I must step in here and expand on some of the prior comments, which  
are very similar to what I have been saying the past couple of days.

As Nate Clark mentions, even with as many terrorists as there are, it  
is still very unlikely to die on an airplane.  I really hate flying  
nowadays. Just ask my wife about it. And the part I hate is the  
inconveniences that we are now subjected to. 10 years ago, I could  
take my swiss army knife on the plane with me, so that I wouldn't  
have to check a bag if I didn't want to, and if I wanted to cut up an  
apple and dip it in some peanut butter, I could do that my handy  
little swiss army knife. I don't mind being stuck in the airplane  
much at all, or my ears popping up a bit. I mind the fact that it is  
now a major hassle to fly, that they keep imposing ridiculous rules,  
and that they are implemented very inconsistently throughout the U.S.

I also agree with Brian Magerko's comments, and will expand on them a  
bit. I will take a Socratic method here.

Why do terrorists exist?
	Because there are lots of people who hate the U.S.
Why do people hate the U.S.?
	Because we are very rich and more importantly arrogant. We try to  
impose our will on other countries in the world (and selectively as  
well), and consider ourselves an exception. For example, we have  
nuclear weapons. We GAVE Israel nuclear weapons. When India and  
Pakistan got nuclear weapons, we didn't say a thing. Iraq, North  
Korea et al. on the other hand are a different story.
How do people become terrorists?
	They are indoctrinated to hate the U.S. And this indoctrination is  
done in a very crafty manner. Many of the 'terrorist' organizations  
in the world such as Hezbollah and Hamas set up hospitals, provide  
food and shelter, and in other ways greatly help the unfortunate  
citizens of these countries. They then tell them why that they are in  
a poor state to begin with: because of the evil U.S. (this part may  
or may not be true). What is a person to think? Gee, these nice  
people give me food, shelter, medical care etc., they must be nice  
people, and I will do them a favor by harming the evil U.S.
How do we stop this?
	WE become the ones giving these people food, shelter, medical care  
etc. In fact, westerners (particularly Christian missionaries) have  
been doing this for centuries with great success. My wife (via her  
mom) points out that this is not foolproof. Take the situation in  
Iraq for example. We are supposedly trying to help them, and the  
insurgents keep trying to thwart our efforts. They are obviously  
doing this because they know that if we succeed, then the hatred for  
the U.S. will disappear, and they now believe that the U.S. is evil,  
because they have been indoctrinated to think that way (in the same  
way generations of Americans were indoctrinated to think that Blacks  
are evil (or at least inferior to whites in many ways)).  It won't  
happen overnight. But terrorism didn't appear overnight either. We  
need to stop putting bandaids on terrorism, and start doing open- 
heart surgery.

Back to Nate and Danny's ideas. I for one would rather not have  
security in airports whatsoever. I would be plenty happy to take my  
chances. I don't think that every plane would suddenly start blowing up.

There is one additional problem here, and that involves 'security'  
popping up everywhere. More and more frequently, previously innocent  
activities are now being 'secured'. I went to see the Conan Brian  
show in New York a few years ago, and they had metal detectors. Many  
schools now have metal detectors. When is it going to get to the  
point that there are metal detectors and security checkpoints on  
every corner? That reminds me a lot of Nazi Germany or the Stalinist  
Soviet Union.

If we let the fear of terrorism invade our everyday lives to the  
extent that is, then, to use the words of our president, "the  
terrorists have won".

Rob
--

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin


On Aug 14, 2006, at 12:17 PM, James W Mickens wrote:

>> But that's the point that Nate and I and others are trying to  
>> make:  the "no liquids" rule constitutes spending millions on  
>> security that does just about nothing to prevent attacks.
>
> These rules do little to improve safety if you assume that  
> terrorist organizations are run by scientific masterminds who are  
> capable of designing and implementing arbitrarily sophisticated  
> attacks. Empirically speaking, this does not appear to be true.  
> Most of the things that terrorists do are quite crude, e.g.,	
> strapping bombs to themselves, sneaking guns or knives onto planes,  
> driving explosive-laden vehicles into buildings, leaving explosives  
> in trash cans, etc. Straightforward countermeasures include  
> chemical detection of explosives, behavioral profiling, X-rays, pat  
> downs, putting concrete barriers around important buildings, and  
> not placing trash cans in public places (as is the policy in the  
> London Underground). To say that these measures do "just about  
> nothing" for safety ascribes too much cleverness to the standard  
> terrorist and ignores the common modes for terrorist attacks; if  
> such an attitude were implemented as public policy, it would likely  
> lead to an increase in terrorist attacks. It is correct that we  
> cannot protect against arbitrarily Byzantine terrorist attacks, but  
> such things are rare. If you look at Wikipedia's (by no means  
> comprehensive) list of famous terrorist attacks:
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_toll#Terrorism
> . . . it seems that the vast majority of attacks used the very  
> simple mechanisms enumerated above. If we have such empirical data  
> about how terrorist attacks are typically implemented, perhaps  
> amplified by specific intelligence about impending attacks, we  
> should definitely use this information to check for the most	
> obvious things.
>
> I agree that the ban on liquids should not consist of security  
> officers asking you to be earnest in answering the question "do you  
> have any liquids?" However, reasonable implementations of policies  
> like this will improve security because many terrorist attacks are  
> simple and can be stopped by simple countermeasures. This is	
> particularly true if the target is a place like an airport where  
> entry and exit is tightly controlled. This is less true in places  
> like a hotel or an open air market.
>
> ~j
>
>