The huge Xray machines appearing at the airports in the US are clogging the public areas and forcing people to congregate there while waiting for their bags to go through, many of which are being subsequently hand-searched as well. This is, as well as being a major inconvenience, a terrorist's delight; what a target. And if the screener should find an explosive, and inadvertently set it off during his rummaging around, the toll in dead and injured will be huge. This is enhanced security?
What I want to know is, who gets the money out of this? it is obviously not set up for our safety, so there must be another reason for it all. Usually it is money or power, or both. So where does the kickback go?
And can anyone enlighten me as to the history of checked baggage being used to commit crimes on airplanes? Maybe over the last 10 or 20 years? I can only think of one, and it hardly seems a valid reason for this serious over-kill, especially as it is another nail in the coffin of the airlines.
What's next? I heard that the airlines will be introducing, at government insistence, a series of questions during check-in to find out if the passenger is a security threat, such as "where did you get the money to buy this ticket?" As well as the delays this would cause (if true), I know it would put me off flying, and my response would be sure to have me denied boarding.
It is really sad to see aviation being systematically destroyed, and even sadder to see the way most people acquiesce in all this foolery. Are we really so blind, or so afraid?