TSA Bombs at Security Duties

Security screeners at 21 airports across the United States failed to detect materials that could be used to make bombs in recent tests by government agents, US legislators said.

"The fact that government investigators were able to pass through TSA's (Transportation Security Administration) screening at 21 major airports with bomb-making material is frightening," representative Bennie Thompson, a member of the Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement.

"It's like the story of the Trojan Horse," he added. "TSA has spent so much time telling people to take off their shoes and belts, that they have missed the bomb-making materials."

That last sentence nails the problem. Our airport security system is a joke. We feel safer because we are being inconvenienced, but these results show that we are, in fact, less safe. Why? Because isn't it more dangerous to feel safe when you are not? At least when you know people might get bombs onto planes, you travel with a realistic sense of things; when you think the good people at TSA care about your safe return home, you are less likely to report suspicious things or people, and less likely to be vigilant in the first place. Let's stop kidding ourselves.

And here's an idea--how about we focus on the millions of unchecked loads of cargo coming into our country via our ports? If I'm a terrorist, I'm thinking the whole plane/bomb/hijack thing has been done. Much more deadly and well, terror-inspiring, to kill Americans on American soil right on the ground FROM the ground. But I suppose I shouldn't worry. George Bush will protect me.