The Interocitor

No, screening isn't that bad. However, do you want the air marshalls to assume that screening is perfect? I wasn't there so I can't say how realistic the threat may have been. It is easy to second guess but I'd say the real lesson learned is if you are crazy and taking medicine to make you less crazy don't forget to take your medicine. How often do we hear stories of somebody going nuts and then a family member being quoted saying "He's been doing better, but must have stopped taking his medicine?"

Screening is good enough that they would pass only some tiny percentage of what they find. I'm sure that they find (inadvertent) guns daily, knives hourly, etc. Bombs? Considering that every time they actually found a luggage bomb they'd clear the terminal and the press would report it, I'd say they find bombs almost never.

So, given the possibility that a passenger that claims to have a bomb actually does have one is vanishingly small -- Yes, they SHOULD assume that a claim of "bomb" is bogus. Unless they have considerable other reasons to suspect a bomb, they shouldn't take such an assertion from a crazy-acting passenger as valid.

This goes double for any luggage that just went through the super-customs inspection like one gets coming from flipping Medellin. Such as the suitcases they had in the hold.

Yes, they SHOULD assume that a claim of "bomb" is bogus. Unless they have considerable other reasons to suspect a bomb, they shouldn't take such an assertion from a crazy-acting passenger as valid.

And that would be hunky-dory right up until the occasion when a crazy-acting passenger claiming to have a bomb, really did.

It's quite likely that the next crew that pierces security will be part of a much more sophisticated operation than 9/11. You can task people that are perfectly clean to get jobs in security and have them work for years without incident, only to pass that bomb carrier through security. No matter how many people are needed to let it happen, it's possible to have that many moles that periodically all come together in the correct shift order. That's why they take bomb threats seriously. They know that security can be suborned.

Here's another thing to ponder. Al Queda has a track record in Iraq of handing suicide packs to the mentally disabled, people with Down's or other mental handicap. Just because a guy's acting crazy or is crazy or is mentally disabled is no proof that he has no bomb.

All that being said, there should be an investigation of what happened, exactly, procedures should be adjusted to increase the chance of a better outcome. And if the Marshal didn't follow established procedure and went a little crazy himself, he should feel the full force of the law.

Balancing all this, I really don't know what's going on. I'll reserve judgment until there's actual information sufficient to make a reasonable one. I highly recommend that line in most cases of law enforcement incidents.