I Say We Fly Naked

[camwyn]

Okay, so, this morning I'm told the British police foiled a multi-plane terrorist plot to commit widescale mayhem and murder. It involved liquid explosives, which is an interesting trick we haven't really seen before to any great degree. Good for the British police. We owe them an immense debt if all of this is true.

The American authorities have banned bringing liquids on board airplanes as a result of this, I'm told. No coffee, no soda, no hair goop, nothin'. This'll probably be relaxed eventually, if only because businessmen who've got to fly bloody early in the morning are going to wind up throwing their $6.95 coffees in people's faces when they're told Mr. Starbuck isn't allowed on the Pequod after all, but for now? Nothin'. The liquids stay here.

Now, see, I'm looking at this, and I'm looking at the No Pointy Objects variations on the FAA allow list. I'm also looking in Richard Reid's direction and thinking about shoes. I can also think of about half a dozen other places that people who don't give a damn about human life would hide their explosives. (Before you say that putting this in the public eye is giving terrorists ideas, allow me to point out that any half-baked newbie to the international drug trafficking business could probably point out the same methods of concealment without even trying.) And, y'know, I'm thinking. . .

I think we should fly naked.

Screw this whole metal detector, empty your pockets, let us look in your purse thing. We fly naked. All of us. You want on the plane for legitimate reasons? PROVE IT. Put your clothes in your baggage and carry your reading material in your hand. At least you won't be alone. Every single person on that plane other than the crew will be in the same boat as you. Yeah, the airlines will have to put covers over their seats and replace them every flight, and invest in a bunch more blankets, but on the other hand, I suspect complaints about the airline food will drop off in a hurry. Being surrounded by uncomfortable pantsless strangers will kill most people's appetites. Not to mention that people with a fear of flying probably won't even remember their fear. They'll have a WHOLE NEW phobia to deal with. At least there's a good chance they won't have to deal with the Chatty Stranger Who Won't Let Them Sleep, since I suspect most such would-be chatsters will be staring straight ahead a lot more than usual.

Damn it, if the terrorists insist on using the Blow Up The Airplane YAY plot over and over and over again, they should have to pay for it. You want your explosives on that plane, mister? WORK FOR IT. Go talk to your drug-smuggling friends and the mules who work for them. Just how much explosive yield can you fit in your digestive tract before you can't get through the airport door? Have fun getting it there.

I'm so bloody tired of this. I say we cut straight to making the airport security process more intrusive for the terrorists than it is for us. Embarrassment's one thing, but having to stash your explosives in places that require your buddy to wear a rubber glove's quite another. It'll be simpler on our end, too: X-ray the checked luggage and pull anyone walking funny or looking dyspeptic out of the boarding line. Simple as that.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'll think about that when I fly to California in a couple of weeks

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Oh, and may I link this?

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

The image of nitroglycerin enemas now comes to mind. With a wire up the bum.

[camwyn]

Sure, go ahead.

[camwyn]

Dying for your cause is easy. Holding really still while explosives are 'installed' is something that I think might make most of your bombers pause.

TMI in this comment

[innerbrat]

BA started the no hand luggage thing. You don't get credit for that.

Is another friend's journal the subject turned to mooncups as an alternative to carrying your tampons in a clear bag, and that got me thinking.

Even if you fly naked, what's to stop terrorists smuggling liquid explosives onto the plane using a vaginal cup, hmmm?

Re: TMI in this comment

[camwyn]

Depends just how much yield you can get on the volume there. Also on how many female terrorists you can get to agree to go naked before they die.

[sdelmonte]

I think we should fly unconscious. We all get into the plane, and then take sleeping pills. Or get gassed. After a while, TSA goes through the plane to make sure everyone is out. Maybe they puts patches on everyone to keep them asleep while flying.

This would solve many other problems, such as unruly kids, loud conversations, food, and sitting through lousy inflight movies. It also means that airlines will be prepared for the wait for lemon soaked napkins after civilization collapses, and that the odds of surviving a trip to the dimension the Langoliers come from are much higher.

READING MATERIAL??

[seawasp]

You're going to allow things like BOOKS on the plane? What are you, a psycho? Naked *AND LOCKED INTO OUR SEATS*. The attendants will be there to make sure we're all locked in properly. None of these wussy seatbelts. Steel-reinforced straps holding you securely in the seat.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

(here via filkerdave)

It's a good idea. (I saw it proposed during the last wave of air-based terrorism, and thought so then, too.)

And since they're such targets of opportunity, let's extend the idea to major office buildings. There will be a wave of distraction, and a period of lower productivity -- and then folks will get used to it, and it will be business as usual.

Though we'll need showers in more than just the executive washrooms :-)

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

I'd be all for naked travel, but I've seen some of the Heavier Members Of The Business Class nekkid at my gym, and they're featherweights compared to the fellas I see flying out of, say, Cinncinnati and Dallas.

Nekkid travel would look pretty unpleasant, Let Me Tell You.

And given that most flights I've been on, there's been some sort of garbage left over from previous flyers - I don't want to consider whose Bare Butt has been a-setting for HOURS where my Bare Butt will be sitting for HOURS.

I mean.

But I've actually just been wondering what's been stopping them from doing the assbombs- Tract too long & strung out to make sure all that C4 goes off at once? Detonators too pointy? Fundamentalist squeamishness about Insertion? Or something like, "I think we need a new cell member. Yes, I know, we're running out of time. But we practiced it and, well, Haroun just stopped coming to meetings. Said he had to stay home and practice some more..."

Re: READING MATERIAL??

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to picture the effect of turbulance on a plane full of naked people.

...

wait, now I'm trying *not* to picture it. Oh the visuals, they burn.

Re: READING MATERIAL??

[camwyn]

As I said, if you really want to be on that plane, you'd better be ready to prove it.

[camwyn]

"We've got a critical meeting in Los Angeles. I need you there in a hurry, Frank."

"Greyhound."

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Back when Richard Reid pulled his shoe stunt, and the TSA loudly and ceremoniously closed that barn door, I did wonder what they'd have done if he'd had the bomb in his underpants.

The whole exercise strikes me as much like generals fighting the last war. (Cf Terry Pratchett's Pyramids, if that's the book I'm thinking of.) I think the whole TSA approach is wrong. Instead of disarming passengers, they should be handing out steak knives with the headsets, and if anything happens people will know what to do.

[camwyn]

Ordinarily I'd agree, but honestly, knowing what I do of the American air traveling public, we'd get a rash of infanticides and "NAB PLANE MOM IN TOT SLASH" headlines long before anyone brought down a real terrorist.

[sdelmonte]

More on topic, I am reminded of the Heinlein book where alien parasites are taking over Earth (but not its title). In order to thwart them, it's mandated that people wear less clothes so that the parasites (or lack thereof) are visible. At first, since the parasites prefer to stick to the back, shirtless is the style, though a well dress woman seantor gets around ths by coming to Congress in a backless gown. The alines adapt, though, and one possessed and underdressed woman even is made to hide her controller in a large handbag.

It's commented by the narrator that even after the aliens are defeated, things will not go back to how they were, and the nudity taboos will be gone. Heinlein understood human nature. Whatever it is that we do to thwart terrorism, it's going to stick around even if and when the threat is gone, even without the government telling us what to do. (Not that it won't.)

[cotume27.livejournal.com]

First, I love this and am linking to it in my own journal.

Second, I shudder to think that at some point, it might come down to being made to strip down and wear some kind of airline provided uniform or something on the plane.

Of course, you know what they say: If God had meant for us to be nudists, we would've been born that way......

[northstar83.livejournal.com]

What if they lose your baggage?

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

Actually, I see instead:

1) an upswing in video conferencing tech, building up to

2) advanced Meat Puppet Technology: In New York, Frank jacks in: he's pre-wired to provide signal from his facial nerves, his arms, and his speech centers, and receive audio and visual from LA. Meanwhile, his Representative in LA (a paid model, much better looking than Frank, pre-wired to receive Frank's signal while transmitting audio and video from the conference room) jacks in. Fiftyish, pale, warm-water-hot-dog eating Frank gives his presentation in his rundown suit, while zero-body-fat, tanned and twentyish Vladi puppets it in Armani. Nobody gets on a plane.

[firestrike.livejournal.com]

The Puppet Masters.

[madfilkentist]

The Puppet Masters.

(I guess my default icon goes well with that.)

[freetrav.livejournal.com]

That book was The Puppet Masters and was a damn good read.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

WNYC is now reporting that prescription medicines and baby formula are allowed. Okayyyyy. So if I'm a jihadist, I now know that all I have to do is put my liquid bomb in a baby bottle, and bring along a baby for verisimilitude. Or maybe I could even fit enough of the stuff in bottles with prescriptions on them. Barn door wide open for me. Meanwhile the rest of us, who aren't trying to pass off a molotov cocktail as a diet coke, are put through this terrible inconvenience, for what purpose?

Look, I'm about as far from a bleeding-heart liberal as one can get. I'm all for security measures that violate civil liberties and rip the constitution to shreds, the tinier the better, (OK, not really, but I do take a rather narrower view than the ACLU does of what measures actually do violate our rights) so long as they actually make us noticeably safer. But as far as I can see, nothing the TSA does achieves this purpose, or possibly can.

Checking IDs? I see how that helps the airlines, by preventing people from reselling their tickets, but how does it make a hijacking or bombing less likely? Anyone who can get a bomb can get a fake ID, if it comes to that, but generally there's no reason to bother. Taking away people's bullet key chains (http://www.snopes.com/military/medal.htm)? Back in 1996, after the TWA800 explosion, the security geniuses at JFK (pre-TSA) insisted on peace-bonding a 2-inch plastic dagger I had in my bag, with a piece of duck tape. And in 2003 the TSA's Australian equivalent took away my duck tape! All this achieves is that they're seen to be doing something, but IMO that's a disadvantage, because it detracts from anything that might actually be useful.

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

The thing is, people WON'T know what to do, and wouldn't, even if you trained every mother's son and daughter of them.

(Your next step might be to suggest universal military service: it'll never happen here, because the Bushie McRichests will never willingly make their children eligible to go in harm's way when they can get plenty of resident aliens to sign up to earn their citizenship, and plenty of the underclasses to sign up to get an education.)

And frankly? I wouldn't trust my fellow Americans with left handed safety scissors, much less knives or guns. Even training won't keep your fellow man from being a dumbass.