I'm glad to see you have all the answers.
As for your flippant, Take a bus remark, that attitude is a big part of the problem.

Not trying to incite you more, but these people are doing thier jobs. You don't have to like it. Maybe they aren't perfect, but niether are you nor I. Try to imagine the ammount of crap they get every day. The insults "screenernazi" is a good one. You may only be posting it here, but I hear it on the radio and I am sure these people here it said to thier faces. Yes you or the person you observed this happening to may have had a tough time, but I doubt they were "strip searched". Being asked to remove your shoes (even though the detector didn't go off) and having you unbuckle your belt and being manually checked is far from a strip search. This is a small price to pay for the PRIVELAGE to fly. There are a lot of problems with this organization, and you can tell yourself that "I would do it differently!" But in the end, pretty much everyone here works for someone else, and these folks with the TSA are for the most part trying to do their jobs to the best of thier ability. Imagine trying to accomplish your job while under incredible public scrutiny over your every action. Try doing it knowing that a mistake could literaly cost the lives of thousands. Yes they have a long way to go, and the learning curve is high. Perhaps next time you may put yourself in their shoes. Take a breath, be thankfull the kids got to mom's house and back in one piece and ask yourself just how much you are willing to go through to see them safely back home again.

No Flames People! <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> The issue here is valid security measures over what is widely perceived to be posturing. Siezing a plastic M1 Garand from a G.I. Joe being taken back to G.B. by a grandmother at LAX case in point. We must also remember that Bin Laden and other members of the Wahabi sect have stated our open society is anathema to their perverted version of islam. They want us to lose our hated freedoms. There are always people with hidden agendas who use world events to promote their own goals. Terrorism in the name of islam is a serious issue, but not the only one. The first renewed commercial flight from the U.S. recently landed in Vietnam. Some of us here remember the day helicopters were being shoved over the side of carriers and fluency in vietnamese will get you faster service at a Little Saigon convenience store and a blank stare at a job interview. Our domestic freedoms were under assault then, and they still are today.

What Isreal has done with El AL is neither posturing nor viewed as a strike against their personal freedoms.

What they have done is make air travel as safe as they can. In other words they have learned from their mistakes and are willing to live with the inconvenience.

True security will never happen if we continue to whimper over grandmas knitting needles.

I think 1000's dead puts more of a damper on ones freedoms don't you?

All perspective I guess.

Flip

Jeep,

Nicely said and thought out.

Thank you

Flip

Anyone can buy a ticket. They're cheap. Why does having a ticket make you less of a risk than
not having a ticket?

Groo:

Maybe Flipper feels that a terrorist that tries and fails might want to cash his ticket back in for his legal defense.

I agree with you that it is silly to think that a terrorist would do anything to raise suspicion. If he has already decided to die, what does he need money for?

Bountyhunter

Again, it's all about appearance rather than actual substance. I agree that bringing a device which is
obviously a GPS is just asking for it. I'll bet, though, that few screeners or flight attendants would
recognize a GPS PCMCIA card, or the external no-display GPS receivers sold for use with mapping
software. You could always record the data while using your laptop for something else, then
plot your flight when you get home. I know, it's not the same thing, but...

Either way, it's going to be tough to get a usable signal without being very obvious you're doing
something weird (mommy, why's that man holding that piece of plastic on the window?)

I've done this before, only with a sectional and on a turboprop from Abilene to DFW. We were low
enough to use the same sorts of checkpoints that'd I use in a 172. I was amazed
by how fast we were moving once I used a chart I was familiar with. :-) :-)

WAC charts are just about right for airliners. Sectionals have more detail than you can see from 30,000 feet.

If you have a laptop, maybe you could scan the charts? Yeah, it'd be a bit of a pain, but it's
definitely a way to bring them with you without being obvious that you have 'em.

You could even size the scans to be the same size as your screen, then set one to be your
desktop background. Set new backgrounds as you move along. Older laptops would be
great for this, since the older LCD displays are tough to read off centerline.

You could also convert the scans to black and white and reduce the contrast to the point
where the charts look like an abstract design or something. Or maybe no longer look
map-like at all.

Oooh! Even better. If you have a digital camera, photograph the charts. On my little 2M pixel
pocket camera, in playback mode, I can zoom waaaaay in. Again, not as good as having the charts, but to
an outside observer, you're just taking a lot of pictures. :-)