Freedom, Security and Terrorists

So yesterday I ranted about how I think measures that are being taken at airports are being taken to the extreme.

I still think that, but let me clarify. I do not think that being safe is a bad thing. Being paranoid, however, is a horrible thing.

Ed works at a rather large regional airport. He is a flight instructor there until the end of the month. I can tell you without a doubt that if I wanted to, I could fairly easily gain access to places that most would hope were "secure."

Sure, there is a fence around the "sensitive" areas of the airport, but if someone was determined enough, a little bit of barbed wire would not stop the terrorist.

And yes, Ed does have a name badge that allows him access to these "sensitive" areas, but as a former graphic designer, I can tell you with certainty that the name badge would be EASY PEASY to fake. Besides that, no one checks them anyway.

I could go on and on and on. My point is that scanning passengers, strip-searching them, taking away all their belongings and handcuffing them to the seat will not stop the terrorists.

Bob pointed out to me that Israel has super tight security on it's airlines and they've yet to have an incident. AWESOME! How much of that has to do though with them being God's chosen nation vs. the tight security they have in place? I don't know the answer to that question. But I do think it is worth pondering.

I guess what I am getting at is that thinking these security measures are going to save us all is just not wise. They are far from being full-proof. There are lots of ways to get around them.

In some cases, these measures may do more harm than good. These security measures will continue to help bring down the airline industry because people are not going to want to fly (and some of that will be due to fear, some due to annoyance). The employment of more people working for the TSA will just suck out all that much more money from our already broke government. And on and on it will go.

Perhaps if we did our best to keep security in check without going overboard and taking granny's knitting needles or the babys diaper cream and put some of our trust in God instead of in our government, things would be different.

I dunno though... those are just my thoughts.