Today, TSA announced a new round of security checks for international flights. Extra security in the wake of the failed underwear bound bomb for Detroit made sense as a measure of over abundance of caution. A rash of new permanent procedures, however, appears more like a knee-jerk response than anything else. Requiring one hundred percent inspections on travelers from 14 “terrorist” countries is a kind of feel good, but useless idea. Terrorists route their attacks through the international air hubs that are not the most suspicious. Nor is geography an indicator of security. Remember 9/11 was launched from a domestic airport. The Christmas Day attack could have been launched from a domestic flight too. Why are we preparing to thwart the last attack instead of the next one? Real security does not come from throwing billions of more dollars at aviation security. It comes from getting the terrorists. Shame on the administration for introducing a bunch of measures that will inconvenience all of us just so it can say it is doing something…rather than doing its job and going after the terrorists.
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