Does More Security at Airports Make Us Safer or Just Move the Targets? | Hacker News Reader

Does More Security at Airports Make Us Safer or Just Move the Targets?

nytimes.com

72 pointsdankohn193 comments

The primary way overly-intrusive TSA measures just move the danger around is by making flying unpleasant.

If a new indignity -- like making people take their shoes off or wait in a 20% longer line -- pushes even a small percentage of travelers to drive instead of fly (and it does) the increased human risk from the added driving easily outweighs the tiny risk mitigation gained by the new airport rule.

Does it? What's the growth of flights compared to population?

Edit: for at least last year, I'm seeing ~5% air travel growth compared to <1% population growth. So I don't know if your premise has taken effect yet...

Considering that driving is -- by far -- the most dangerous activity that most undertake on a daily basis...

I would say the GP's point is true to first order.

But what if TSA actually causes people to fly more, because they're bad at estimating risk and it gives them a false sense of security?

There are other variables in play as well. The TSA and its equivalents can retard growth without managing to turn it around.

> What's the growth of flights compared to population?

That's irrelevant. For all we know, if we still had pre-2001 TSA rules, air travel would be growing 6% or 7%.

That doesn't mean that growth wouldn't be 6% without the TSA. Just because the growth is still positive doesn't mean there isn't a negative effect.

I'm not convinced the TSA is the best solution, but I still think bag checks helps. Let's say we "move the target" from on board a plane to the people clustered at the security check itself. A bomb goes off and kills 100 in the airport. That's bad. A smaller bomb goes off on the plane, decompresses the cabin of an international flight, and 600 people die. You get more bang for your buck if you take out the plane, so maybe some of this makes sense?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

If you want to kill 600 people, it's a lot easier to put ten bombs on ten buses, or six bombs on six security lines, than one bomb on one airplane.

Putting 10 bombs on 10 buses requires a lot more planning and terrorists, which greatly enhances the chance of getting caught. Especially in the US, where much of the risk is currently centered around "lone wolf"-type attacks, anything that would require a greater number of people seems like it would be a significant deterrent.

I don't follow. Overnight bus parking lots tend to have very little security. Luggage loaded onto buses gets very little screening. A single person could easily put bombs on multiple buses and then slip away.

Or ten people could do it. It's probably a lot easier to find ten recruits willing to load bombs onto buses and escape than to find one recruit willing to die by bringing a bomb onto a plane.

Even easier to find one person willing to give ten recruits a carefully wrapped package of "drugs" that they think they will deliver at the other end....

If you go around trying to find 10 people to commit mass murder, there is a high likelihood that one of them will turn you in, or that one of them is already under law enforcement scrutiny that will lead to discovery of your plans.

It's not about killing people, an attack on the airport is a higher profile attack regardless of how many casualties it involved.

Attack on the airport also targets people who aren't native, often westerners which is both what these organizations often want and it ensures that it would much more widely reported than "a bus blew up in north eastern turkey" which maybe will get a headline for 2 hours.

Attack on an airport tells people see you aren't safe anywhere your "most secure" location with all that security isn't safe, we can get you anywhere any time, this helps to spread the fear both within the country and world wide.

Attack on an airport immediately triggers security lockdowns world wide which amplifies the financial cost of the attack globally.

Terrorism is often considerably more calculated than what people think, especially when it comes to high profile attacks.

Number of deaths are fairly irrelevant to terrorists. 100 people or 500 don't really make a different to public precipitation which is what they care about.

However, box cutters where the weapon of choice for 9/11 you could make spears on board the aircraft and manually kill everyone except the pilots with a few burley and well trained people. Which is the real problem, defensive safety measures cost a lot and switching targets is really cheap for terrorists.

I can't remember the source, it may have been a stand up comedian, but he said, "Hey, TSA, if I can hijack a plane with nail clippers. I can hijack one without them."

Yea, I thought an interesting plot point would be to have an attack carried out like that with peoples bare hands. So, now people are debating if tranquilizing strong passengers is enough or if we need to tranquilizes everyone.

Maybe if the risk of death is small enough and it's cheaper than in-flight WiFi.

First thing on my list tonight... airport security. Tired of this shit. There’s too much of it; there’s too much security at the airport. I’m tired of some guy with a double digit IQ and a triple digit income rooting around inside of my bag for no reason and never finding anything! Haven’t found anything yet! Haven’t found one bomb in one bag! And don’t tell me “well, the terrorists know their bags are gonna be searched so now they’re leaving their bombs at home.” There are no bombs. The whole thing is fucking pointless! And it’s completely without logic! There’s no logic at all! They’ll take away a gun, but let you keep a knife! Well what the fuck is that? In fact, there’s a whole list of lethal objects they will allow you to take on board. Theoretically, you could take... a knife, an ice pick, a hatchet, a straight razor, a pair of scissors, a chainsaw, 6 knitting needles, and a broken whiskey bottle, and the only thing they’re gonna say to you is “that bag has to fit all the way under the seat in front of you.” And if you didn’t take the weapon on board, relax; after you’ve been flying for about an hour, they’re gonna bring you a knife and fork. They actually give you a fucking knife! It’s only a table knife but you could kill a pilot with a table knife. It might take you a couple of minutes you know... especially if he’s hefty huh? Yeah but you could get the job done, if you really wanted to kill the prick. Shit, there’s a lot of things you could use to kill a guy with; you could probably beat a guy to death with the Sunday New York Times couldn’t you? Or suppose you just have really big hands. Couldn’t you strangle a flight attendant? Shit, you could probably strangle two of them; one with each hand... you know, if you are lucky enough to catch them in that little kitchen area... before they give out the fucking peanuts you know? But you could get the job done... if you really cared enough. - George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

And putting 600 people tightly packed in a queue in an enclosed space makes this better how ? As demonstrated, you can get a bomb in there and kill ~50 people. With 2 or 3 I bet you could get that number up quite a bit.

Security that works by simply creating a juicier target is obviously not security at all.

I don't think there is a shortage of juicy targets. A few Cessna's could do very bad things to the stadium at the Super Bowl.

The real limitation seems to be a limited number of terrorists not a limited number of targets.

The argument I was making is not about more or less targets, it is that securing one point against terrorists by creating a new point that's very weak against terrorists is somewhere between useless and stupid.

That there are other targets is obviously correct, but I do not feel it really addresses the point.

Or a few drones?

Cessnas crash into houses all the time. It's bad but it's no 9/11

It's a nasty business, but in that scenario, the system worked by protecting society at large from an airplane as a missile scenario.

Security has different dimensions. The point of TSA security is to avoid situations where a hostile party can breach the cockpit or disable the plane in the air. All of the security theatre, random searches, etc are all there to make airliners a less attractive target and try to keep terrorism scoped.

Protecting your life as a passenger is a secondary priority, which is accomplished by the random placement of air marshals. Someone planning to fashion ad-hoc spears out of plastic utensils or whatever must account for the presence of a guy with a gun as well as passengers fighting back.

Someone planning to fashion ad-hoc spears out of plastic utensils or whatever must account for the presence of a guy with a gun as well as passengers fighting back.

So, are you saying a vigilant public and "a good guy with a gun" are the actual solutions? (And before the reader jumps to a conclusion about my relevant political positions, I'd estimate there's an 80% chance that you'd be wrong!)

Vigilant public and a locked cabin door. Yes.

Now, it's true sometimes passengers can be... "too vigilant..." There are plenty of stories of Muslims being kicked off of planes for no particular reason, but in the end, yes, I vote public education.

Yes, for the keeping passengers on an airplane alive and well.

For the "stop a hijacker from flying into a building" scenario, the locked door is the control.

Those locked doors need to last for 3+ hours on a flight over the ocean. Which might be possible but probably not.

No they don't. 3 hrs is plenty of time for a military jet to intercept a hostile commercial jet

If a good guy with a gun is on-board that's either paying for someone on every flight. Or your letting random people on board and ya know bad guys can also get guns.

Don't forget, we already lost an aircraft because the door locks and a pilot had a death wish. So, even if you pay someone with a gun to be on board he could be a terrorist, so now you need two guys with guns...

Actually number of deaths are all terrorists care about.

The society freaks out N^2(3) number of deaths involved.

Oklahoma were 168 people. 9/11 were 3000. The response to 9/11 was way greater than Oklahoma*20. It was event that defined US politics for 2 decades lead to 2-4 wars (depending on definition).

And the news cycle have already forgotten San Bernadino, Charlie Hebdo and Paris is on the brink of falling out.

From what I recall the government cared a lot more about 9/11 than the populous. It was a perfect excuse for a lot of things.

Even then, it was not the number of deaths so much as the loss of a monument that really stuck with people.

The populace cared a lot. People were pissed. The 1990s were a vacation from history, at least in America (the Balkans weren't nearly as nice): things were so easy that we actually thought that George W. Bush & Al Gore were decent choices for President. We napped after the end of the Cold War; 11 September was a brutal wake-up call.

No, they care about spectacular drama of taking out a landmark and sudden death. There are plenty of ways to kill over 3000 people (poisoning , for example)

I reckon the TSA-Checks are more of "Lets prevent a Terrorist from using a 500 ton plane with 250.000 litres of high explosive fuel moving at 700km/h against something else" than of "Lets prevent someone from killing the people onboard the plane".

Imagine someone ploughing shortly after the start into the Super Bowl. Thats what REAL security nightmares are made of.

Even though, even that cant be fully prevented. Best example would be someone like Andreas Lubitz.

Except whatever TSA would catch has mostly been solved with armored cockpit doors. Security money doesn't seem rationally invested.

We might as well just consider the TSA a really terrible jobs program.

An atrociously bad jobs program. Because while it gives a ton of people jobs, it bends over society and completely and thoroughly fucks the rest of us.

Not to mention they look like some downright miserable jobs.

really terrible jobs program

That could be the basis of the worst reality TV show ever! Or one of President Trump's economic programs. Or both.

> more of "Lets prevent a Terrorist from using a 500 ton plane with 250.000 litres of high explosive fuel moving at 700km/h against something else"

The most important safety measure against this became mandatory procedure after 9/11: locking the cockpit doors. If the terrorists can't control the plane, they can't use it as a projectile weapon. No amount of killing passengers will give them this kind of access.

Do we trust the pilots not to unlock the door in that situation? "Open the door or the passengers die!"?

I guess we can take it a step further, whats to stop a pilot from turning bad?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot

Not the TSA in that case, either.

Yes we do, because everyone will die anyways.

The reason why 9/11 was possible was because it had never happened. They could have added zero security measures, not even locking the cockpit door, and 9/11 still would probably not happen again. The reason is because before 9/11 the common wisdom was to let the hijackers do what they want. After 9/11 the common wisdom is the plane is going to be used to fly into a building.

But, locking the door is still a good common sense extra security measure.

I mean yes, that's the _logic_. I guess what I'm asking is, is our expectation of pilots to follow that logic sound? Emotion over Logic, that sort of thing.

9/11 has to be the shortest duration of a terrorist gambit in history, it didn't even last the duration of the attack, for those on Flight 93 learned that the rules of the game had changed and responded accordingly.

I think you are right.

Being in a closed cabin at 30,000 feet means that the size of the explosion has to be a lot smaller than on the ground to have the same impact. Additionally, guns can lead to lead to 9/11 situations.

More importantly, TSA probably won't defend against a state level threat, but it keeps crazy people from doing ridiculous stuff. Take a look at this pre-security list of incidents: (remember, a lot less people flew back then)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings

There is no way not to have security on flights. The next step is making it much faster and more predictable to reduce overall travel time.

Again, most of these (if not all?) would have been prevented by better cockpit doors and/or air marshal.

How would a better cockpit door and an air marshal stop a guy with 10 lbs of explosives?

All he has to do is show it to everyone and he can direct the pilots to fly anywhere he wants. They may not do a 9/11, but they will all do what he says.

Some type of security will always be required at airports and probably eventually on high speed trains as well. Now we just need to figure out how to make it way faster and less invasive.

The locked door and air marshal stop the plane from becoming a jet-fuel missile directed at any point in range and turn it into a bomb plummeting inaccurately somewhere under its flight path.

Parent was about flight high jacking prior to modern airport security.

600 people is an incredibly large plane. Most are more like 160-180.

There are plenty of plans with nearly 600 people in capacity. The Airbus A380 has a max capacity of 900 people. If you are going to bring a bomb on a plane, which one would you choose?

A 20 person commuter jet or a 900 seat Emirates Air flight from London to NYC?

http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/the-biggest/the-10-bigge...

Whichever is most convenient, since it's a low probability operation. 9/11 attack would have been 10x worse casualties if it was 1 hr later . Why wasn't it?

Neither. It neither changes safety nor moves targets. It is worse -- a distraction that leads away from solving the underlying problem in the same way as the Gun Control/Knife Control issue obscures and redirects passions.

Machines and locations of queues are not to blame. The real problem is (multi)cultural -- hate in people's hearts and evil plus incompatibility of cultures & religions. That is the root of the problem and moving a queue to a new location on the sidewalk won't solve it.

We are distracted and quibbling about irrelevant details. I refuse to accept the premise. Cutting to the root of the issue as best I can, civilizations must determine whether to abandon multiculturalism and insist on a homogeneous culture or continue down the current path.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying. Are you arguing that increased isolation between cultures will create less conflict and hate between them?

"homogenous culture" is a modern racist dog whistle. It can only be achieved via the genocide+isolationism.

The original Afghan-West battle wasn't about multiculturalist conflict, it was about imperialism.

You're absolutely right but unfortunately that's only one side of the equation. We do need practical measures as well while waiting to reach that very stage where that hate has dissipated and cultures and religions have made peace with each other.

Sorry but that's bunkum. There are many examples in history of cultures embracing diversity and prospering.

The problem is the /length/ of the line at security. Apparently they plan for average rate not the peak rate. Capacity for peak rate would mean a small line, and a lousy target.

It's easy to fix by establishing metrics, and any budget could easily be covered by adding fees to tickets. Then you start firing TSA managers that allow the lines to get long.

EDIT: Budget can be solved with ticket fees, I'm happy to pay more to get a predictable wait at security. in Japan I never, ever had to wait in line for security so it's definitely possible.

>It's easy to fix by establishing metrics, and any budget could easily be covered by adding fees to tickets.

It's actually a really hard problem. You have to balance dollars, demand and shifts. Demand varies based on flights departing from different terminals. You can't schedule people to come in for two hours, and reassigning staff introduces wastage as they redeploy from one place to another.

That said, TSA manages it poorly, but the root issue is not enough money for the task at hand.

>>You have to balance dollars, demand and shifts. Demand varies based on flights departing from different terminals.

Don't forget events.

Austin airport is usually pretty nice, with short lines. During SXSW however, it gets insanely crowded, with security checkpoints containing hundreds of people in close proximity. It's just not a good situation.

TSA can get approximate passenger counts and departure times from airlines weeks in advance. They could schedule extra shifts and overtime if they wanted to, and had the budget to pay for it. Perhaps a better solution to the budget problem would be to increase the security fee during peak travel periods at each airport, sort of like charging a congestion fee to drive on busy roads during rush hour. That would fund the overtime for security personnel, and encourage some travellers at the margins to schedule their flights at less busy times.

I'm not convinced it is a very hard problem. The catering services manage to deliver the right number of meals based on the load the airlines estimate based on their reservations systems. Maybe the TSA could deliver enough TSOs.

I would agree. All labor related problems are solvable given sufficient dollars and people.

They don't solve air catering by throwing money at it.

In the last few months we have:

1. Paris 2. Brussels 3. Russian plane back from Egypt 4. Plane en route to Egypt 5. Couple of attacks in Turkey - assorted 6. Turkey airport 7. Orlando 8. Pakistani attack in the kids playing area 9. I am sure I forget a lot more.

Any gathering of people is valid terror target. More security won't help. Terrorism is here to stay.

We must accept that we won't be safe and we can only do damage control.

The real story is that we're all safer than ever[1], but there are huge sums of money being poured into a media structure designed to keep us afraid and tuned in.

[1] http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-e...

Wonder why? Considering the conclusion the media generally comes to is:

>“Perhaps the most cost-effective measure is policing and intelligence — to stop them before they reach the target,” Mr. Stewart said.

> but there are huge sums of money being poured into a media structure designed to keep us afraid and tuned in.

Perhaps true, but I see this argument a lot by engineering folks, and I think it misses a major point of human nature. Large, violent, deadly events, in places where you completely don't expect them, are always going to be a lot scarier than the random low-lying "background" events, like car accidents.

The fact that the world is so safe only magnifies how unexpected and terrifying it would be to walk around enjoying the mundane events of modern life - going to a concert, taking a trip somewhere, dancing in a club - and suddenly meet a violent death.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” - Joseph Goebbels

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” - Joseph Goebbels

> We must accept that we won't be safe

But we are safe, at least from terrorism. The probability that you'll be killed by a terrorist on any given day is far lower than the probability that you'll be killed by something mundane.

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10571077

One could say that we're (mostly) safe from dying, but not safe from the terror of it.

We really need to start condemning all terrorists. We obviously strongly condemn the few that commit the violent crimes. But we've given a pass to the ones responsible for most of the terror - the ones that sit comfortably behind "news" desks and government podiums.

But you have sane definition of safety. Which is "relatively safe". If a definition for safety (which media, powers that be and majority of population are using) is "no one ever dying for terrorism" - then we cannot be safe.

Because global warming is a threat orders of magnitude greater than aviation-based terrorism, to the extent that the TSA discourages flying it makes us all safer.

What if it causes people to drive instead? Wouldn't that make climate change worse?

Per traveler-mile, commercial aviation is radically worse than automobiles, even if they're all only carrying the driver. Net, it would be a reduction in emissions for everyone to drive instead.

Where are you getting that from? Airbus claims the A380 gets 3L/100km per passenger when fully loaded[1], which is better than all but the must fuel-efficient passenger cars. Even the Concorde got ~17L/100km, putting it in line with large pickups.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20071214144443/http://www.airbus....

You're basing your calculation on one of the densest possible configurations of the aircraft — one denser than almost every production deployment. Only one actual seat configuration exceeds your Airbus press release's density, offered by Emirates, and is nearly all economy class. Everyone else's offerings are from ~5-40% less dense, yielding comparable decreases in efficiency. [1] So, sure, the largest, most efficient jumbo we currently make has an absolute passenger-mile emissions rate lower than many cars — when it's carrying as many people as possible.

You're also ignoring the fact that emissions at altitude have an increased impact. "For perspective, per passenger a typical economy-class New York to Los Angeles round trip produces about 715 kg (1574 lb) of CO₂ (but is equivalent to 1,917 kg (4,230 lb) of CO₂ when the high altitude "climatic forcing" effect is taken into account)." [2] Even the most fuel-efficient car isn't dumping tons of NOx at cruising altitude, inducing excess ozone formation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_configurations_of_Airbus_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...

I mean, increasing security (or "security" if you want) moves the targets, by definition. In principal you would want to increase the security of all potential attack vectors to some acceptable threshold. Increasing vector one above another vector just makes the other vector an easier target. This is how it works for all security in any context.

As far as pushing the queue further out I think one solution could be a plinko style entry at the beginning of the security system. Build it so that passengers get separated and spread out. Make it out of a blast resistant material.

You could make it more complex where they are identified by cameras and biometrics and have the system channel them a secure location/blast proof holding area if they are flagged as high risk.

I think having passengers in a large mass at the beginning of security at the airport or at a stadium is a huge target and risk since what happens when a screener finds a passenger with a suicide vest. I think there should be some type of screening container that is blast resistant checking someone face to face for weapons isn't effective. No one gets paid enough for that job.

Roll Matrix Security Check Point Scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF-WeswkqXc

Can someone explain what's the purpose of prohibiting taking liquids onboard, but I can buy highly flammable alcohol in the duty free shops? I could set the whole plane on fire easily.

Liquid explosives are probably a bit more harmful than the <= 75% alcohol you can buy at the duty free.

Not saying that the rules make sense, but that seems to be the reasoning behind them. Dealing with a bit of fire is easier than a hole in the fuselage.

Diluted ethanol doesn't burn very hot and is easily extinguished by cabin fire extinguishers. Cabin materials are fire retardant.

I have a bone to pick with this article.

First of all the security at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport did partially stop the attackers. At least one of them was shot by security before detonating his suicide vest.

When you have 3 suicide bombers that attack a fixed target like an Airport for the most part you can only minimize casualties and while it's hard to admit it 41 deaths is low compared to what can happen in these kinds of situations (Israel in the early 2000's shows you just how many casualties a single suicide bomber can incur).

The whole idea of layered security (often modeled after the Ben Gurion Airport) is to reduce lines you have finer and finer security checkpoints at each layer this increases the attackers being caught while reduces the population density at the external checkpoints.

Ben Gurion goes further than that and it has incorporated security to how it was built, there is a hairpinned roads ~5min drive from the external security checkpoint to the terminal building (preventing anyone from just rushing pass the checkpoint).

The check in counters and the initial security screening is done over a very wide area in order to not to create choke points.

Passengers are pre-screened before they enter the security checkpoint which really doesn't care about liquids, shoes, or nail scissors.

From the passport control to the main lounge you have quite a long walk through a corridor which has no shops or any thing to gather around just some photographs this again is an anti-rushing measure if some one passes security and decides to rush the gates they are pretty much funneled through a tunnel.

The main terminal lounge is fairly small compared to other airports (even of the size of TLV or smaller) it's round with a large fountain in the middle and with fairly low density seating.

The gates are clustered over several branches and are separated from the main terminal lounge again by another fairly long defacto tunnel without any shops which again gives security the ability to close off any of them and prevents basically a leap frog rush.

There will always be choke points and clusters in an airport or any other public area, the airline counters, the check in desks, the information counter, restaurants, restrooms, the duty free liquor/tobacco store etc and of course the boarding gates. And of course even the most lax security check that is intended to do nothing but to ensure you don't have an RPG in your bags would create them as well.

Good security is built around performing as much checks as possible before the people are centralized in one place and cluster, good security is about building the airports in such a manner that would enable security to react promptly while reducing the effectiveness of both armed assaults and suicide attacks.

So no security doesn't make you less safe sure intelligence and enforcement is still better than securing an airport but that's a given you don't need to analyze anything to come to that conclusion simply because even the most ideal attack on a target like an airport would have some casualties even if it's the assailants only.

Claiming that somehow security makes you less safe is moronic, this to some extent even includes the TSA which isn't an effective security measure but it doesn't makes you less safe. The lines and clusters would still be there regardless of security or not they'll just be at different places.

If you put an alarm in your house it means that thieves will choose another, not that thieves will find a job.

What happens when all houses have alarms?

It just increase the effort the thieves need to invest. If all houses have alarms, it may be not worthy to rob houses which reward isn't good enough, so they would look for houses with more rewards. Of course, some thieves won't be able to learn this new technology. If all airports had good security it would be more difficult to have attacks but it isn't the case now.

So at Istanbul airport terrorists attacked the airport screening lanes at the entrance to the airport. Instead^H^H^H^H^H^H In addition to normal security screenings, Istanbul also makes people queue at the entrance, and has a security screening there. A terrorist apparently waited in that line, blew himself up, about 30 dead.

What happens to security when a bomb goes off ? Well, apparently it is abandoned, and fails open. So you can walk straight through, unopposed. The 2 remaining terrorists (and hundreds of civilians) did just that, and while a police officer shot one of them before he could run into a crowd and that bomb went off in the middle of an open space, apparently without victims [1]. The other one, however did succeed.

According to this article the solution to this is what Baghdad airport does ... which is to have vehicle screening before the vehicles get near the airport building. One can only imagine what a nightmare it would be to do this at a high traffic airport but ...

How about we do the other alternative ? Obviously static defenses with long queues effectively make it easier, not harder, for terrorists to strike (talk about obvious). Let's use this opportunity to make sure people don't ever have to wait in security screening, avoiding creating a vulnerable point, and making air travel far more attractive for everybody concerned while we're at it.

[1] (note: VERY graphic violence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QKYBK04AmA )

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