In today's news:
I can think of all sorts of witty comments about how secure I will feel and how small a price this is for real security, but I think I will leave that task to the experts here. @:-)

Personally, I have always felt it unfair to burden travelers with costs that arise because terrorists have an airplane fetish. If terrorists only attacked day care centers, would we tax day care centers to recover the security cost, or would we pay the cost out of general tax revenue?

That opinion aside, however, I believe that air travel is simply too tempting a target... for taxation. So are rental cars and hotel rooms. These expenses seem destined to perpetual taxation at high levels. Given that reality, earmarking some of the tax for security expenses may not mean that the taxes would have been any lower in the absence of such earmarking.

Terrorists don't have an airplane fetish. The idea that we even need TSA at airports is laughable. We manage to get along just fine at supermarkets and malls, at stadiums, on buses and trains.

Don't forget that travel using General Aviation has far less intrusive "security" and has had no incidents of terrorism.

Maybe not a fetish, but there continue to be reports that planes are a favored method to attack western interests.

Homeland Security Warns Airports Against New Al Qaeda Threat

Al Qaeda Plane Bombing Fails At Detroit Airport

Cargo plane bomb plot: al-Qaeda terrorists 'threatened another Lockerbie'

Of course the attackers don't even have to be successful to be effective, a threat, a foiled plot or a bang all seem to cause similar responses in the US. So what are western leaders to do, ignore the threats? And how are they supposed to pay for the security responses?

A report BY the DHS that planes are a favored method of attack, to support the decision BY the DHS that they should concentrate on air travel. Yeah, that's pretty conclusive.

I'm not clear how the report of an aircraft-based incident two years ago (the Fruit of the Boom guy) is evidence that there "continue to be reports" that aircraft are the preferred method of attack. In the meantime there have also been plots uncovered to bomb bridges, blow up a van on a street in New York, attack buildings or infrastructure, etc. Yet DHS believes that air travel is the "favored method" of attack.

Again, a summary of an incident a year ago (the printer bombs from Yemen) is not a report that terrorists are planning to use aircraft in the future. Furthermore, this was in the cargo, not in passenger baggage or carried on by a passenger, so it has little to do with airport security checkpoint screening.
I agree that they over-react to the slightest whiff of a threat. I don't agree that the government can keep expanding its efforts (and the associated expense) on "security" indefinitely and expect the taxpayers and passengers to keep funding ineffective and ridiculous measures just because someone cries "wolf."

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LOL @ a $2.50 fee. Canadians pay $25.91 for bogus security on an international departure. Are we ten times safer? Nope.

gee, RG! I love your comments.

To really understand the Jan-Pat (me down) Napolitano philosophy on threats you have to slip inside the DHS.

Aide 1: "I think I'll write a report that someone is thinking about using an airplane to do something bad."

Aide 2: "Great idea. let me have a copy when you're done."

Aide 1:"Here's the report."

Aide 2:"Hello Jan-Pat?, I just got another report that they're favoring airplanes again."

Jan-Pat: "Issue a warning and try to get those darn private airplanes out of the sky again."

^

I'd be all for it if the TSA could guarantee me to a 100% certainty that the technology they will spend this new windfall on will work as advertised

I also like your comments in addition to RG's.

Previous Secretary Tom Ridge already admitted to raising the security levels for political purposes. Travelers should be on the lookout for even more stories of airplane attacks now that government wants more funding. How about an adorable little child terrorist that is stopped with a bomb?

That would allow TSA to grope children without further criticism.

You link to a propaganda press release by DHS, a non event in Detroit, and a non event in Africa that had to do with cargo planes, and you want to use this to continue justifying the ongoing violation and terrorizing of US citizens at their own airports by the TSA. I think you're wasting your time. All you do is provide more proof that TSA is barking up the wrong tree.

Any fee increase must be linked to a renewed commitment from TSA to abide by the same law that the rest of the united States lives under. No invasions of other persons, such as the sexual and whole body groping and strip searches without probable cause that they are STILL performing.

What was I thinking......

Be careful, goalie. One of the major FF programs is planning to use that for its new logo after the next devaluation! @:-)

Are saying that sky-pesos are trafe (aka not kosher) or that swine flies united?