In which we find the TSA screwing up again

Bruce Schneier points out that apparently, all you have to do to get weapons onto an airplane is dress like a pilot.

I agree that it doesn’t make sense to screen pilots, that they’re at the controls of the plane and can crash it if they want to. But the TSA isn’t in a position to screen pilots; all they can decide to do is to not screen people who are in pilot uniforms with pilot IDs. And it’s far safer to just screen everybody than to trust that TSA agents will be able figure out who is a real pilot and who is someone just pretending to be a pilot.

He’s right. Make the screening sane, of course, but we screened folks before 9/11 just fine. Security is all about unintended consequences. Putting TSA in charge of figuring out which people are legitimate pilots is a really bad idea.

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