Having recently travelled in the USA and once again suffered the trauma of the queue waiting to get through security checks at Washington’s Dulles Airport, I was reminded today of what a farce the whole thing is. Between them, The Bush Administration and Fox News, to name the two main culprits, continue to keep Americans in a high state of anxious fear, playing on the emotions of their population for power, votes and ratings while in reality their security is basically a shambles.

Take the recent security war on liquids for example. Brilliant at Breakfast, having experienced the problem first hand asks a simple, yet so far unexplained, question:

If certain liquids and gels are taken from a passenger, the assumption has to be that those materials are potentially hazardous. If so, why are they tossed unceremoniously into the trash? At every checkpoint you’ll see a bin or barrel brimming with illegal containers. They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are thrown away. In effect, the agency readily admits that it knows these things are harmless. But it’s going to steal them anyway, and either you like it or you don’t fly.

And what if any of this liquid was dangerous? There are always a lot of people at the security check point. But as said above – they know it is all safe. Of course they do. It’s basically a scam to give the impression of aware security. And it shows that the Americans have no real experience of an on-going terror campaign. Walk around any major city in England and you’ll have trouble finding a rubbish bin. The IRA saw to that. Walk around any US city and they are on every street corner. Travel, as I did, on the Washington Metro and you wont see a single uniform. OK – they are probably using cameras for what good that would do but there is no security presence.

And why was I reminded of all this today? Because of the case of Christopher Soghoian a security expert who showed how easy it is to create a fake airline boarding pass that would enable anyone to get through security and into the departure lounge areas. In pointing out this simple but effective security hole (though admittedly showing how to do it on a website might not have been the best of ideas), Soghoian earned himself a visit from the FBI who searched and trashed his home and walked off with his computer gear. At least one Congressman, after initially calling for him to be arrested, later saw the light and suggested that he should, in fact, be employed by their Homeland Security agency.

Sooner or later Americans are going to tire of the garbage being spouted by the Shrub and his gang of warmongers. They are going to realise, just like the English did through the years of IRA atrocities, that the way you defeat these people is to stand up to terror and get on with your lives. And you talk. The biggest terror American citizens seem to be facing comes from their own government, media and law enforcement agencies.

(Thanks to The Naked Truth for the links to these stories)