Assume someone [such as myself] has an acquaintance in the pharmaceutical industry -- I'll call her Sharon.

Sharon (not necessarily a real person) is a slender 34 Year-old female pharmaceutical sales representative.

Assume also that Sharon shares my contempt for "feel good," do-nothing rules, laws and infringements upon our rights. Also assume that Sharon has access to certain prosthetic appliances, breast implants, to be exact.

If you can put the latent pervert in you aside for a moment, imagine this scene.

The Experiment

Sharon normally wears a 34A Bra. This time, however, she is wearing a 34C. She used double-sided tape to stick partially filled implants inside each bra cup. Once fitted, she used a syringe to inflate each sack with water until everything looked and felt just right.

Sharon finished getting dressed and headed off to the airport for one of the new "enhanced" pat-downs.

Sharon's Experience

If Sharon were an actual person, [hypothetically] the following would be "her own words."

"I put my jacket, bag and shoes in the pan on the belt and told the agent that I might be pregnant and didn't want to risk the X-Ray scanner.

He motioned to a female agent across the aisle who took over. She did a good job explaining what she was going to do, but she was talking at me, not to me. I tried to ask a couple of questions but she ignored me and kept on talking. It was like she was so scripted that if she got interrupted she'd have to start over.

I'll say the pat-down was thorough. The "breast exam" didn't quite measure up to a serious grope, but she very lightly touched me all over with the back of her hand and then ran the edge of her hand under and between each breast with a bit more force.

If she had felt some irregularity and discovered the implants I was ready to explain them away as part of the bra.

Then she rather unceremoniously ran her hand up my bare leg and touched on every nook and cranny in my nether regions. I was expecting it, but I jumped and pulled away anyway -- it was instinctive. I can't remember anyone ever looking at me with more contempt than that agent when she growled at me. "Stand still, you don't want him to do this do you?" She nodded at a rather large, unpleasant looking male agent.

I knew that they couldn't legally do that, and I really had to strain to be quiet, much less polite.
I had to keep in mind that my purpose was to sneak at least 500ml of liquid onto an aircraft, which I succeeded in doing.

When the seat belt light went out I took the sweaty,itchy bags out in the lavatory and put them in my purse."

(I'll leave Sharon's story there for the time being.)

So What Just Happened?

Hypothetical or not, Sharon just demonstrated a simple way to bring a binary explosive onto an aircraft, even with the invasive "enhanced" procedures.

Consequences and Knee-jerk Reactions

• When someone first hijacked an aircraft, we had to give up firearms and submit to searches.
  (Yes, at one time you could carry a firearm onto an aircraft.).
• When someone used box cutters we had to give up sharp objects.
• When someone put an explosive in their shoe, we all had to take off our shoes.
• When someone tried to sneak reactive components onto an aircraft we had to give up liquids, cosmetics and anything larger than a "Hotel/Motel" sized toiletry.
• When someone put explosives in their underwear, they implemented demeaning "enhanced" screenings of dubious legality and Constitutionality. (Thank goodness no one has used a body cavity for anything other than smuggling drugs and diamonds.)
  
  
• What happens, however, when a group of terrorists uses martial arts skills, or just brute strength to take over an aircraft -- will we all have to travel handcuffed and shackled? Will our seat belts be controlled by a "Security Officer's Panel" in the cockpit? Perhaps we'll all be required to forfeit all of our possessions and change into orange jumpsuits before flying.
  
  The above sounds as absurd today being as forced to submit to X-Rays prior to boarding an aircraft would have sounded in the 1930's

The Next Step in the Sequence?

Sharon just showed me how she beat the "enhanced" screening. Even more insane, is that I am broadcasting her [hypothetical] story for all the world to see. The secret is out of the bag! [Or in the bag if you are a fan of puns]

So, what's next? Will exposure of this vulnerability cause even tighter screenings? Will women be subject to strip searches, or will we have to wait until a militant Islamic woman attempts to smuggle a 'boobie bomb' under her burqa?

In the name of equality will men also have to bare their pecs for security's sake?

Doesn't Anyone Have a Better Solution?

Meanwhile, [back where there is some sanity] you can still fly EL AL out of Israel without sacrificing your dignity or self-esteem. This is because their security concentrates not on keeping dangerous objects off of their aircraft, but dangerous people.

EL AL is among the most attractive targets in the Islamic Terrorist's crosshairs, yet an EL AL aircraft has never been downed or hijacked. The Israelis don't mind "profiling" their passengers. By the time a passenger runs a gauntlet of seemingly innocent profiling and evaluation questions, the airline's professionally trained security officials have built an accurate psychological profile of the subject.

EL AL doesn't care if you keep your nail clippers. By the time you get on their aircraft they know you mean no harm. In fact, they gave me a "personal care kit" the last time I flew. It was full of dangerous items like nail files, clippers and deadly, pointed cuticle sticks. The eating utensils were also genuine metal.
The personal care kit would have made a handy souvenir. When I cleared customs in New York, however, I had to go through TSA security for my connecting flight -- it was confiscated.

And a Conclusion?

We should be convinced that they [EL AL] are doing it right, or at the very least that we are still doing it all wrong.

Clueless Q: But isn't "profiling" a violation of rights?

Logical A: Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but being groped in the groin by government goons is even less Kosher, and creepy to boot!

What is it with our collective egos that prevents us from looking objectively at a success story, whether it's a school or security procedure, and imitating it? Sometimes you just have to do what really works, even it it's not in line with your preconceptions and prejudices.

Do our leaders have such an aversion to "not invented here" or "not my idea" that they are letting false pride get in the way of real progress?

The November elections went a long way toward herding the inmates back into the asylum, but we can't let down our guard.

We must continue the demand that our leaders and other public servants exercise such little known commodities as common sense and reason, and we must accept nothing less.

That's my opinion, and you're welcome to it!

aka The [Original] Eggman
Accept no imitations

See Also: Homeland Security is an Illusion