Re- Jsl's post #42.
You would feel guilty about inconveniencing and disrupting the lives of ONE load of passengers.
It's time that ALL flight personnel took a stand against these farcical, meaningless and useless regulations.
Every day, MILLIONS of productive hours are wasted in pointless queues,undergoing futile and pointless checks. A couple of days of concerted "disobedience" by aircrew ,would surely be supported by the majority of their Pax. Imagine the effect of telling the "security" jobsworth , that the entire crew and majority of Pax, were not willing to cooperate and DEMANDED that a senior manager hear their grievances and follow the procedures in a prompt,courteous and orderly fashion (provision for sitting, whilst replacing footwear, tables to repack bags, coathooks, etc also seem reasonable to demand) The disruption and exposure of the apalling treatment of paying pax would soon make a few managers fear for their cosy jobs and just maybe heed the old proverb about "biting the hand that feeds you".
The fact that would-be terrorists HAVE boarded,despite the "security" points to it's ineffectiveness. No, I don't swallow the "how many have been deterred" argument.
Any thickos would be detected by the "normal" diligence of checkin /Gate/ general Public-Facing staff....the bright ones are NOT going to be dissuaded by the present "security" charade.
I refute any suggestion that the muppets at the sharp-end of the job are too lacking in gorms to exercise discretion regarding the "clear plastic ziploc bag" issue...a rule CAN be framed, stating a preferred capacity and a suggested tolerance acceptable....jobsworth would then have his boredom alleviated by exercising his authority and discretion and getting the self-satisfied feeling of importance. Likewise, framing a set of regulations to state that the intent of the checks should NOT be to maliciously disrupt,deprive or deny any passenger or their luggage of prompt, fair and courteous service abuse of power shall result in sanctions including possible dismissal against the employee.
the spirit of the regulations can ,and should be, the same as the letter.
Our custodians of the Law, the Police-Force, exercise their discretion every day. Some would say they have a markedly superior level of intelligence and training...