This whole underwearman thing is driving me nuts, the reaction to it.

Dibgy quotes Chris Matthews:

You know what when we get on an airplane, we give up all kinds of checks we don’t do by just walking down the street. I think we give up a certain amount of rights just getting on an airplane and I think you’ve got to recognize that your safety is tied up with everyone else on that plane’s safety and anybody else that gets hit on that plane. You don’t own the right to be on that plane because you’re getting on an airplane so you do have to yield some civil rights…

You know, people can do horrible shit in places other than planes.

You know, on a Greyhound bus, someone decapitated someone else and started eating his brain. Maybe before getting on a bus you should have to give up all kinds of rights.

A 737 will have about 150 people on it. In terms of the human toll (the economic toll/disruption would be different), bombing three coach buses (at 50 people apiece) would be about equivalent to bombing one plane. Yet it’s definitely more than three times as easy. Yet it doesn’t happen very often. Because people, generally, aren’t completely fucking insane. People are generally stupid, assholes, and schmucks, but it’s a big step to go from yelling at your kids and their baseball coaches to blowing up tens or hundreds of people.

What about buildings? Maybe before entering a building you should have to give up all kinds of rights. You could blow up a building really easily. In an average apartment building, you could run from top to bottom through the stairwells, dropping a bomb on each floor, without anyone saying anything. Yet it never happens. Because people, generally, aren’t completely fucking insane.

The list goes on.

It’s important to have security. And with good security, sometimes shit will still get blown up. And every time someone dies in such an incident it will be tragic. But it’s important not to lose our shit about it, especially when instead of blowing something up someone just sets his junk on fire.

An Atlantic article from 2008.

It’s a quick and interesting read.

“Security theater” is the term used to describe airport security, and I like the ring that has.

Good anecdote:

During one secondary inspection, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, I was wearing under my shirt a spectacular, only-in-America device called a “Beerbelly,” a neoprene sling that holds a polyurethane bladder and drinking tube. The Beerbelly, designed originally to sneak alcohol—up to 80 ounces—into football games, can quite obviously be used to sneak up to 80 ounces of liquid through airport security. (The company that manufactures the Beerbelly also makes something called a “Winerack,” a bra that holds up to 25 ounces of booze and is recommended, according to the company’s Web site, for PTA meetings.) My Beerbelly, which fit comfortably over my beer belly, contained two cans’ worth of Bud Light at the time of the inspection. It went undetected. The eight-ounce bottle of water in my carry-on bag, however, was seized by the federal government.

I’ll say it once more: The security of the public rests mainly on the general decency of people.

The security theater isn’t just ineffective, it’s also a waste of resources.

I don’t recall anything special about flying out of Schipol a couple weeks ago.

I do recall that flying there (Amsterdam) from Prague was a new experience for me, in that at no point did I go through any real security with my checked or carry-on baggage, and on the way out we just walked right out into the street without having to talk to anybody.

And nobody even set themselves on fire.

Apparently in 1975 the CIA had a device that could shoot an undetectable dissolving dart into someone, which would then trigger a heart attack.

As a gadget guy, it makes me wonder what kind of crazy stuff they have now.

As a political guy, it makes me wonder whether the somewhat decreased emphasis on assassination activities has decreased the rate at which such technologies have been developed.

As a paranoid guy, it makes me wonder how many various heart attacks or illnesses have been caused by this device or ones like it.

Another Nigerian man (on the same flight at a different time) was suspected of nefarious activity, though it turns out he was just feeling unwell and wasn’t too happy with being forced to leave the bathroom. Presumably he didn’t want to diarrhea all over his seat.

As assumed, limiting people’s basic freedoms has to cause more problems than it solves.

Somebody tried to blow up a plane with a device sewn into his underwear. (Is he being called “The Underwear Bomber” yet? Because I like the ambiguous meaning there.)

The response from the TSA and DHS is this:

Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere. Due to the busy holiday travel season, both domestic and international travelers should allot extra time for check-in.

Apparently these measures will apply “indefinitely to all U.S.-bound flights,” and include being limited to just one carry-on bag which will be searched by hand (not sure if that still means carry-on plus purse), extra questioning, a physical pat-down at the departure gate, and “during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps.”

Somebody’s itchy trigger finger just fired the wrong reaction. It seems none of these measures would have prevented the underwear bomber.

I joked a couple days ago re the pope being attacked that people had better stop wearing red sweatshirts. I guess they couldn’t add underwear to the list, so instead everybody just has to piss themselves on flights from Toronto to New York. That should make for some calm passengers.

Well, goodbye tourism.

I said it once and I’ll say it again (slightly modified): The security of the public rests mainly on the general decency of people.

In the history of airplane terrorism (which is not a new phenomenon) would “no taking a shit in the last hour” have saved a single life?

So someone’s tried (and failed) to take down a plane.

Steven Benen notes that “…by all accounts, Abdulmutallab was not exactly a terrorist mastermind. Abdulmutallab, whose claimed ties to Al Qaeda have not been substantiated and may have been “aspirational”…”

I’m pretty sure that at least in some ways, that’s a much worse thing. If all the lone goofuses and losers think the cool thing to be doing to get the cool kids to like them (after they’re dead) is to blow shit up, well, that’s a problem. The US really has to think about pulling back from the main foreign policy initiative of “Piss off everybody.”

Again, to re-iterate, if people want to do terrible things, they’re going to get it done. The point is some combination of as much security as is feasible, and a serious attempt to alleviate the conditions that lead people to want to kill you. If every night I come home and throw eggs at my neighbour’s window, I could hire a couple people to keep lookout and show some muscle to keep him from getting back at me, or I could just stop throwing those eggs.

There’s always going to be nutbags, and they’re always going to do nutbag things. Unless there’s a big increase quickly in numbers, there’s no sense blaming any particular nutbag on any particular president.

The security of public figures rests mainly on the general decency of people.

Re: someone briefly latched onto the Pope.

“She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year’s Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said. In that case, Maiolo jumped the barricade but never managed to reach the pope and was quietly tackled by security.”

“In both cases she wore a red sweat shirt.”

If you’re traveling, don’t be wearing a red sweatshirt.

It’s obviously wrong to assume that giving lots of people a position of power and a weapon that’s supposed to be less harmful will not lead to some of those people abusing that power and weapon (especially in cities named Ozark for some reason).

The thing with tasers, it’s easy to find and read about and watch examples of bad use (even when it’s against a jackass).

And those episodes have implications (from Visioncritical via TheHook). Apparently confidence in the RCMP has dropped significantly in BC (where the RCMP is going to have a responsibility with the Olympics) since the tasering and death of Robert Dziekanski.

When a single weapon can discredit a major security force responsible for safeguarding the very people who no longer trust it due to the use of that weapon, that in itself is an important reason to consider the review of that weapon.

I can see how it’s a useful tool to have, but it’s a problem that it’s seen as something much more minor than taking out a gun.

(It doesn’t seem necessary to describe Robert Dziekanski and “Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski.” Would we otherwise be confusing him with some other well-known Robert Dziekanski I don’t know of?)