It appears that full body scanners, operated by leering yahoos under the cover of government authority, may finally be rousing the sheep who have meekly submitted to the absurd delays and indignities that have been piled on since 9/11 and sundry botched attempts.

A Qatari diplomat with a disregard for the rules and an odd sense of humor managed to create a major air incident — including the dispatch of a pair of F-16s — for trying to sneak a cig in the lavatory of a 757 while in flight. ABC’s Rhonda Schwartz, Richard Esposito, and Brian Ross [...]

The headline “New U.S. Airport Security Measures To Use ‘Real-Time’ Intelligence” caused a chuckle when I saw it on the RFE/RL Twitter feed.  Not to overly disparage the TSA’s screeners, intelligence agents they ain’t.  But a description of the program makes it sound like a step in the right direction. The U.S. Department of Homeland [...]

WSJ’s Scott McCartney explains “Why a Six-Hour Flight Now Takes Seven.” our airline seat may not have much padding, but the airline’s schedule sure does. Delta Air Lines Flight 715 from New York to Los Angeles now takes more than seven hours to fly across the country, according to the airline’s March schedule. That’s an [...]

AP’s Harry Weber offers some tips to “speed through airline security.”  For the most part, they’re rather dubious. Consider bringing your laptop in a sleeve. Skooba Design sells a laptop sleeve for $19.95 that you can carry on your own with a removable shoulder strap and can unfold to lie flat on the airport X-ray [...]

Longtime national security blogger Michael Yon posted this on his Facebook page about an hour ago: Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not “arrested”, but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but [...]

An aside in my post this morning defending President Obama from charges he took inadequate measures to prevent the attempted Detroit bombing has caused John Cole some distress. I observed that, “There’s room to criticize the administration’s response to the crisis, most notably DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s idiotic insistence that “the system worked.” John retorts: [...]

There’s quite a bit of chatter this morning about the fact that two travel bloggers of whom I’d never previously heard have  had their computers confiscated pursuant to subpoenas after publishing unclassified but sensitive TSA screening procedures.  AP’s Eileen Sullivan has the rundown: As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring [...]

Two days after a Nigerian al Qaeda operative tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253 as it landed in Detroit, we had an eerie repeat.  Another Nigerian on the exact same flight locked himself in the lavatory and refused to come out.  Thankfully, it was a case of the trots, not a terrorist plot. The [...]

It now appears that the thwarted failed Detroit terror plot was more sophisticated than initially thought.  The first reports — that the device was “incendiary rather than explosive” — appear to be mistaken. And we now think we know how the explosives got aboard the plane:  They were sewn into the terrorist’s underwear. Richard Esposito [...]

Not surprisingly, TSA is going to make flying even more aggravating in a stupid overreaction to the Detroit terror plot. In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed a new layer of restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability [...]

The federal government is placing limits on the ability of airlines to mistreat customers. They don’t go nearly far enough. U.S. airlines could face stiff fines for stranding passengers aboard grounded planes for more than three hours, according to a regulation that officials said on Monday was aimed at upholding passenger rights. The Transportation Department [...]

Are you a terrorist who would like to blow up an airliner but confused about how best to elude screening?  Well, luckily for you, the Transportation Security Administration has published a How To manual to answer all your questions. In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted online its airport screening [...]

Matt Yglesias observes, It’s a bit frustrating sometimes that the only people who seem interested in reforming parking meter policy are generally car-skeptical urbanist types like me. My interest in this, after all, is a bit second-order whereas people who actually drive cars around all the time have a strong interest in getting this right. [...]

One of my commenters brought to my attention an issue that’s not receiving much attention:  Residents of several U.S. states could have to show their passports for domestic travel — or to enter a federal government building — starting January 1 because of the REAL ID Act.  Chris Strohm for Congress Daily: More than half [...]

Chris Battle is surprised how often he hears the question “How many terrorists has the Department of Homeland Security caught?” He argues that DHS’ job is prevention, not apprehension; that’s what the FBI does. The implication of the question — usually the questioner already knows the answer — is that the failure to catch members [...]

Waiting at DC’s Reagan National Airport yesterday evening for a flight to Minneapolis, we caught a photo of this baby biting Al Franken’s nose: Okay, so it was our baby. Franken was very gracious and accommodating. One of the joys of being a United States Senator, apparently, is that one can not read a magazine [...]

Quentin Letts informs me that Ryanair, an Irish no-frills outfit of which I’d never previously heard, is contemplating charging passengers a fee to use the toilet. That is how it manages to charge such low basic fares for its flights. What they give you in discounted tickets, they try to claw back in the way [...]

Two people were killed by gunplay at a California Toys R Us yesterday, joining the trampled Wal-Mart worker in New York.   Naturally, this is bringing out condemnations of America’s crazy appetite for stuff. Mark Silva: Lay a little blame at the feet of the government, for exhorting Americans to spend more money and shake off [...]

Seth Godin has a number of “random travel thoughts,” several of which relate to airport security: When I go through security, why do I need to remove a cardigan sweater but the woman standing next to me can keep her cashmere blouse on? Are certain kinds of wool inherently risky? What would happen if Imagineers [...]

The company that’s contracted to provide Clear Card, the TSA’s handy-dandy system for screening out terrorists (or, at least, providing people willing to shell out 150 bucks slightly shorter lines) has managed to lose its customers’ sensitive data and compromise the entire system. The company that runs the Clear system, which speeds customers through airport [...]