im sick of the talk of 'these troubled times'. in fact i would say that since 9/11 airlines are much safer if not completely safe from hijacking. before 9/11, hijack victims would cooperate with hijackers since in most cases they would eventually be returned home safely. now since that is apparently not the case people will not cooperate and will most certainly retaliate. imho the only real threat to airline security at this point would come in the form of explosives. i would wager good money that we will never again see an airline hostage situation.
I would accept that the heightened security at the airlines was necessary if:
Every time journalists tried to sneak something clearly labeled "Nuclear device" onto a plane, they weren't successful.
As it is, with heightened security, airports are no better at stopping the dangerous things from getting onto planes, but yes, do needlessly harass regular people.
I have both my nipples pierced, one has a 6 gauge ring in it, so it would almost assuredly set off a hand held detector. I can understand them needing to pat it down or be shown it, but ya, no way they could "hide" something else. The only reasons that taking out the piercings before the security check should be needed is if they are putting me in a MRI machine.
i think they should give the pilots guns, or hire armed security for the actual planes, instead of focusing all their attention on making it more of a hassle for everyone to even enter the airport. obviously still have to have reasonable security at the gate to look for explosives and weapons but, at the end of the day if the airline personnel are armed the terrorists aren't going to be doing any hijacking with a boxcutter.
and this woman was obviously mistreated.