To Be Or Not To Be

Hi Everyone:

I'm pretty sure everyone has heard about the controversy about the new screening procedures implemented by the TSA recently. The new screening procedures before being allowed to board a flight include a body scan (think X-ray) or if one doesn't want that they would have to have a full body pat down. So why all the fuss? It seems that there are people who don't want either of them implemented. Some people believe that having either done tramples on their right to privacy.

In today's world, there are people in this world who would like nothing more then to either blow up a plane in flight or use it as a missile to kill as many Americans as possible. In order to make flying as save as possible the TSA implemented these new procedures. Remember last Christmas' underwear bomber? The only reason no one was killed was due to the fact that the bomb in his underwear failed to detonate. If the bomb had detonated, it would have most likely caused the plane to blow up in mid air and/or crash. Either way people would have been killed.

With the old procedures sans body scans or pat downs any other underwear bomber could have tried again and maybe even succeeded. It seems to me that the new procedures are a necessary evil to try to make flying safe for all. If insuring a flight's safety includes either a body scan or a pat down I say just do it. To me, that just makes common sense. If one doesn't like it don't fly! Take a train or a car or a bus. I'm also fairly certain that if the procedures were not implemented and people were killed due to a preventable bomber; these same people against the new procedures would be the first ones, after the victim's families, to complain about the lack of security. You can not have it both ways.

Comprehensive security does work. Just look at Israel and what the flying public there must go through to board a plane.

In this case, the ends do justify the means. And the old saying, it is better to be safe then sorry, says it all.

Til next week.

Peter