Do you really think I am the first person to think of this cunning plan?

If dissemination of publicly-available infomation like this concerns you, then the agency for which you work should scare the hell out of you.

This simply amplifies my point: the TSA is a threat to airport security.

You're joking, right?

Look, we've said it before - if frequent flyers (and frequent flying rocket scientists) can figure this stuff out, do you honestly think the terrorists haven't??

Surely you aren't that naive.

Of course i was kidding but still, ideas really should not be spreading over the internet like this.

Terrorists arent really the brightest beans as they think when they die they get 80virgins.

I agree. The things that Spiff posted are things that have been mentioned or alluded to countless times in the past on this forum. Doubtless, are the things that anyone who has an IQ over room temperature would think of in a minute or two if asked "gee, if a terrorist wanted to do something despite today's security, what could he do?" I suspect that most would-be terrorists have IQs above room temperature. I also suspect that TSASCRNR might be freaked a bit because he never hears passengers say those things at airports due to the general gag on "suspicious" conversation.

The terrorists already know about this and many, many other holes. Get over it.

It is a lot healthier to discuss such shortcomings than it is to play ostrich and pretend they don't exist.

Not all terrorists think this. And why do you need to criticize someone else's religious beliefs?

Scares you when those pesky ideas go spreading out over the internet, huh??



Public assemblies worry you, too? How about private meetings in homes?

Perhaps someone from the TSA should screen our posts before they appear here and elsewhere?

Who do you work for again? Oh, yeah, the US federal govenment.

Every idea ever thought by a human will spread over the internet eventually. Most of them already have.

Whoa fellas, this one's going off all over the place.

If Spiff wants to publicise the pros and cons of getting on a plane with half a pound of high-explosive stuffed up the back-side (and risk the chemical reaction when encountering food on some airlines) then so be it.

I was just trying to generate a bit of debate, rather than TSA-bashing, about the effectiveness of security measures. I don't expect perfection, I do expect effort. I appeciate that there are arguments about whether the present measures are effective/relevant/necessary. I am realistic about how safe we really are should someone mount a concerted effort.

Frankly, I expect the terrorists are lapping it all up - watching the civilised world wrap itself up in procedure and red tape.

You've got that right.

I am sure Osama loves how un-American airports have become.

That's a fascinating statement. As a non-American, I find what is going on at your airports completely American. Not so much the things being done (much of which applies elsewhere in the world) but certaily the way it is done.

I'll articulate briefly. Problem perceived; immense machinery deployed; strict adherence to nth degree of letter of the law; total lack of subtlety.

Sorry if that sounds a bit caustic, but do you see the point that I make? There are analagies elsewhere.

When Spiff uses the term un-American, he is referring (please forgive me for presuming Spiff) to policies that are diametrically opposed to the principles of freedom and liberty upon which the US was founded. It's an unfortunate symptom of how much the US government has betrayed those principles that a non-American would associate the term American with the banal things you enumerated.

I definitely see your point.

Unfortunately, most other Americans do not travel abroad so they are just fine with the global definition of "American".

However, by the domestic definition of "American", the crap going on in our airports and elsewhere in the US is definitely akin more to the kind of nonsense one would expect to find in North Korea or in the former nation of East Germany.

THAT is not a religious belief, it is brainwash.

I'll bow to you guy's knowledge of the day-to-day reality of what's going on there. One man's liberty is another man's opportunity, I suppose. Getting the balance right between denying (criminal) opportunity and enabling individual liberty is probably akin to finding the Holy Grail. But then, who defines 'criminal'?

(Japhydog - there's nothing recent about the English perception of the American make-up. I don't refer to the, sometimes politically inspired, opinions of how a government performs).

By the way, you cannot seriously be comparing your country with North Korea? You might suffer some perceived indignities whilst travelling through an airport, but at least you have the freedom and choice to travel. Let's not get carried away.