Thursday, 24 January 2002

Here’s a good way to improve national security: arrest people who admit to inadvertently taking potential weapons onto airplanes.  Yeah, that will really encourage people to be helpful.  So let’s say, just hypothetically, that I or somebody I knew had accidentally taken a utility knife or knitting needles or whatever on a flight or two, and airport security missed it.  If I report this fact in the interests of improving screening procedures and helping authorities identify weak points in airport security, I could face jail time.  What a great idea!

In a novel, this state of affairs would be tragicomic.  In 2002 America, it’s deeply stupid and somewhat scary.  To paraphrase Ellen Ripley, did IQs just drop sharply when I wasn’t looking?

• Thursday, 24 January 2002 was published on Thursday, January 24th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
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