"I'm sorry sir, you're going to have to leave your deoderant here, unless you have a ziplock back to put it in."

I looked at the guard with mild amusement thinking that surely he was kidding. I had looked up what the restrictions were on the TSA website and they said nothing about ziplock bags. The only thing they said was that my deoderant couldn't be over three ounces, which I checked three times before heading to the airport. I answered, "Well, do you have a ziplock bag that I can use to put it in?"

"No sir, you're going to have to use your own bag."

I really hate holding up the line at airports but I still said, "It seems to me that if you're making a rule for this, then you should provide the bag." I could have gone further about that they must have some sort of back door deal with the ziplock or glad corporation to drive up consumption of ziplock bags but I thought that may have been pushing it. As it was, he wasn't amused.

"I don't make the rules sir, you can either check your bag or I can confiscate your deoderant."

I hate checking bags so I let him have the deoderant, but this whole incident sparked a several day long discussion with the people that I was flying to work with. No, it's not like that was all we discussed for several days, I'm not that much of a dork. Well, maybe I am, but not in that way. But what we were talking about was what possible purpose a ziplock bag would be. My answer was that maybe the TSA thought that terrorists weren't intelligent enough to open or maybe even close a ziplock bag to be able to get it on the plane and then retrieve whatever deoderant of mass destruction that they might have brought with them. Ever since then I call the ziplock bag that I carry with me "My Anti-Terrorist Bag".

It turns out that the real reason that you need to put everything in a baggie is because it is supposed to limit the overall quantity of stuff that could be bomb-making material that you can take onto the plane. It makes sense. I mean you don't want some guy that dropped out of high school sitting there and trying to add up your three ounce packages of toiletries to see if they add up to certain destruction or not, but you would think that if I had one thing (which I did) that they could simply say, "oh yeah, 3 ounces is less than 22 ounces, you're good to go". See, I started out thinking that it was the TSA insulting the intelligence of the terrorists, but now I really think that they are trying to insult their own intelligence. Maybe it's me.

The anti-terrorist bag is just representative of how much we over-react to threats now. I would like to now discuss some alternative solutions to some of the security measures that are in place that might be a little easier for the air traveller.

Shoe Bomb

Awhile ago, someone was caught on an airplane trying to light the fuse of a bomb that they had snuck onto the plane in their shoe. The bomb didn't light because the man was too sweaty. As the media and government would say, "terror thwarted" by his own body. Think, if he had worn lighter socks that day, a plane might have blown up. Because of that incident, now countless travellers have to take off their shoes when they pass through a security checkpoint. I personally hate taking off my shoes and putting them back on. When I put them on in the morning I like for them to stay on until they come off and then they are off until the next day. It's just such a hassle. So I have two solutions for this:

1. Put a hot plate in the entire floor of the security checkpoint so that by the time the average air traveller is through the checkpoint they will have sweat enough to render the bomb ineffective.

2. Ok, so maybe you don't like getting hot like that. We will offer you solution number 2. With this, the underlying principle is still the same but instead of heat, we douse your feet with water. Again, rendering the bomb ineffective.


Armaments

So the big thing about security in the airport is that they don't want you to bring weapons into the airplane. My proposal is to give everyone a gun that gets on the plane. I know that this would give terrorists weapons, but this would also give a lot more people weapons to kill terrorists when something happens. When you get off the plane, you return the gun. It's kind of like a rental. Ok, so I realize there are some people who probably won't like this idea, so I have a modification. When you get a gun, it will have one of two issues with it:

1. It only has one bullet in it, so there is a limit to how much damage you could really do with it.
2. Random guns will be rigged up so that when fired, it fires two bullets. One at the intended target and one at the shooter. That way, if the gun is shot in malice it wil also kill the bad guy.

You can also use the normal safety speech fromt he flight attendants to instead perform a gun tutorial. I think that something like 0.A% of people actually watch the safety speech so that should be fine. Yes, that's right, the percentage is so low that even numbers will not handle it.


Catapult

I really like this next idea. Basically what it would require is for each seat and every square foot of floor surface to be rigged with ejector charges. So in the event of a hostile takeover of the plane, the pilot can push appropriate buttons to eject the people into the ceiling. Not with enough force to actually break through to the outside world, but with enough force so that it knocks the person out. Not sure where the bad guy is? Just eject everyone and knock them out. Now the flight attendants don't even need to provide cabin service! Which is good, because they are knocked out too.


Well, that's all for my overhaul of airline security. I hope that you find it enlightening and deem it fit to write your congressman and make these suggestions to them. Until later!