Answer: you give up your clothes at check-in for an airline issued paper jumpsuit. speeds up security and provides ad-space for the revenue strapped airlines...

can't wait till someone pees in their pants, and a lawsuit is born

Some substantial minority of women get breast cancer so we can approach choices about screening for that with some vague likelihood of success.

In the case of terrorism, it's minute fractions of a single percent of people that are terrorists. So if you base searches on simple "statistics" ("most of recent air bombers have had some relationships to Islam") you're still going to be way way way off in whatever conclusion you reach. Say the error rate of your searches are 10% and you search 10% of 1,000,000 people who you *think* are young muslim men, among which 1 is a terrorist. You search 100,000 people, you detain 10,000 and spend money on that, and you only have a 1 in 10 chance - AT MOST - of catching the terrorist. You have, on average, 0.1 successes and 10,000 errors per million visitors. And as a bonus, you're discriminating against bases on skin color and religion with little effect. Nice.

That's why fighting terrorism with these random searches is bogus. The money should be spent on pursuing terrorits in the wild, and *behaviour-based profiling* in airports. Travelling one-way, paying in cash, and other activities should result in greater scrutiny. With highly trained people, who we pay well, doing the scrutiny. Not underpaid TSA staffers. Plus quality vetting of don't fly lists and tips, not piling every name in there and not doing follow-up to investigate and either clear or apprehend people.

While I have nothing good to say about the Fucking Transportation Security Administration (FTSA), I do have an answer for those of us who do need to fly. Let's call it a loophole, a way to bring some pleasure back to flying and a way to get around these rules.

I say we each declare ourselves Heads of States or Heads of Governments:

To wit:

2. During the boarding process, the air carrier may exempt passengers who are Heads of State or Heads of Government from the measures outlined in Section I.A. of this SD, including the following who are traveling with the Head of State or Head of Government:

1. Spouse and children, or

2. One other individual (chosen by the Head of State or Head of Government)

3. For the purposes of Section I.B., the following definitions apply:

1. Head of State: An individual serving as the chief public representative of a monarchic or republican nation-state, federation, commonwealth, or any other political state (for example, King, Queen, and President).

2. Head of Government: The chief officer of the executive branch of a government presiding over a cabinet (for example, Prime Minister, Premier, President, and Monarch). ~ Security Directive SD 1544-09-06 Date: December 25, 2009

Why would they turn off the television. Sitting in my apartment for 10 minutes in silence makes me homicidal. I wonder what the TSA's reaction would be if I just walked in for a flight in my underwear and save them all the damn trouble. "Look officer. They were just going to have me take off my pants anyway. I was just expediting my departure."

I am all for traveling just in my boxers and a tank top.

If the US government doesn't want people to get up during the flight, sedate everyone.

Sex: Check.

Age: Check.

Religion: Check.

This isn't calculus.

Should we give 8 year-old boys mammograms at the same rate as older women to detect cancer fairly?

Sex: Check.

Age: Check.

Relegion: Check.

This isn't calculus.

Should we give 8 year=old boys mammograms at the same rate as older women to detect cancer fairly?

Body scanners huh?

Note to self: Do not rock elephant thong on day of travel.

international or domestic, first hour or last, wtf is the difference?

Just spend the money on the body scanners already! The technology is available, use it. Stop being so damn cheap.

I'd feel worse about this if my G-IV was out for repairs.

American carriers have slashed pay and dumped pension plans while assuring their employees they have no future. It's just a matter of time until terrorists pay off a disgruntled employee to put a bomb on a plane.

So what will airlines do for pregnant women on their flights? It's dangerous for a pregnant woman to sit still on a plane for that long, because of the danger of blood clots. You have to get up and stretch and move around a little every hour or so. Are airlines willing to risk potential deaths of women for this backwards "security measure"?

And this won't stop any real terrorist, who could easily find a way to detonate a device while, you know, SITTING. The only logical step is to strap passengers down and sedate them for the duration of the flight. And they're dumb enough to try it, I'm sure.

I have extra scorn for the TSA now after 1) having things stolen from our luggage by TSA employees and 2) having a cup of yogurt taken from me at JFK, when I was 5 months pregnant, with the excuse that "We don't let people bring gelatin onto planes". Yogurt, Semtex, who knows the difference? Who cares? Anyone who takes food from a pregnant woman has a special place in hell waiting for them. I curse those two men forever, and I hope they have very mean wives.

Looks like traveling with kids will become even more of a nightmare for all parties. Does this mean no toys, etc. for kids on planes? My year old baby is an excellent air traveler, but certainly needs some toys, blankie and/or tv to get through the final hour. (And for everyone who will say we shouldn't be on a plane with a baby, we are flying to visit ailing grandparents who live across the country and fly at dawn so the wee one sleeps as much as possible.)

Awwwww, look at the little homeyopt, all afwaid of the big bad terrorists. Poor wittle baby, do you need someone to hold your hand?

I was convinced that my friend A. wrote comment #11, mainly for the line, "You can't keep shanks out of prison, and you can't keep weapons off of planes."

Turns out he did not, but he contributed something worthy of tossing into the discussion:

"But it's true that life can never be made wholly safe. And there's no systemic way to stop the destruction of a plane by a guy who's willing to go down with it. That's not rocket science. I think in the modern US we believe life can & should be wholly safe, so maybe the government can't just be straight with us about that, & so unfortunately they have to devise policies to pretend to stop an unstoppable event. Fortunately there's only so many people who want to kill themselves to score a political point (or who want to kill themselves period & find the political arena a convenient one in which to do it)."

And the terrorists get to laugh some more. They don't have to kill people to win. They just have to shackle Western-style freedom. TSA is playing right into their hands.

"(Particularly an incident where the TSA looked bad.)"

"this guy got on the plane because the TSA couldn't enforce the rules already in place"

Both miss the mark, because the TSA played no role in screening the flight into Detroit. There've been contradicting reports on whether the guy did or did not have to go through screening in Amsterdam where he transferred onto the plane; his trip originated in Nigeria. In either case, the TSA runs passenger screening only on flights originating in the US.

In fact, Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam was among the first to adopt the latest body scan technology. That probably would be the only way that might have caught his technique -- a condom filled with powder sewn inside his underwear.

The dude was reported by his own father as a terrorist -- he shouldn't have been on a plane to the U.S. Even the head of Homeland Security said that the system "failed miserably."

Now, maybe your point is that some other division of Homeland Security is responsible for the failure, rather than TSA. If so...alright, it's a different division of bozos trying not to look bad. That's a touch pedantic, but I'll grant it to you.