McGovern on airline security

Sure there should be federal minimum standards for airport security, but I would have liked to see some level of competition as well among airlines on this issue. Imagine if post-9/11 airlines had to compete on how safe they were--you could decide whether you wanted to wait in long lines or not. Or whether you wanted to fly on the airline that profiled vs. the one screened randomly. Or you could decide whether you wanted to be on a plane where toenail clippers were banned or not. Surely one airline would be advertising today as having the best safety record or hiring the former head of El Al security, or what have you. Airlines that cut corners would be exposed by their competitors, the media, or 3rd party rating agencies. Perhaps this way, through a competition of approaches, we could ultimately arrive at the balance that we all want to find between security and convenience.

I am in favor of state enforced standards to ensure that there is a fundamental level of safety on airplanes, but as stands the folks responsible for your safety, the airlines, are not held accountable. Instead, airlines can write off the security issue as the role of the federal government and blame then should something go wrong. I fear this has left us with a bureaucracy that gives us the worst of both worlds: faulty security with a lot of inconvenience.

From McGovern:

When I pointed out that it was still 30 minutes before departure, the Delta enforcer said, "We quit checking people in 30 minutes before departure." Then as if she had just come down from Mt. Sinai with the 11th Commandment, a supervisor hurried over to tell me that even if they wanted to check me in the computer would not let them do it. Presumably if I had arrived 10 seconds earlier the computer would have said, "This is a loyal American, let him pass."

The computer has become a new weapon of mass destruction to overrule our minds and our common sense. Did I tell you that I am terrified by computers, e-mail and the Internet? The only things worse are automated telephones that tell you to press numbers 1 through 99 and then inform you that the item you want is no longer in stock. Civilization is crumbling before these awful gadgets--although my grandsons are threatening to show me that they are not any more dangerous than the atomic bomb or AIDS.

I'll probably yield to the computer age eventually despite my strong instincts against it. But deep inside I'll never yield to the airport terrorism that President Bush has imposed on us as his answer to Osama bin Laden. I'm willing to shoot bin Laden. I'd even volunteer to fly a bomber against him if we had any idea of what country he is in. But I'm not willing to let fear of Osama bin Laden weaken our civil rights and convert our airports into police-state nightmares.