Liquid Terror? (Don't Panic!)

Hi folks -- so, as you might guess, the media (both old and new) and the big ole sphere o' blogs are buzzing about today's arrests in Britain, disrupting a terror plot to blow up US-bound airliners.

According to reports, the plotters planned on using liquid explosives in their carry-on luggage, with detonators disguised as common electronic devices (like the ubiquitous iPod).

As a countermeasure, British authorities are not allowing any carry-on luggage, except for barest essentials like passports and wallets, in clear plastic bags.

Here, the TSA has banned liquids and gels (except for essential medicines and baby beverages -- juice, breast milk or formula) from carry-on luggage:

This is not a bomb component. Or is it?

Now, at first, I was going to play this entry completely straight and serious. I was going to link to blog search results on Technorati (Heathrow and "bomb plot") and Sphere (Airline Plot) so you could see what other bloggers are writing about.

I think the first indication I was starting to lose it was running down the list of banned liquid and gel-like substances, which from news stories and my inferences include:

Bug spray, perfume, hot sauce, souvenir maple syrups, wine, toothpaste, bottled water, shampoo, conditioner, shampoo with conditioner, hair gel, contact lens solution, sunscreen, condiments, lip balm, pomades, clear deodorants, self-tanners, distilled spirits (both brown and clear), body glitter, blood and blood-products, salsa (including picante sauce), pre-treat stain sticks, correction fluid, personal lubricants, milkshakes (even ones that don't bring all the boys to the yard), spreadable butter, tooth bleaching kits and human or animal fat.

Yeah, I'm definitely starting to lose it.

(Random thought: Instead of throwing out all those banned fluids and gel-like substances, maybe they could have a big bin outside the sterile areas -- people on departing flights could drop off stuff, and people on arriving flights could sort through and take what they needed. It'd be like a big take-a-penny/leave-a-penny tray. I hear some people do this with baby strollers in airport lost-and-found offices.)

Folks, I am not making light of the threat of terrorism or the victims of terrorist attacks. It's a very serious thing -- American Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon on 9/11, left from Dulles Airport, which is right down the road from where I sit right now, and you might recall the series of Dulles-to-Heathrow British Airways flights that kept getting cancelled in 2004 because of terrorism fears. I think about it every day when I see the signs to the airport.

However, you have to remember, that as scary as it is, the threat of actually getting killed in a terrorist attack is exceedingly rare, in comparison to mundane, everyday ways of dying -- getting in a car accident, falling in the bathtub, or even getting hit by lightning.

Earlier in the week, BoingBoing had some commentary inspired by a white-paper done for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

In the paper, "A False Sense of Insecurity?" [PDF download] -- which no-one's going to read because it's dry and analytical and annoying because people don't like being told we're irrational about what we're afraid of (even if we are) -- researcher John Mueller argues that the true threat of terrorism lies not in the damage that attacks cause, but the immense overreaction and diversion of resources to combat the perceived threat:

"Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Dpeartment began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts."

To really boil it down, it's a variation of "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Like I said, it's an annoying argument that only economists and risk-management types use, so it never really gets any traction, because people are afraid of whatever it is they're afraid of, and rationality always takes a back seat to emotion with these sorts of things.

For example, I like to think that I'm a pretty rational guy -- during the DC-area sniper shootings, I knew that I had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting shot by the sniper (and I don't even play the lottery), but you still saw me stutter-stepping through the parking lot.

Anyway, I think the author of the study realizes it's kind of a quixotic cause, so he takes a step back and just asks that every once in a while, we stop to take a look at the actual risks and not run around like chickens with our heads cut off (or Chicken Little, for that matter) when it comes to the threat of terrorism.

For my part, if I don't publish pictures of myself looking as dorky as possible (see above), then the terrorists have won.

If you think I'm completely off-base or whatever, please let me know in the comments or in your own blogs.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: terrorism, dulles airport, airline plot, liquid terror, cato institute