[InitialLastName]

Doesn't that depend very much on the variables encoded in "inconvenience", "protection" and "potential"?

I mean, I can spend 15 minutes putting on a full ABC suit every time I go outside, and would certainly protect me from some possible national security threats, but the extent of the inconvenience, the limited range of protection, and the very low potential would make that an unnecessarily foolish habit.

In more of a real-life scenario, millions of people have spent the last 20 years wasting way more than 15 minutes standing in line to take off their shoes and get x-rayed every time they fly in an airplane to protect against a "potential national security threat" when the only thing that actually needed to happen was locking the cabin doors while the plane is in flight.

[jrockway]

A hostile nation with nuclear weapons launched a missile. If you're going to take precautions, that's approximately when the cost/value proposition starts making sense.

[InitialLastName]

Sure, I don't actually know the threat level here, and you could well be correct that this was an appropriate calibrated response. My only argument is that the US have strayed very far into "inconvenienced" territory (forgetting we had any compunctions about torturing people, spying on everyone in the developed world, attempting to entrap entire communities of people based on their religious affiliation) by using the "it's for national security" excuse. Americans would be well advised to be skeptical each and every time that excuse gets used.

[landemva]

The military made the call that South Korea was not in danger. Same for USA. Whoever in FAA started the call for ground stop should face discipline.

The Karens waving their arms about safety seem addicted to their fear-based adrenaline rush.

[burrows]

> In more of a real-life scenario, millions of people have spent the last 20 years wasting way more than 15 minutes standing in line to take off their shoes and get x-rayed every time they fly in an airplane to protect against a "potential national security threat" when the only thing that actually needed to happen was locking the cabin doors while the plane is in flight.

Where the unstated goal is to prevent hijackers from turning airplanes into aimable missiles? Yeah, I like your argument, what are the counterpoints?

[InitialLastName]

Option 1: After 9/11 the airlines were desperate to get people to fly again, needed some theater to comfort people (because evidently "still orders of magnitude safer than cars per vehicle miles traveled" wasn't convincing), and this let them offload what security they needed to do onto the federal government.