[ch4s3]

I think you underestimate the difficulty in loading a child with explosives and successfully getting them onto a plane then detonating them in flight. There are so many places along the chain where this would almost certainly fail. We could easily make this a nearly impossible threat without abandoning our civil rights. We already have sniffer dogs, explosive materials swabs, backscatter machines, and layers of human intelligence before this point. If we're at the point where TSA has to grope everyone, why bother, the terrorists have achieved their goal, as we are no longer a free society.

Additionally I think you are vastly overestimating the number of terrorists out there trying to carry out these attacks. We didn't do much at all in the 1970's and 1980's beyond signals and human intelligence and attacks were very rare then. And this was when we were engaged in several proxy wars with Russia. There just aren't that many people out there that are both willing, interested, and capable of attacking US civilians in spectacularly deadly ways.

You are fear mongering. You are part of the problem, and people making you arguments are destroying our freedom of movement and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

To quote Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[leereeves]

> We already have sniffer dogs, explosive materials swabs, backscatter machines, and layers of human intelligence before this point. If we're at the point where TSA has to grope everyone, why bother, the terrorists have achieved their goal, as we are no longer a free society.

Perhaps I'm misinformed, but I thought pat-downs were only used on people who refused to go through the back scatter machines.

And I haven't seen sniffer dogs or explosive detection swabs routinely used on all passengers.

Insult me if you wish, but at least try to be honest about reality.

[ch4s3]

The pat downs are used for people who refuse, and arbitrary other people at the "discretion" of the TSA. As for the swabs, my carry on gets swabbed at almost every airport I go through. I can't remember the last time it wasn't.

And my main point was the even before the security theatre, at the height of post WWII global violence, terrorist attacks in the US were exceedingly rare and they still are. This suggests that we likely didn't buy anything for the sale of individual liberty.