It's been done but the only fatality was the bomber.

If Al Qadea could spend Tens of Thousands of Dollars to Train Pilots to fly Aircraft into Buildings how much would it cost them to get somebody a job to load catering.

How many TSA Security ID checkers know what a Genuine Yemeni Passport looks like. Every day hundreds of Illegal Immigrants get into the EU through Land-borders with fake documents.

I never understood this obsession by the flying public and the TSA with potential bombs. If the only goal is to take down the plane why even bother getting on it? US airports are generally not protected in any way. You can get right next to runways at almost every major airport. It would be much easier to simply shoot a plane down then to try and sneak past a cat bomb or other such nonsense. Yet to this day no one has even attempted it in the US, and there have been very few attempts world wide. Why is that oh paranoid among us? If there is a terrorist hiding around every corner and in every cat carrier then why the lack of even attempts in the US?

Exactly. The entire notion is laughable, and might barely aerosolize the cat.

PHX in particular has parallel runways running east-west, and freeways running north-south at either end.

If someone really felt like it, it'd be absolutely trivial to take down an aircraft on takeoff or on landing with little more than a slingshot.

I now have a mental image of someone on a plane standing up, lighting a fuse on a (soon to be protesting violently) cat and throwing it upstream...

It won't end well.

Sshhhhh! You're letting thinking get in the way! Don't let the fear stop the controlling...

how many terrorists has TSA caught? None, of course, but thanks for buying into TSA's tripe.

The going rate appears to be in the low hundreds, based on the TSA "employees" busted for smuggling over the past couple of years.

The simple fact that it hasn't happened is good evidence that there aren't any "terrorists" attempting it.

Caz, I agree with you that we are unnecessarily paranoid in this country. Americans seem to believe that al Quaeda is a vast international organization with a military-like command structure starting at Osama Bin Laden, or whomever took over for him after his untimely (read: took far too long) death, and going down like a pyramid through many levels of generals, majors, and lieutenants to the average grunt with an AK-47 and a shemagh wrapped around their head. They view it like Kaos, Spectre, Thrush, and Cobra - ruthless terrorist organizations from popular fiction which are all more cartoon caricatures than reality.

I also agree that patting down the cat was overkill.

Swiping the carrier for an ETD test was not. The carrier itself could easily be used to conceal a pretty large amount of explosive.

Then again, I and many on FT have also exhibited some paranoia of our own - we suspect that the ETD tests done at airports are not just testing for explosives, but are also testing for drug residue (without the knowledge of the TSOs who are operating the machine). Thus, a positive results in a full pat down of the person and a minute hand inspection of all of their belongings, ostensibly to search for explosives, but of course the real reason behind it is to find smuggled drugs. And yes, the idea of drug smugglers using a cat carrier to bring in illicit material is way less ludicrous than the idea of a terrorist using a cat carrier to bring a bomb onto a plane.

All of that being said, I also need to point out that you're talking about a cat, not a human child, so continuously calling it a "baby" is misleading and somewhat disturbing.

Caz, I agree with you that we are unnecessarily paranoid in this country. Americans seem to believe that al Quaeda is a vast international organization with a military-like command structure starting at Osama Bin Laden, or whomever took over for him after his untimely (read: took far too long) death, and going down like a pyramid through many levels of generals, majors, and lieutenants.....


I don't know. It's 12 years down the road from 9/11 after 2 protracted, expensive, and unnecessary wars and all the hype and propaganda and profiteering I think most people realize the doomcriers are full of beans. But a lot of the doomcriers, DHS, TSA, CIA, NSA and all the other alphabet-soup groups that ballooned after 9/11 and usurped our liberties have a lot of power and a lot of sway over the media. They're stuck in 2001. There's nothing harder than clipping your own wings.

Coming to an airport near you - The War On Cats (TWOC).

Yep. My carry-on was swiped and came back positive. The agent asked, and I replied that I had just taken my blood pressure medication. He said, "Yep, this was it."

A little OT, but, years ago - before 9/11, I did weapons testing for the US government and sometimes had to run to the airport to make my return flight. Often, I was covered with explosives residue (as were my cases carrying testing equipment). Today, I guess I would be branded a terrorist.

I always find it very rich when an Australian refers to the USA as the land of the paranoid or the LOTFAP...

This is coming from people that live in a nanny state as well. They are the only other country besides the USA that requires foreign airports do secondary at-gate screening to make sure no liquids are brought on board aircraft. And now they have joined the Nude-o-Scope club. Add to that ridiculous amounts of safety reminders, plethora of red light and speed cameras, drug dogs at clubs, pubs, etc.

I carry a small vial of glycerin-based hand lotion in my Freedom Bag so I can blame any false positive on it.

Reminds me , a few years ago my carry on back pack tested positive for explosives at an airport.

Everything was searched inside out. Turns out I had the same back pack at an outdoor July 4 firewirks display.
Mystery solved !