I am always amazed by the call for more and new technology and while I can understand it being made in the Technology Review, I still wonder whether some well trained bomb sniffing dogs wouldn't be more effective.  Obviously, they are less sexy from a technology point of view but I think that they would be more efficient.  I can see their operating costs being higher but would expect the upfront investment be less.

on our roads and there is barely a peep. But 250 almost die in a terrorist act, and we allow the TSA to decide for us that we must be treated like children and told to shut up, sit down, and no toys for the last hour of flight.

This does nothing to keep us safer. The only 2 things that have kept us safer are reinforced cockpit doors, and passengers that know to fight back against threatening people on the plane. That saved the Northwest Detroit flight.

Why instead of more dumb TSA regulations, doesn't the CIA and FBI come out, apologize, and say they made mistakes in human intelligence. They should be saying they will reassess their policies on information gathering, investigation, and adding names to the watch and no-fly list?

Doing this would be 10 times more effective at preventing a future terrorist act than anything the TSA has done to date.

As has been properly pointed out, advanced search technology will cause large delays at security check points.  Therefore, we must develop a two tiered system where some people are screen more carefully.  Yes, we have to apply profiles. Yes, not all profiled people will be terrorists.  But we must be willing to make choices.

I have a friend with two knee replacements.  He is always patted down, because he sets off the metal detector. He is profiled -- so why can't a young man who has journeyed to Yemen be profiled?

The vast majority of explosives, like PETN, are made in state sanctioned and state operated factories. Taggants already exist, and others, tailored for airport detection, could be developed.
But instead of treaties that require tagging, we spend vast amounts of money trying to detect needles in haystacks.
Perhaps fear is such good business that removing it at the source does not pay?

Agree with previous commentator.  Al Qaeda is nothing compared to the liquor industry.  Consider first the death rate from drunk driving.
"In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving crashes involving a driver with an illegal BAC (.08 or greater). These deaths constitute 31.6 percent of the 37,261 total traffic fatalities in 2008. (Source: NHTSA, 2009)"
And that's being generous to the liquor industry.  The illegal BAC in most of Europe is .04, half the US standard.  If we used .04, probably 50% of the traffic fatalities would be alcohol-related.

Enforcement of drunk-driving laws is also pathetic:
"A first time drunk driving offender on average has driven drunk 87 times prior to being arrested."
"Fifty to 75 percent of drunk drivers whose licenses are suspended continue to drive."

But everybody's contributing to the problem, right?  Wrong.
"About three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives."  And yet, according to polls, only about 2% of people drive drunk.  Let's suppose people are grossly under-reporting themselves, and the real figure is 5%.  That would still mean that every drunk driver is harming 5 others besides himself.

(Unless otherwise stated, stats and quotes above are from the MADD website.)

Everywhere one looks, alcohol is complicit in death and destruction.  For example, murder of a family member with a firearm is 20x more likely if someone in the family has trouble at work due to alcohol issues (indicative of alcohol abuse). [Kellermann, NEJM, 7 Oct 1993]  Alcoholism is a factor in about 30 percent of all completed suicides.  There are about 33,000 suicides in the U.S. annually, so that's about 10,000 suicide deaths per year due to alcohol. [Source: www.afsp.org] 

It isn't just drunk driving, firearms, and suicides.  Consider alcohol and unnecessary deaths in general.  The CDC reports that during 2001-2005, an estimated annual 79,646 deaths were attributed to the harmful effects of excessive alcohol use. 

Compare the deaths to the revenue generated.  The entire U.S. took in about $5.4 billion in alcohol taxes.  That's about $68,000 per death.  How much is YOUR life worth?  And of course, that's not adjusting for the additional money spent on health care and social services for the victims of alcohol, nor the money spent on incarcerating alcohol-fueled criminals.  Factor in that spending, and it is safe to say that we as a society SUBSIDIZE the liquor industry to kill almost 80,000 of our citizens every year. 

Conclusion: Allowing the liquor industry to continue "business as usual" in the U.S. is morally equivalent to paying Al Qaeda to commit 25 9/11/2001-sized atrocities every year.  There's your conspiracy!!

How to Find Hidden Explosives at Airports by Kevin Bullis

Not be searching 87 year old grandmothers and Metal of Honor winners.

Shoe bomb? EVERYONE REMOVE YOUR SHOES!
"Liquid Bomb"? EVERYONE, NO LIQUIDS, NOT EVEN BABY BOTTLES!
Underwear Bomb? WE'RE GONNA GAWK AT YOUR JUNK!
X? HERE COME THE ANAL PROBES!

We need to stop reacting to everything this way, and come up with coherent police policies and treaties with other countries. 

We also need to educate innumerate people about statistics and the odds of being killed in a terrorist attack vs. odds of anything else, such as auto crashes and random attacks by MADD zealots.

The fact this weasle got past security and onto a flight shows how difficult it is to target and eliminate these rats. However, since the terrorist act was thwarted, the chance to use the event was lost.

All Terrorist Acts are Media Events. The plan typically uses the mass media to broadcast to the world to show how unstoppable and powerful these terrorist groups are. Terrorists are not unstoppable, but highly adaptive combatants - usually educated in Western Universities and "turned" by religious fanatics.

The Detroit flight had a LIVE apprehended terrorist - caught in the act. The Homeland Security folks COULD HAVE used this as a chance to uncover more Terrorists by falsifying flight details showing they had "lost contact" with the flight while over the Great Lakes. They could have counter-broadcasted false data they assume mechanic failures caused the plane to crash and that due to inclement weather the search and rescue groups are having difficulty locating the crash site.

This would have bought them time to fire up other counter-terrorist measures to see if:

A) There were local Michigan Based Teams supporting the in-flight terrorist
B) They could have tracked cell phone calls too and from Nigeria to learn more
C) After and "exhaustive search" they could have broadcasted more confusing information.


In the mean time - the plane could have been rerouted to some other terminal far away from the original gate very quietly so travelers could be treated for injuries, contacted loved ones and then arrested the terrorist for further interrogation - INCLUDING WATER BOARDING if necessary.

Presumably the true terrorist organization masterminds would have sent tapes of some type to Al Jazzera (sp?) to alert the world of their successful plan. US Intelligence communities could have watched for this to see if they could have trapped anybody else.

In the mean time, the US could have created their own media event showing they successfully captured a terrorist and have been collecting more useful information to aid future security teams by sharing new tapes, broadcasting them world wide and taking some of the steam out of the true Terrorists sails.