^
bolding mine

a federal agency that unilaterally decides how much it wants to take of your person, how much to feel of your person, how much to see of your person, is an agency operating in enmity towards you because has broken the civil compact existing between government and the governed (the people) and instead asserts its raw power over you. The TSA has in principle seized everything from you when it seizes ownership over your privates for no cause and strip searches you for no cause.

Yep.

This is very serious. We must get a judicial or legislative solution ASAP. I repeat: this is very serious.