Insecurity

Both Air Canada and WestJet have announced limits to carry on luggage. This may actually be a good thing. But it’s the other on-board restrictions that (in the most charitable terms) seem odd, for example, some airlines are disabling the entertainment systems and/or passengers must remain in their seats and have no baggage on their laps for the last hour of the flight.

News reports [1] include the following:

• The suspect was travelling on a valid US Visa
• Officials allege a syringe was found on the suspect
• The suspect was carrying PETN, the same explosive used by the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid in 2001
• He is one of 550,000 names in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment
• The suspect’s father alerted US Embassy officials in November of his son’s beliefs [editorial note: granted his father is a Nigerian Banker so the information might have been seen as suspect]

So, the suspect is on a list of terrorists, is granted a US Visa, walks through security with a syringe, carrying PETN and authorities had received a tip one month beforehand.  

May be there are some problems with the existing controls? Obviously the officials can’t admit that, so they introduce new measures so ridiculous they are guaranteed to divert attention from the obvious.  

I expect there will be a lot of people pissing in the seats.