This morning 24 suspected terrorists were arrested in the UK as part of an investigation into attempts to takes bombs on board planes in hand luggage. The resulting disruption and restrictions almost made more news than the fact that firebombs with many hundreds of souls on-board could have been launched down on top of US cities!
I'm just glad I got home on Tuesday and I missed all this. It makes me wonder how much the authorities knew in advance – just after leaving Matt in SFO I walked up to the xray machine, unbundled the laptop and my bags and was then asked to step into a machine which blew little puffs of air into my clothes and under my shirt. It obviously sampled the chemicals on me. Lucky they didn't do it at the end of a 9 hour flight, 4 hour wait and 1 hour flight home!
On a brighter note, my luggage made it's way through security fine. I left my sandals in the bag, but took all the wires for the various chargers and devices out and carried them with me. Be warned, their machines are so sensitive that sandals with up to year old fertilizer on them and wires could be construed as a bomb!
Chris offers some advice for those travelling with camera kit. You won't be allowed bring it on board, so buy secure cases specifically for your equipment. He quotes Dan Chung:
I'd been thinking for a while about ordering a case that allows me to check my equipment in the hold if I have to. A solution used by many pros is the Pelican case. … One photographic dealer I contacted said he had already received seven orders by 9.30am this morning.
Always a man to get a conversation going, Damien asks if privacy advocates have any case to make if snooping on telephone and Internet traffic averted a major terrorist attack today?