Quote Originally Posted by pjmunson View Post
Looking forward to the ineffective security theater harrassment that this will produce at the airport for the post-holiday flights.

Two articles with further links on the theatrics that pass for security at our airports:

Economist's Gulliver Blog

Atlantic article

We need to separate and be honest about the components of airline security: the things that actually can defeat attacks (most of which should happen well prior to the TSA security check at the airport), the things that deter attackers from trying even though they won't defeat a trained attacker (the TSA security check), and the things that are wrongheadedly added in for good measure to make people feel like the government is doing something and/or is being fair (half-assed harrassment of grandma whose body language, travel documents, IDs, luggage, etc shows that she isn't trying to pull anything over, but doing a frisk on her anyway that is embarassing, annoying, and insulting, but would not find even the most poorly hidden contraband). And as one Israeli CT expert told me, we need to focus more on resilience when it comes to strategic message to our populations than fearmongering approaches that make them afraid of the threat.
I agree with you on how poorly planned and conducted airport security is in the US, and it can get quite aggravating to say the least.

For example in my junior year in high about year and a half ago, I was embarking on a college program to Cambridge University at Dulles Airport in DC, my home city. At airport security I found affairs quite haphazard in the way they were conducted. As in my instance, some film I was bringing on the trip to take pictures was almost destroyed because security demanded to screen it via x-ray despite the fact that I proved that it was indeed film. While at the same time many other passengers who had more questionable items where rushed through security without the time being taken to process them.

Coming back home after the college program at Cambridge and gong through London's massive Heathrow Airport,. I found security on the other side of the Atlantic to be not much better, due to the fact that I didn't find security to be alert and vigilant, in addition I found the security station that I went through to be poorly manned. Even though I was subject to standard procedure I didn't find things as quite as through as they should be. All of this I found quite surprising for a nation that has first hand experience dealing with the IRA, acts of state sponsored terrorism, and recently violent Islamic Jihadists.

I therefore agree with you fullheartedly that incompetent security and mindless/illogical harassment at airport security is not only aggravating but is also a threat.