Judith Miller is one of those reporters who sees the significant detail in almost every story. And the fact is that many Americans don't want to read about...or hear about it. But her latest blog, “Airport Screening Is Just for Us Common Folk,” insists on telling us who doesn't get screened and who does. OK, very top brass never is frisked. But the folks who make our laws or administer our laws (or, for that matter, are assistants to these big shots) also are exempt from the onerous burden of waiting on line to get X-rayed or go through whatever other deadly process the feds have contrived for us. Sometimes you just miss your plane, Tiens, tiens!
The non-screening "privilege," the Times reports, turns out to apply to "Congressional leaders or members of Congress with armed security details." Soon it will also apply to pilots, who, unlike flight attendants, managed to win exemption from screening after repeated complaints about being subjected repeatedly to the extra doses of radiation the full-body scanners emit.
And, of course, the exemption applies to the one percent of Americans who are millionaires, or any American wealthy enough – or friendly enough with the superrich – to fly private jets to their destinations. That includes presidential candidates of both political parties to be sure. And it also includes almost half of the Congress, with or without law enforcement agents in tow.
Another cost is the increased personnel and technology now required to discover the needle in the haystack. And by the time the jihadists figure out all the still undiscovered tricks of their gruesome mission, the cost will turn so high that we'll have to dispense with FedEx.
I've begun to wonder why almost all of my mail comes via these express services. Even insignificant mail arrives at someone's cost of, what, almost twenty bucks an item.