Dutch police arrested 12 people for acting suspiciously on a flight to India. A passenger said “They were not paying attention to what the flight attendents were saying”, I don’t pay attention to the flight attendents either. When you fly more than 10 times a year you learn how to do up your seat-belt and when it’s appropriate to use your laptop, so once you know where the emergency exits are you can read a book ot talk to other passengers. The 12 people who were arrested were apparently exchanging mobile phones – strange, they have never asked people not to do that.
The 12 people have since been released. The cost of canceling flights due to security scares is significant for the airline companies. The fear that this induces in the public (both of terrorism and of stupid police) causes them to be less likely to fly which hurts the airline industry even more as well as also hurting the tourism industry.
The US is more dependent on air travel than any other country due to a severe lack of public transport. Australia is also very dependent on air travel due to large distances and no land connection to any other country. The UK also seems to have more of a need for air travel than other EU countries.
If exchanging mobile phones can interfere with air travel then people who dislike the US and the other countries in the coalition of the willing/stupid can cause serious economic damage by trivial things such as exchanging phones in-flight or writing BOB on a sick bag without any risk to themselves.
The war on terror is already as good as lost. William S. Lind‘s blog is a good source of information on some of the ways that the US is losing. It’s a pity that the Australian and UK governments are determined to take their countries down with the US.