Wasn’t there a big deal about the Pedophile’s Guide being sold on Amazon. No need now. The entire guide can be summed up in these words, “Join TSA.” If you haven’t seen the article about TSA body searching a three year old, you can see it here. If you haven’t seen the Taiwanese parody of the TSA searches, you really should see it here.

This situation is absurd, but it may not be as crazy as people might think. Clearly, we need profiling and security dogs at a minimum. However, if indeed PETN can’t be tracked by the dogs, we need scanners as such or else the pat downs may be necessary. I tend to believe at this point that TSA has received intelligence that more Christmas Day bombers with PETN undies are coming. PETN is not detectable by the metal scanners, thus people can just walk through the detectors wearing explosives. Plus, evidently, it isn’t detectable by the general explosives scanners either. It is only detectable by touch or by the newer scanning  machines.

Regarding scanners see this article about scanning all cargo and just how much that would cost, except here we’re talking about using these same scanners for passengers as well as bags and cargo. Almost no airport is equipped to do that and it would cost billions of dollars to install everywhere as well as taking many months just to cover major airports.

My belief is that Homeland Security suggested that TSA enact the screening for PETN because of credible intelligence. The only thing that can be done other than either the advanced scanners (which are highly limited right now) or pat downs is to do Israeli style profiling and questioning which would add at least two hours to every flight and require months, if not years, to initiate here because of training and hiring. If this is an immediate risk issue, and I imagine that it is, they have little choice beyond the pat downs. There may not be reasonable and effective immediate alternatives.

I am assuming that TSA has been told not to inform the public about the need for these checks so as not to cause panic during the travel season. Better they be seen as overly intrusive than absolutely necessary. Imagine the looks that every minority person would face, especially Muslim dressed minority people, the entire time they are in the airport.

Full facial detection software and questioning in front of facial scanners in order to identify those who are lying or are unusually stressed would work too, but again we’re talking cost and time. If we have no time, which is my bet, namely that there is an immediate credible threat, they may have no choice but to pursue this ridiculously obtrusive path. The motto for TSA really should be “Better felt up than blown up.”