Bob CollinsJames Ehrler of Stanchfield, Minnesota got some national Web love from The Atlantic’s James Fallows today for a letter he wrote to Sen. Amy Klobuchar about the increased security screening at the nation’s airports:
Fallows is calling on Klobuchar and other members of Congress “to help set the liberty-versus-security balance.”
What is that balance? For one thing, Noah Shachtman writes in today’s Wall Street Journal, it means a security system that focuses less on what terrorists tried last time, and more focus on an intelligence-based program, to head off the most likely assault in the future:
It’s the same kind of trade-off TSA implicitly provided when it ordered us to take off our sneakers (to stop shoe bombs) and to chuck our water bottles (to prevent liquid explosives). Security guru Bruce Schneier, a plaintiff in the scanner suit, calls this “magical thinking . . . Descend on what the terrorists happened to do last time, and we’ll all be safe. As if they won’t think of something else.” Which, of course, they invariably do. Attackers are already starting to smuggle weapons in body cavities, going where even the most adroit body scanners do not tread. No wonder that the Israelis, known for the world’s most stringent airport security, have so far passed on the scanners.
And, finally, the Taiwanese animation firm, NMA, which has made a name for itself by quickly animating news events, today released its version of the current airport screening controversy.
