Yes we must keep them off the planes at any cost. Then when they can't get on anymore, they can turn there cause to riding subways, buses, trains, and cruise ships and maybe even taxis, never know who the driver is going to be. At least air passengers will be safe.

Except that it's a lot harder to kill hundreds of people with a small bomb with those other targets. The number of victims is limited by the blast radius. Aircraft are unique in that they fall out of the sky...

Article in the Saturday Chicago Tribune said one of the arrested suspects worked in security at LHR. Which means he did pass a background check.

One suicide bomber in a crowd outside the security checkpoint at a major hub during ir-ops could kill a hundred people, and have a massive effect on the air transport industry. With three suicide bombers, I hate to imagine the result. Look at what is happening in Iraq.

This photo was in "normal" times, prior to the current event.

I'm with you on the costs of continuing the "no carry-ons" policy.

Background checks for all passengers will never work. Most people have a vastly over-inflated view of what level of assurance you can get from a background check; in reality, they don't work anything like some people think. Background checks are not likely to be useful for passenger screening; the proposal is ill-informed.

The real problem here is unrealistic expectations about risk. If we look at the US, say, I suspect more people die each month in automobile accidents than have died due to terrorist attacks during the entire history of the US. Yet people get all worked up about terrorism and air safety, while thinking nothing of getting in the car and driving -- even though the latter activity is far more risky. People's perception of risk is all wacked, and as a result, they demand the impossible.

In the US, each year there are about 40,000 deaths per year in automobile accidents, so per month that's about 3,000 to 3,500, or a bit more than 9/11 and the Oklahoma city bombing combined.

Background checks to get on a plane? Not only NO, but HAYELL NO!

The obsession of our society to go to the unreasonable extreme in the face of potential terror attacks could very well have handed the victory to the terrorists already. The worries about liquid bomb are legitimate. But let's be reasonable. I could understand if some guys want to bring a gallon of Gatorade on the plane, security should pull them aside and look at them with a fine tooth comb. But lipsticks?!! A small tube of toothpaste or lotion?!! Someone at TSA have been watching one James Bond movie too many to think that a stick of lipstick could damage the structural integrity of the airplane. By the way, how about chewing gum - the one Tom Cruise used to blew up a helicopter in Mission Impossible II? We should ban chewing gum too then?!! Again, be reasonable. Set a size limit. Like 1 oz. of toothpaste, 1 oz. of lotion etc. No drinks (you can buy them on the plane - think of it as a way to help out your favorite bankrupt airline). Let's not rush into giving up our awesome way of life on every new thing the terrorists try to cook up.

In fact, if this is the way we as a society react to terrost threats, we are making Al Queda's job so much easier. Osama Bin Laden is probably laughing his behind off watching this. He must realize that he doesn't have to do much to strike fear in the western society. All that he has to do is to intentionally leak out some semi-serious plan of attack, and watch the panic set in on the western world - with crippling economic impact. What's next? Someone found a NYC subway map in Kabul and we all have to ride the subway naked? Give me a break!

Why don't we mandate that the only aircraft an airline can have on its fleet is a 40-50 passenger regional jet then? That'll keep casualties low and therefore make then unattractive to the terrorists.

I've never had anything worse than a couple of speeding tickets on my record, my husband not even that. I could care less if the airlines want to check our backgrounds. We have nothing to hide!

Oh, great, here we go again with this tired line of "logic." Can the "authorities" search your house, too, any time they like? You have nothing to hide, right? How about body-cavity searches? You don't have anything bad up there, do you now? Where do you draw the line? When has it gone too far?

By the way, you mean that you couldn't care less, right?

Bruce

The 4th amendment was designed to protect people who didn't have anything to hide from being searched for no reason. It's a shame people are willing to give up that right simply because "they have nothing to hide."

I don't have "anything to hide" either. That doesn't mean I'm going to let cops search me just because.

Keeping to the original topic; I took the term "background check" to mean a criminal history check on my passport/drivers license. I have no objection to supplying the authorities with those documents prior to flying so that I may be cleared as "not a potential baddie". They get to see them anyway when I am going through the immigration line. I much prefer that solution than not being allowed to have my valuables with me as cabin baggage which is the direction this whole mess is heading in.

On the contrary, many more people on buses are killed by terrorists and small bombs this year and last than in planes in double the period.

When dealing with authorities who spin stories out of lose fragments by filling the gaps with conjecture (and imagination) and then prosecute under "terrorism-related" charges and "conspiracy", perhaps you don't want to supply those lose fragments by allowing a search.

It's not hard for some nutty law enforcement/intelligence analyst to say that someone's use of FT and Google and going to airports was part of a plot to attack airports and planes. And then they just fill in the gaps and the "suspect" finds themselves in need of an attorney (which hopefully they will be afforded ).

Abdul Waheed, one of those arrested, was Don Stewart-Whyte until he changed his name six months ago.

Let's make sure anyone with a hyphenated name is banned from flying! Or, erm, people with three letter first names. And people who've ever changed their names.

I feel safer already. Phew.