[jimworcs]

In any mass transit system, no system can be wholly secure. I repeat, there is no real need for a pilot to smuggle weapons onboard. There is an axe in every cockpit to facilitate emergency evacuation. Some US aircraft have guns on them in the cockpit. Indeed, I think a US Airways pilot managed to fire one by accident!! In reality, as 911 shows, the aircraft itself is a weapon.

An employee who goes toxic is a threat come what may. For example, an employee of an airside shop, who wanted to smuggle a liquid through security could do so, because whilst single bottles of water would be confiscated, the water which goes through for stocking the shops are not individually checked. The reality is that the government is heavily invested in creating an illusion of strict security. Why doesn't the TSA have equipment to check credentials? It is ridiculous.

The current system treats everyone as if they represent the same level of threat. This is nonsense and is not what we do in other security arenas. For example, the US does not treat Malta as if it posed the same threat to them as Russia. However, at airports, we treat a young radical Muslim who has recently travelled to Pakistan as if he represents the same threat as an 80 year old grandmother from Minnesota who has never even left the USA. That is just pointless. Grandma should not be made to remove her shoes and belt, have her perfume confiscated and subjected to the indignity of a naked scan, as if she represents any kind of threat.

Holding up pilots and crew at security, who are fully credentialled and scheduled to work, and treating them as if they are the same threat as our radical Muslim is equally ridiculous. Particularly pilots.

The cost of these universal procedures is huge. If we scaled this back, but invested the considerable cost instead in intelligence gathering we may have more success.

Every time that we close one hole, the terrorists look for another, hence the recent focus on cargo. The printer cartridges were located and diffused not because of good security measures, but because of good intelligence.

I personally wouldn't rule out the possibility that the UPS Cargo aircraft that crashed a few weeks ago in Dubai, following a cargo hold fire, wasn't due to terrorist activity.

Making Grandma take off her shoes doesn't make us safer.