The Lie Detectors

This piece in Time magazine notes the plethora of new gadgets that could be used to flag potential terrorists in airports -- and points out that much of the technology may not be 100% reliable.

Well, so what? Something is better than nothing, isn't it?

It's irritating but predictable that "civil liberties" groups -- which appear more interested in ensuring the rights of terrorists than protecting the lives of innocent Americans -- are once again kicking up a fuss. One could understand if these machines were being used to deprive people of their life, liberty or property. But all we're talking about here is using them to decide who should be screened more carefully. And it's hardly a crisis of constitutional magnitude to be pulled aside for a few questions or a careful and respectful search.

Just last Friday, I was pulled aside and my bag was searched by a security guard in St. Louis. Why? Did I look suspicious, did something seem strange on the x-ray machine, or was I just the next random number? Who knows? But I was willing to be searched; that's simply the price of air travel these days, and it's worth it to figure that (hopefully) other, less innocent people than I may face similar scrutiny.

If there were some even partly reliable basis for deciding whom to flag, it's all for the best, and certainly much better than depending on an untrained worker's suspicion or random method of picking passengers out of a crowd. Those who resent the searches can simply drive or travel by train (for now) -- air travel is, after all, a privilege and not a right.