[ExI] Behavioral Screeners

[Damien Broderick]

At 09:15 PM 4/4/2008 -0700, Spike wrote:

>They only *wanted* to
>blow up planes, but couldn't because the screening system disallows
>sufficient quantities of liquids.  Were this not the case, their job would
>be easy: they could carry a number of bottles of pure alcohol, nothing more
>sophisticated required: a few liters poured on the floor, ignited with an
>improvised computer-battery powered nichrome loop for instance.  Good chance
>that would cause a crash, for the in-flight inferno would be very difficult
>to extinguish.

I know zero about aircraft design, but this suddenly frightens the 
heck out of me--once you're dealing with a potentially indefinite 
number of religiously inspired would-be martyrs, there must be a vast 
number of ways to crash a plane. I wonder if it might be necessary to 
strip search *everyone* boarding, and not allow *anything* to be 
carried on board by passengers, maybe not even their own clothing. 
Copious entertainment can be provided now to each seat, even 
(amazing!) *text* on screen from something like the google scan of 
the world's libraries, and new magazines, blogs, etc. I wonder if 
luggage might be sent in separate planes, perhaps robot-controlled?

Damien Broderick