The Panty Bomber

With all the outrage over lax security, it is inevitable that we will enact further weird and useless measures to make our flights safe. Military tacticians have stated that in asymmetrical warfare, the defender is always at a disadvantage. We continually spend money to patch up the current crisis, while new attack vectors are already being planned. They started with traditional hijacking involving guns and grenades in the 1970's. Our response was to install metal detectors. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, got everyone taking off their Nikes. Now the Underbomber has got us scrambling for body scanners.

Where does technology eventually lead us in this cat and mouse game? Let's move forward a few years to the era of the BioBomber. This twisted individual will ingest a cocktail of explosive ingredients. They might be poisonous, but not in the time frame that he is concerned with. Next, immediately before entering security he ingests a primer in a time delay capsule. Once the protective coating is breached, the explosive is triggered. This is the ultimate smartbomb. You are not going to find this dude by searching old ladies and toddlers. Do we intend on endoscoping all passengers? Of course, they could always go old school and set off a bomb vest in the security checkpoint, maybe even in the scanner.

The point is that the TSA is political theater designed to keep the masses feeling comfortable. If we expect to make people truly safe, no-fly lists and body scanners aren't the answer. You are going to have to take proactive measures that get to the root of the problem. People want to blow us up. Why is that? "W" said it was because they were evil. I doubt seriously it's that simple. Afghanistan and Pakistan house part of the problem, but let's not forget about Israel and Palestine. It is a festering wound that is a great source of many of our troubles and a great recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.

Before you flame me for giving them ideas, realize that they have already thought about this. What else are they going to do sitting up in a cave in Waziristan?