According to NHTSA, there were 42,643 fatalties on US roads in 2003. Boeing says a 767 (one of the planes
used in the WTC attack) seats anywhere from 245 to 375. Let's assume the 2-class configuration, for right at 300 people.

42,643 / 300 = 142.14, That's right... almost three Boeing 767s would have to crash each week
for a year to equal the number of traffic fatalities that occur every year in this country.
Apparently, a great many people are willing to trade safety for freedom. And the cost is far higher
than our losses due to terrorism have been, or likely ever will be.

Just a little over 17000 of those fatalities were alchohol related. In terms of pure numbers, we'd save
more lives every year by throwing some money at the whole "don't drink and drive" thing, callling
off the war and ignoring the so called "terrorists".

Terrorism is all about perception, not actual damage. If they had the resources to wage a conventional
war, they would. Anything short of that isn't a threat, it's an irritation.

Reenforce the cockpit doors, remove the security checkpoints and guards and give us back our
freedom. I'll take my chances. They look pretty good, actually.

I'm just getting caught up after a few days away from the forum, so didn't answer the request for ideas to make things better, no sense in repeating what somebody has already said better, but here goes;
Let me start with a little story I overheard the other day...
A Native American, a fundamentalist Moslem, and a Texas cattle hand were in an airport lounge waiting for a flight, and struck up a conversation. After some small-talk, the Native American said "Once, my people were many, now we are few." to which the Moslem said "My people were few, but now, we are becoming many and powerful." to which the Texan said "That's cause we aint played cowboys and ragheads yet."
No offense is meant with this little slice of conversation, but it helps prove my next statement:
Don't tighten security, loosen it up a bit. Allow any native born citizen without a felony conviction to carry any declared weapon they may choose, and let the terrorists feel free to come to America to meet Alah in style. And while we're at it, this might not be a bad way to bring good manners back to everyday life as well... after a few months of culling the herd, this wouldn't be a bad place to live again.

Troy

You could probably do a search and find some good suggestions - I know I've posted these before, but, like Gandalf, I never mind explaining my brilliance more than once <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

- Instead of relying on a single, easily breached perimeter, implement defense in depth. Put multiple obstacles in a hijacker's path, not just one. Our ancestors knew how to do this 1000 years ago; why the TSA can't figure it out is beyond me.

- Put First-class passengers at the back of the plane instead of the front. If I walk up to the ticket counter and say "I want a seat as close as possible to the flight crew cabin, and money is no object" they'll call for security. If I say "I want a seat in first class" I'm saying essentially the same thing, but the response will be "Yes, sir."

- Train all the flight attendants in hand-to-hand combat. (Air Canada has supposedly done so; maybe other airlines have as well.) Most El Al flight attendants are ex-military with h2h combat training.

- Arm the flight attendants with non-lethal (excuse me, "less lethal") tasers. Modify the tasers so they can't be fired if they're disconnected from the owner's belt, so terrorists can't steal them and use them (if you're really all that concerned about a terrorist trying to hijack a plane with a single-shot, non-lethal weapon that's already been fired, that is <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

- Arm the pilots. (El Al refuses to comment on whether they do this, for security reasons.) Give the captain a sealed package containing an unloaded pistol and the first officer a sealed package containing the ammunition clip. If the seal is broken on either package at the end of the flight, the flight crew member responsible for it has to make a full report explaining how it happened.

- Have the pilots lock themselves inside the cabin before the start of every flight and don't allow them to unlock the cabin until the aircraft is at the gate and the passengers have disembarked. (Again, El Al does this.)

- Train the pilots in "anti-terrorist aerobatics". It's pretty hard to hijack a plane, or even maintain your dignity, when you're bouncing off the ceiling like Wile E. Coyote. (El Al claims they don't train their pilots in this manner. Yeah right! Tell that to Leila Khaled, who had this happen to her when she tried to hijack an El Al flight in September 1970.)

- Pass legislation to protect airlines and flight/cabin crew from lawsuits from passengers who didn't have their seat belts fastened when the pilot starts banging the hijackers against the ceiling, or depressurising the aircraft.

Not one of these measures would inconvenience the flying public one iota, unless they were confronted with an actual hijacking situation. (In which case, presumably, they wouldn't mind.)

If I were a terrorist (and, for the record, I'm not) my next target would be the line-up in front of the security checkpoint.

I mean, where else can a suicide bomber unobtrusively walk into the middle of a crowd of several hundred people carrying (or rather, dragging) two 100-pound bombs?

The problem is, the TSA never bothered to do a proper Threat-Risk Assessment; so they really have no clear idea what they're trying to protect us from. Is it to prevent terrorists from using airliners as weapons of mass destruction? Most of the security measures implemented since 9/11 have nothing to do with preventing such a recurrence. Is it to prevent terrorists from killing people aboard airliners? Why? Why is it worse to be killed by a terrorist on board an airliner than in the parking lot of a Michaels Craft store in Virginia - or standing in line at an airport security check point?

There have been no attacks--or at least any serious attempts at an attack--since Richard Reid. That was back in December of 2001. Personally I think that is because the FBI has been doing an exceptional job of infiltrating and then destroying the terrorist cells. It seems improbable that the terrorists have given up, so I guess the Patriot Act is working.

Banning knives has done absolutely nothing to enhance security. Banning butane lighters will do the same.

Pure political window dressing.

Regards, Vince

[Why? Why is it worse to be killed by a terrorist on board an airliner than in the parking lot of a Michaels Craft store in Virginia - or standing in line at an airport security check point? ]

Death is death, but it's next to impossible to crash a Michaels Craft Store into another large building <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

From what I can tell the entire effort is aimed at preventing people from entering the plane with box cutters, thus forcing them to break the glass on their laptop to instantly construct a far superior weapon. Since 9/11 if a passenger gets drunk and a little out of control he is attacked and restrained by other passengers without much hesitation. IMO the TSA could hand out tiny sharp objects to everyone as they get on the plane and there will still never be another such method successfully used to highjack a plane.

You appear to have missed my point. You cannot use a hockey stick, a baseball bat, or a Bic lighter to commandeer an airliner. Therefore, these so-called security measures are not of any use to prevent anyone from hijacking an airliner. Therefore, they were either implemented without anyone having a clear understanding of what they were supposed to do, or the TSA has bought into the notion that it is somehow worse to kill someone on board an airliner than it is to kill the same person in the terminal building, the parking lot, or a shopping mall in Boise, Idaho.