This week, the Department of Homeland Security, the innocuous agency with the mandate to protect us from further 9/11-like atrocities, responded to the failed Christmas terror attack at Detroit Metro airport by announcing a clampdown on travel originating in fourteen highly-suspect, (Muslim), countries.  It also added hundreds of names to the “NO-FLY” list, (which, apparently, you can be added to if your name, not necessarily your background, matches an alleged baddie…what’s the chances of that, right?)  Most of us will never have to face such a daunting responsibility, where shoes or boots, decaf or half-caf,The Bachelor or The Biggest Loser, (is there really a difference?), may be among our most pressing daily choices.  So, I wouldn’t dare to minimize the burden or importance of the job.  But, like so much in our overly saturated, media-driven lives, procedures are being played out in public for no apparent reason other than the ‘perceived’ notion of accomplishing the task.

Dear Terrorists,

If you try to fly from any of the fourteen countries on our list, we will be waiting for you and you can kiss your promised virgin collection goodbye.

Yours truly,

Homeland Security

I certainly don’t have a clue how any agency, or chain of cooperating agencies, can possibly sort through the reams of threatening information and misinformation, then detect, identify and react in a timely fashion.  Daily news reports would suggest it’s truly impossible.  But of all of the processes carried out as secretive, cloak-and-dagger operations, isn’t airport signage indicating:

DISGRUNTLED REGULAR TRAVELERS – LEFT

TERRORISTS – RIGHT

tipping our hat just a little too much?

As a frequent flyer, I am beyond disgruntled at times by the security screening performance at most airports.  I certainly want and expect safety at every level; that the plane is properly serviced; the crew is professionally competent…and awake; the air traffic controllers really know what all of those flashing numbers and letters on their screens mean; and a majority of the poorly-uniformed, (they must be able to do better than that), TSA personnel have the training, equipment and acute awareness to find whatever it is that they’re looking for.  I’m just not buying the efficiency or the accuracy.  I have had a forgotten spray bottle of eyeglass cleaner in a remote compartment of my backpack for years, and it has gone undetected and/or unquestioned in hundreds of rides down airport security belts.  At many of those same checkpoints, I’ve been forced to snap off the lethal nail file from my clipper, while the TSA-designated-less-lethal pens and pencils sailed on through.

The arbitrary nature of the whole thing just seems to favor the bad guys way too much, and announcing every move is not a deterrent.  The world has become a crazy, unpredictable and very dangerous place where acts of terror are no longer confined to distant and unpronounceable stick pins on Google Maps, and any measure of security is reliant on the best efforts and cooperation of countless agencies.  We want to know they’re there and doing everything they can.  But, when it comes to the specific methods designed to accomplish that goal, a single word of wisdom…Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!