HOW DOES THIS GRAB YOU? Jim Dunnigan on Airport Security. “The main criticism is that many of the security measures adopted since September 11, 2001 have been more for show than for effectiveness. An increasing number of potential passengers are no longer flying because of these new methods, which have, so far, not caught a single terrorist. This is described as a sign of how effective the new measures are. But the new techniques would not have detected the ‘underwear bomber’ of last Christmas, who secreted explosives in his underwear. Moreover, there have been many cases where passengers got weapons past security, usually by accident. . . . Finally, as was demonstrated recently with two airfreight bombs coming out of Yemen, air freight in general is very vulnerable, especially since a lot of this freight ends up in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. Thus for determined and well organized terrorists, there are more vulnerable areas to get a bomb onto an aircraft than via a passenger. These more vulnerable areas are given less attention partly because they are less visible, and thus provide less visibility for politicians seeking to demonstrate that they are ‘doing something’ about airline security.”