People, Not Liquid
Here's a good article on improving airline security from Robert Poole. I normally don't agree with Poole, but his thinking makes sense here. In sum: "We don't need to ban water from planes; we need to keep terrorists off them. To most effectively do so, we need to get over our obsession with "bad" things (laptops, lighters, bottled water) and start looking for bad people. "
posted by The Judge @ 8/28/2006 12:57:00 PM
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I would agree that the human element is a much more sensible item for scrutiny. However, I'm surprised to see you on this side of the issue with the ACLU so firmly entrenched on the other:
No to National ID Cards with biometric data
No to CAPPS II / Secure Flight
No to Profiling
Well, as Poole states, there are ways to target people without resorting to a national ID or to profiling. There's plenty of info out there that we voluntarily deliver which can be used to screen us as passengers.
While in general I support the efforts of the ACLU, I think with airline security, we need to come up with a more nuanced position. I oppose a lot of the things that the ACLU does, but often times for different reasons. For instance, I oppose a national ID card not for the privacy implications but because it would be a huge governmental expense that would offer no new benefits to the sytem we have in place. It's a waste of money in other words. So many security measures can be classified the same way. That's my primary take on Poole's article. But on the other hand, not everything that the ACLU calls an invasion of privacy necessarily is. Somewhere in the middle, we can find something that actually works.
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