2010-11-18 I join the not-flying list

2010-11-18 Eric S. Raymond Armed and Dangerous \airport security\airport security/2010\Transportation Safety Administration\security theatre http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2749 I join the not-flying list I join the not-flying list  Count me with those who will not be flying until the TSA procedures requiring either a full-body X-ray scan or a grope are rescinded. This is meaningless security theater taken to a Kafkaesque extreme, and I won't consent to it even passively. When the airlines feel enough pain from refuseniks, they'll push back faster than we can.

The whole gallimaufry of escalating "security" restrictions since 9/11 has been a bad joke out of Monty Python parody, achieving nothing; tiger-team tests reveal that the ridiculous ease with which weapons and bombs can be slipped through has changed not one bit.

The Israelis, targeted by terrorists more ferociously than any country on earth, have never had a single hijacking or bombing and rightly laugh at our "security". It’s all Kabuki theater, a ritual intended to pantomime seriousness in the absence of any actual seriousness. If we actually cared about security we'd arm the air crew, and if we really cared we'd arm the passengers. I thought I had read somewhere that the pilots are now armed. -

&ldquo;Count me with those who will not be flying until the TSA procedures requiring either a full-body X-ray scan or a grope are rescinded. This is meaningless security theater taken to a Kafkaesque extreme, and I won't consent to it even passively. When the airlines feel enough pain from refuseniks, they'll push back faster than we can.&rdquo;   