Stoners are seriously the most industrious people I know. How many alcoholics do you know that would go to this kind of trouble for something they could only think up in a state of altered consciousness?

In a couple of isolated incidents, over hundreds of thousands of flights, overzealous individuals stuck to the rules they had been taught instead of going with what seemed like "common sense". Those individuals may or may not have been punished or relieved of duty, and may or may not have been informed that, despite the PR debacle of what happened, the fault was the system's, and not their own.

Unsurprised by the continuation of ad hominem attacks, I will ask: are you a troll, or do you just enjoy pretending to be smarter than other people on the Internet?

Indeed, Antinous, I read the article. And the fact that the FAMs are having this problem is lamentable, but I don't view it as a tragedy, a conspiracy, or grounds for ad hominem attacks on other posters.

Where, by the way, did I suggest for even a moment that I "oppose the US constitution" or "defend people who thwart actual security efforts"? (I don't actually expect an answer.)

That TSA screws up is not an opinion, it is fact. I've been flying several times a year since 2001, and I've had the amusing experience of being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed US-born citizen having to sprint to catch her plane while her bags were inspected for half an hour by an immigrant who bore the last name Hussein.

None of this in any way diminishes my opinion that it is FAR more preferable to have thousands of false positives, even the occasional grand-travesty-of-a-screwup false positive, than to have one false negative.

I'm surprised and disappointed that I haven't seen this point of view yet. I mean, I know I roll with lefty Clintonites here on BB, but seriously.

Better 9,000 false positives than one false negative.

Childish laughter and LOL GUVMENT remarks suggest someone who wasn't touched by the attacks in 2001. I can guarantee you, nobody who lost a family member or friend is losing sleep over these people's "harassment".