Liquid Terror and the Scent of Fear

In light of the roll out of “Liquid Terror” and its effect on the airlines and airports of the world, Dr. Omed has a suggestion as to how to simplify and improve airport security. Check all baggage. Instead of the current security checkpoints, airline passengers should be checked onto the airport concourse in the same way that prisoners are checked into a county jail.

In dressing rooms under the supervision of security guards, passengers would strip, submit to a cavity search, and their clothes, wallets, purses, ids, pocket change, and what-not would be bagged, tagged, examined for contraband, and checked for transshipment.

Passengers would be issued color-coded jumpsuits or hospital scrub type pajamas, and flip-flops or slip-on tennis shoes. At some county jails, prisoners charged with misdemeanors get an orange jump-suit, and felons get white. Or vice versa. First class passengers get, say, purple, and every one else gets orange. Every passenger would get a coded wristband like a patient gets at the hospital or an inmate gets at the jail, that can’t be removed without scissors or a knife.

The passenger section of the plane would be behind a locked gate, like the prison bus, with an armed steward or stewardess on the other side of it, keeping an eye on everyone with the help of surveillance cams. Passengers seatbelts can be locked by remote control, but you could slip on the complementary handcuffs, if you’re into that. And in each and every barf bag, there would a complementary stale baloney sandwich, just like you get at a city jail. Beats a bag of peanuts, don’t it?

Air travel in the Age of Fear is already replete with restraints and indiginities. Think how glad you’ll be to get off that plane, when you are arrive at your destination, to get your own clothes and personal items back, to have that wristband snipped off, to step out into the open and take a big breath of fresh air. You’ll feel so free. For a moment, anyway. Just don’t make any suspicious moves, until you’re out of range of the cameras and the sniper towers.