I nominate Schneier for the position, as he has already told us how to fix the idiocy.

Our government is well known for asking for real scientific or expert evidence, then completely ignoring and hiding it. What makes you think security is any different?

By the way how many armed men are you going to have to hire to put 2 or 3 men on each plane to guard everyone?

My problem is that the current direction of “improved” security has nothing to do with real security. Spotchecking is pointless, because if you dont spot-check the RIGHT person, you’ll let them through. You must check EVERYONE for the usual threats (just like we used to before 9/11) like guns and such. But the rest of the nonsense is… well, nonsense. A truly determined attacker will simply find a way around your checks (whether it’s matches, shoe-bombs, or whatever) and use an alternative that you aren’t looking for. So, ANY reactive, specific screening is useless.

And watch lists? Eliminate them… as the stats show, almost all terrorists are first-time offenders. What on earth are you going to possibly watch for to prove that the next person is really a terrorist? There is no way to predict this with a list, so just get rid of it. (Besides which, as the article showed, it’s EASILY bypassed anyway, because of stupidity on the TSA’s part, honestly.)

Most importantly, be intelligent about the rules. Like the article I linked says, they won’t allow 3oz of fluid, but then they will if it says “Saline Solution” on the outside. Really? Are you f-ing kidding me? This is why the current system is idiotic and totally ineffective…. so don’t even bother with it.

Sure, you have to start somewhere, and find flaws (and then FIX THEM) but we haven’t even got a good start to begin with. None of the new “improvements” are even remotely effective in reality, or in theory. So just stop it.

I can see both of your points and i agree with Randy that the step up in our homeland security has been amazing and is definitely preventing planning and executing of attacks daily. But I do agree with Schwinn that there will be another attack in the next 10 years or so from now. The simple fact is that you cant totally prevent everything. Even me as a police officer cant provent crimes all the time, i just have to respond to them responsibly and do the best i can with what i got.

For the rest of the readers I submit an interesting story of the failure of post-9/11 security:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/10/16/logan_screeners_fail_weapons_tests/

The article says that even 2 years after all the hype over higher security, the very same Logan airport STILL failed to catch basic weapons like “knives, a bomb, and a gun in carry-on baggage”.

And a second article that really made me laugh at the nonsense of the TSA:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security

As far as security goes do you get rid of security until a few more thousand die and then bring it back? It has already been proven that poor security causes death. This has been proven hundreds of times and thousands have died. Many were preventable. There is even better security than we have at some other country airports and they have a much better record than we have. There have been hundreds of incidents on airplanes of various levels not the 4 number you are throwing out.

I have to laugh at what I read today. There is a new topic to remove drivers licenses and require drivers training for anyone that gets in an accident. At the same time other places on this site says anything goes and a few thousand deaths mean nothing and everyone needs freedom. I am not sure what is being promoted here.

and require the men to wear belts. If you take off your belt, and double it over-you still have a greater reach than ‘box cutters’
or you can wrap it around you knuckles, or play Indiana Jones (bull whip), choke someone out, etc. etc.

LIHOP implies that ‘al queada’ has the physical/technical ability to commit such a spectacular act. No, but through the machinations of compartmentalization the real government does.
How many war games were in progress on 9/11?

Still, to answer your last question, “if after anti-lock breaks started coming out and if there are no accidents reported for those cars after a few months do you start taking them off of vehicles because there is nothing to show that they are doing any good?” No. Duh. If there are fewer accidents being caused, then that is proof that they are working. “Fortunately” there are enough accidents to look at, and hence you can actually see a pattern. Airline terrorism is so uncommon that it’s not possible to see any pattern of improvement without long periods of time. More importantly, since they are so rare, why are we fussing over such nonsense in the first place? The answer is, because the media, government, and other sources like to keep us scared… it’s called fear-mongering, and it’s all about being able to control the masses.

Anyway, I’m done trying to make you understand logic… if you want to return to sanity and ask logical questions, instead of hyped up nonsense, and if you actually do a LITTLE reading, I’d be happy to continue. Otherwise, continue thinking along YOUR delusional ways.

9/11 was a false flag operation. Did you see the BBC reporter announcing the collapse of world trade center building 7 25 minutes BEFORE it collapsed?