Search for bombs, not nail clippers

A commercial pilot says that security checks are laughably misdirected

By P. Smith

Oct. 30, 2001 | At a major international airport recently, an airline pilot in full uniform, en route to fly a planeload of passengers to a major city in the Northeast, had a small pair of scissors confiscated from his toiletries bag. When the pilot asked a U.S. marshal what purpose was served by taking a pair of rounded-end Fiskars from the very person responsible for flying an airliner, the marshal shrugged and answered, "That's what they want us to do."

Whether this pilot intended to hijack himself with scissors is, if it can even be suggested with a straight face, a long-shot suspicion at best, but reason and clear thinking aren't a high priority on the concourses these days. At LaGuardia airport more than a week after the Sept. 11 attacks, not a single pay phone was in working order. "For security," nodded a policeman. If there's a relationship between pay phones and security, the Gotham cop had no particular insight. "It's a new world," was his only explanation. In another episode, a U.S. Customs officer reportedly was relieved of his box cutter, a tool he uses to inspect bales and packages, but was allowed to pass with his 9 mm pistol strapped in its holster.

Since Sept. 11, thanks in part to the Federal Aviation Administration's new zero-tolerance policy toward the carriage of sharp objects, airport security in the United States has spiraled into a scene of near-absurdity. Passengers are subjected to two-hour check-in times while senior citizens have their carry-on luggage combed for nail files. Silverware is banned from restaurants, and there's talk of removing mirrors from airplane lavatories, lest one is smashed and the plane commandeered by a terrorist wielding a pointed shard.

In addition to the madness at the X-ray machines, airlines also have instituted gate-side luggage checks, in which randomly chosen passengers are paged just prior to boarding, and must lay out their carry-ons for inspection by staff wearing rubber gloves. Random to the point of senseless: a roll call of selectees during one recent departure included a mother with two small children, a middle-aged businesswoman and an off-duty airline employee deadheading to work. If these individuals were the result of some behind-the-scenes profiling, dare we suggest some parameters need to be reset?

Meanwhile, to suddenly deem all sharp objects potential instruments of terror is not only incredibly time consuming, but sets the ultimately impossible goal of keeping any and every "weapon" out of the cabin of an airliner. All the determination in the world, replete with the most juvenile and ridiculous regulation, will not out-duel the ingenuity of even a half-determined sneak.

From pencils to flammable liquids hidden in shampoo bottles, there is, when it comes right down to it, virtually no way to prevent somebody from fashioning a dangerous device if he or she truly desires to. We should know this, yet time and time again we've heard the unwavering support of inconvenienced passengers as they languish in check-in lines or have their bags eviscerated by underpaid security guards. "I don't care how long it takes," goes the mantra of the delayed flier. "If it makes flying safer, I'm all for it."

But what if it doesn't? Should we really care if a passenger in Row 15 has a Swiss Army knife in his backpack? We should realize that a follow-up terrorist attack involving the airlines would not, in all likelihood, be another kamikaze-style hijacking. And in the wake of last month's destruction, it's almost inconceivable that a plane full of passengers and crew, unless they too happen to be suicidal fanatics, could ever again be overtaken by boxcutters and knives. No, our resolve belongs elsewhere, and our resources would be much better spent combating another, far more likely threat. Which brings us to a frightening truth. As we obsess over forks, corkscrews and hobby knives, and slowly turn our airports into scrap metal depositories, the greatest danger of all has rarely been discussed: explosives and bombs.

Next page: There is a way to stop bombs. Too bad we aren't using it