More on airport security

No, unfortunately this entry isn't a joke like the last one; it links to thoughtful pieces on airport security by Barry Rubin and Patrick Poole.

Rubin argues (and I agree with him fully) that all the fancy airport screening, before and after this latest 'junk' escalation, is wasteful and irrelevant. As he puts it, "Basically, it can be described as follows: Let's intensively search fifteen million at random--worse, using silly profiling guidelines--in hope of finding one or two terrorists who, if they exist at all, are almost certainly using an innovative tactic that will get by our procedures." He argues that the only real requirement is profiling and checking for terrorists entering on international flights - but of course, profiling is a dirty word.

Meanwhile, Poole has produced a study of ten failures of U.S. domestic intelligence: Islamists who were given positions of trust and access to government at various levels. It's a quick but sobering read, and he includes sources, in case you want to check for yourself.

Bismarck allegedly said (Wikiquotes says it's apocryphal) that God provides special protection for three categories: drunks, idiots and the United States of America. We'd better be careful because we're using up our special dispensation at an alarming rate.