Why Air Travel?
The greatest question one can ask to advance the cause of democracy, liberty, and justice is the favorite question of a toddler. Why? The greatest damage that can be done to democracy, liberty and justice is to assume that the government is doing the right thing and that their pretext for doing what they do is the real reason.
When you consider all the different ways people could cripple our society, an attack on air travel is pretty far down the list. And that's already been done.
What about the underwear bomber? What about him? Of course every once in a while someone may try to repeat a successsful attack but the more emphasis we place on trying to prevent what's already been done, the less the focus is on what the next attack might be. The government knows this. So why do we have to endure the "Transportation Suppression Agency" whenever we fly?
Simple answer: Politics. It gives people the illusion that government is doing something and that people are safe when they travel. It gives the illusion that the risk is contained in our airports and we are safe everywhere else.
If a terrorist wanted to create the most chaos, fear, and disruption in our society they wouldn't blow up another airplane. They'd hit a shopping mall, sports stadium, the water supply, the power grid. And in time, someone will probably attempt to strike all of these.
So what is the solution? Body scanners at every football game? A TSA-like barricade at the entrance to every mall? It won't happen because it would be too disruptive of every day life. Better to stay focused on the airports where a relatively few are inconvenienced and the illusion of safety can be preserved.
So if the airport security protocol is all a sham, what is the solution? The solution is counter-intuitive. The solution is make an airport as open and accessible as a mall. Stop interfering with our freedoms to come and go as we choose in order to create an illusion of safety.
Screening air travelers as we do is not the solution. Increased security around our water and food supply wouldn't hurt, and wouldn't interfere with anyone's personal liberty, so why isn't that being done? Why don't they take the entire TSA and deploy them in our ports, checking shipping containers instead of patting down Grandma and peeking under our clothes?