Airline Security Thought Experiment

TSA bashing is all the rage and, in large measure, for good reason. TSA provides good security theater at a high cost.

Some of it, unfortunately, is just the way things have to be. The world has changed since the days when you could board an airliner with the same aplomb as getting on a commuter train.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that a terrorist does manage to bring down an airliner. Al Qaeda has tried as far back as fifteen years ago to blow up airliners. They have not succeeded in bringing one down with explosives, but some day they might.

What will the reaction from the politicians now demanding that the TSA be dismantled? Will Ron Paul say "that's the price of freedom"? Will John Mica say "there is only so much that can be done"?

Sure they will, and goats will write novels.

When al Qaeda tries to bring down another passenger airliner, whether or not they succeed, the politicians will rush to the television cameras to demand that the Federal government do "something" to prevent another attack. The very same politicians now who are calling for the TSA to be torn to bits will want heads to roll for whatever security failure, whether real or perceived, was exploited by the terrorists. And they will bleat and whine about that without one twinge of self-consciousness over their blatant hypocrisy.

I'd love to see a reporter ask them what will they tell the American people if the TSA stops screening folks and then a bomb does go off, but that's a question that a local reporter will have to ask. None of the national reporters have the guts.