Christmas Day, 2009. A young Nigerian man with an engineering degree who was on UK and US terror watch lists purchased a one-way ticket from Europe to Detroit, Michigan using cash, checked no bags, seated himself over a fuel tank, snuck an explosive device past security, and nearly killed almost 300 people in US airspace.

Two days later, we haven’t publicly heard from most any US government official, except for a relatively complacement Janet Napolitano, whose main qualification for Secretary of Homeland Security was protecting America from Mexico as Governor of Arizona.

Nevertheless, passengers will pay the price for the government’s lack of ability to stop young Abdul from blowing us up – passengers and a technical glitch took care of that in this case. Today, besides cursory looks at our laptops and taking off our shoes, we’ll have more exciting, reactive rules tied to the-last-thing-that-happened. They may include being able to check only one bag, not being able to use electronics during flights, and not being able to move from your seat during the last hour of your flights. I have no confidence that any of this will work – it is “homeland security theatre” – and it’s not fun to go through.

What is the logical conclusion of this line of homeland security thinking? Perhaps we should all get padded down, but we can hide stuff in our anuses, in bra padding, and other sensitive places. Maybe we should go through a “nude room,” or just fly in our underwear (the TSA can consult Virgin Air and Hooters for some tips). Or maybe we should be able to fly, but not take anything; perhaps some deal can be worked out whereby we board our planes and our stuff is flown via FedEx to our final destination?

Of course, none of this is adequate. There is only one conclusion with this line of thinking, thus leading to my modest proposal here. That is, banning all passengers from all airlines, effective immediately. You see, we shouldn’t blame our shoes, our computers, and our mouthwash – we should blame our people. Christmas Day 2009 was a people problem. September 11th was a people problem.

I say, eliminate the people, eliminate the problem. Benefits include: Reduction of TSA staff. Reduced use of watch lists. No invasions of privacy with X-rays, puffer machines, and the like. No more Air Marshalls needed on flights. No flight attendants and reduced payload (airlines save money!). Increased sales of webcams and chat programs. Reduced environmental damage even. There are some complications with this strategy, including the conundrum of whether cyborgs are “human passengers,” but overall the benefits outweigh the costs here.

Banning people from commercial airline flights might sound intrusive, or inconvenient, but we survived without planes before, and we will survive again. And our bags can still fly to keep the airlines in business! It’s simple. Buy an airline ticket, go to the airport, get your boarding pass, staple it to your baggage, proceed to the TSA security checkpoint, and say goodbye your your luggage. It will have a nice flight without you, while you cram onto Amtrak or Greyhound or Hertz. Your can even upgrade your Hermes carry-on to First Class if you like!

In order to protect our American way of life, we must be prepared to make sacrifices. Barring humans from flight is clearly one of these sacrifices, and it will be necessary – just follow DHS and TSA’s current security strategy to its logical conclusion.

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Posted via email from Mark’s Cheeky Posterous