Surgical scrubs and paper shoes? I think you're being optimistic. I'm betting that at some point we'll all be required to fly naked after being strip-searched to ensure that we aren't carrying a can of soda in any orifices.

Yes, I read this column regularly. In my opinion, Mr. Smith is too easy on the airlines. He constantly tries to defend their policies and is against any federal regulation of them. For example, after the incident where a plane full of passengers spent something like 10 hours on the tarmac, he said that calls for regulating the amount of time such things could be allowed to go on were unnecessary.

Do you read his columns? Do you read between the lines? The idea that an airline pilot who has apparently had some trouble staying employed would write an unbiased column about his employers is ridiculous.

The only columns that Mr Smith writes that I enjoy are the ones about piloting an aircraft, they are very interesting.

Surely no one can object to a job that provides rewarding and meaningful employment for our lesser skilled fellow Americans. If these people weren't providing what is called security for airplanes they'd be left carrying guns and walking around malls. Most assuredly we are safer with them at the airports. I look forward to interacting with these literal minded individuals with low aptitudes because everytime I hear one of them interact I have a there but for the grace of god moment.

I'll say it again, Hear, Hear!!

If you can't take a freaking shampoo bottle on the plane, what makes you think they'll let you pass with a KNIFE! Granted, they miss this stuff all the time, but come on, you really think a security guard will let you do that now?

In the completely rare case you did attack somebody with the knife on the plane, you think that security guard is going to have a job anymore? Even if they do have the exact same silverware on the plane, its that security guards ass on the line. Use whats on the plane just like everyone else.

I only fly when it's absolutely necessary, but I've noticed one really irritating detail. The slim things dressed in tight clothes have a real advantage these days.

Those of us who wear baggy clothes or dress in more than one layer, get wanded, pulled aside, asked to take off layers so the TSA can verify that we're not hiding something underneath. The routine is such that you'd better be prepared to show some skin!

But god help you if you should let them know you don't like it, or even worse, if you should interrupt their spiel as they recite how important it is to our national security that they verify that you are really as bulky as you appear, and that it's flab, and not an explosive belt making you look like that!

He constantly tries to defend their policies and is against any federal regulation of them

You mean the same Patrick Smith who wrote jut last October:

Assuming the airlines will not police themselves into submission, we've reached a point where government involvement is perhaps the best option

Or how he was too easy on the airlines in the very article you reference when he said:

If you find it hard to imagine any plausible reason for locking people in a ground-bound plane for 10 hours, so do I, and frankly there isn't one. Such breakdowns are abhorrent and inexcusable.

If "abhorrent and inexcusable" is how he "constantly tried to defend their policies", I hope he never tries to defend me!

He wasn't defending the airlines in that article, he was explaining how such things could happen and how some of the proposed remedies could actually make things worse.

I do read his columns and I actually read them, I don't jsut skim them until he disagrees with me and then run off claiming he's a Running Dog Capitalist Lackey.

Do I expect him to be unbiased? Not really. He's writing an opinion column. However, his bias doesn't necessarily co-incide with the airlines and it frequently leads him to criticize them, sometimes harshly.

Sure his criticizing airlines might be dangerous for him, but to his credit, he does it.

Sorry Mike, as I said in my earlier post, these measure have little to do with security and everything to do with social control.

Recently, here in Canada, (yes the infection has spread, we even have a no fly list) a Polish man became confused and wound up wandering around the arrival areas for hours. Eventually he went a little crazy and starting throwing things around. 4 RCMP arrived and tased him to death.

Our response? Oh well.

Killing people is actually very useful from the fascist point of view.

So how long have you worked for the TSA?

As an FAA safety inspector I can sympathize with the pilot in this article. Although we are screened, fingerprinted and given background checks before being hired we must still go through this foolish and demeaning "security" process. Many times I am stopped because I am carrying a bottle or two of water and the same scenario the pilot describes starts to unfold. It usually takes a discussion with a supervisor to educate the screener that there is a TSA Security Directive (SD-1544-06-01C) that tells these cretins that FAA Aviation Safety Inspectors & flight crews are exempt from the 3 oz. rule. There are many of the TSA people and have a sense of humour and realize that they are working at a better paying job than flipping burgers at McDonalds. But unfortunately, there are a few who are on apower trip or perhaps they have no control of anyting in their lives so they try to control everthing else to compensate. Or perhaps they are like so many cops, they are just bullies and they can hide behind a badge or government agency to allow them to satisfy their perverted needs. Mr. Pilot, I feel for you brother, maybe someday some future administration will realize we don't need a police state and stop all this foolishness.