The new information could lead to additional screening procedures at the nation’s airports. Existing scanners would not necessarily detect bombs implanted under a person’s skin... The idea of surgically implanting bombs has been examined by intelligence agencies in the past, but new information has suggested that terrorist groups are seriously considering the technique, officials said.
This is a replay of every other security theater fiasco TSA has gone through. Someone tries to blow up a plane with liquids, so the agency limit liquids—including things like baby milk. Someone tries to blow up a plane with explosives planted in shoes, so the agency has everyone remove their shoes—making security lines that much slower and more unpleasant. Someone tries to blow up a plane with a crotch bomb, so now we all have to get scanned and/or patted down—even over the objections of a good deal of the traveling public and entire state legislatures.
The argument isn't that liquids, shoe explosives, and crotch bombs aren't airline security threats. They by definition are, since they were once used to threaten the security of airlines. Instead the point is that since there are so many tactics out there—functionally infinite variety, to judge by how each new terrorist uses a different method—that it's not worth making travelers miserable by chasing after isolated past tactics.
If banning Diet Coke won't make anyone appreciably safer because terrorists will effortlessly switch to toothpaste, it's hard to see why we should ban Diet Coke. Sadly, that's not even a metaphor.
[Photo: TSA]
