1. The argument- “even if it’s harmless, it might not have been!” is completely illogical and irrelevant. My house COULD be burning down right now… but it’s not. That doesn’t mean that it’s not possible for something dangerous to come through baggage, but a harmless bag being flagged in no way indicates that that danger is higher. If anything it just heightens how ineffective our security screening is.

2. “And our government is doing the best it can to minimize it.” No, no they really aren’t. The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber were stopped by alert passengers, not TSA. Personally I’m not convinced that putting us through toxic naked machines or feeling our genitals will actually find underwear bombs.

@niki — Really? A package that everyone feared contained a bomb is not a good reminder of why entities like the TSA have come up w/ stricter-than-ever policies? Not arguing the efficacy of them. But to say that bomb scares aren’t a good reminder for why they exist? I don’t follow you there. Flush that out for me, if you would.

I didn’t say that I don’t think we should have any kind of security, it was the justification for “heightened” guidelines that I object to. The knee-jerk reaction of “we found a threat, so we need to permanently alter our security measures to be more onerous and intrusive” is irrational and counterproductive. I’m not saying that is your argument, but it seems to be the TSA’s. Also, I don’t think it’s possible to argue for the existence of these policies without discussing their efficacy. The stricter-than-ever policies are aimed at one small part of air transportation, the most visible part. Passengers and their carry-ons undergo a huge amount of scrutiny, which the TSA is spending billions of dollars ramping up even more, but packages and, in some cases, even checked bags are waived through with only a cursory look.
The risk of terrorist attack is no higher now than it has been in the past 9 years. But the more aware of a risk we are, the more concerned we become. How many false-positives are there every day at the hundreds of airports across the country? Is it worthwhile to report on every one of them, especially before all the facts are known? Shall we also discuss false-positives given by the AIT machines (which I’ve read can be caused by something as innocent as lint in a pocket) with the same implication that they justify the technology?

I still disagree. TSA flagging a harmless piece of luggage isn’t a reminder of anything except the fact that TSA are morons. It is only a reminder of actual threats in that they LITERALLY reminded us, practically tapping us on the sholder to say, “hey don’t forget that there might be a bomb somewhere.”

As for pointing at it as an explaination to our children, I just don’t believe the two line up. Unless we are trying to explain that Americans are allowing unacceptable intrusions because fear has overcome every sense of logic.