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0 pointsvidarh12y ago0 comments

> There are some pretty goddamn good reasons why the bag of a dude who tests positive for explosives has to be cleared before he's given it and allowed to run around an airport full of people.

If so, there are some pretty good reason why, if they consider that threat even remotely real, they should clear the area.

A good indication that the actual terrorist threat is absolutely vanishingly small: If there were lots of terrorists around, one of the easiest targets these days that'd maximize the amount of terror, is airport security screening areas. If they get through, they could defuse the bomb and blow it up on a plane instead, if not, they could let it go off on a timer and take out both a lot of passengers and a lot of security people.

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etchalon12y ago

I don't know how much faith I'd put into your hypothetical.

I'm not implying the terrorist threat is large – it's really, super small. But just because they haven't done THAT yet, doesn't mean they won't. So far, in the US, what they've done is sneak explosives onto planes.

vidarhOP12y ago

So far what muslim terrorists have done a couple of times is to sneak explosives onto a few planes and fail miserably (shoebomber etc.), or storm the cockpit, or blow up bomb far away from airports (Boston bomber, '93 WTC bombing etc.). The storming the cockpit scenario was rendered totally pointless to try again after 9/11, and the explosives attempts have been rather weak.

Overall, bombs and shoot-outs not related to planes at all has been responsible for the vast majority of the most lethal terrorist attacks in the US apart from 9/11, both if you look at muslim terrorists separately, and other attacks in recent history.

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