June 07, 2005 | Hitchens Torches TSA

Seems Christopher Hitchens's post-9/11 conversion wasn't enough to give him preferential status to take his cigarette lighter and his incendiary prose past TSA security onto an airplane.

What we are looking at, then, is a hugely costly and oppressive system that is designed to maintain the illusion of safety and the delusion that the state is protecting its citizens. The main beneficiaries seem to be the pilferers employed by this vast bureaucracy—we have had several recent reports about the steep increase in items stolen from luggage. And that is petty theft that takes place off-stage. What amazes me is the willingness of Americans to submit to confiscation at the point of search. Every day, people are relieved of private property in broad daylight, with the sole net result that they wouldn't have even a nail file with which to protect themselves if (or rather when) the next hijacking occurs.

Last month, cigarette lighters were added to the confiscation list. There's probably some half-baked "shoe-bomber" justification for this, but I hear that at Boise airport in Idaho there's now a lighter bin on the way out of the airport, like the penny tray in some shops, that allows you to pick one up. Give one; take one—it all helps to pass the time until the next disaster, which collective punishment of the law-abiding is doing nothing to prevent.

God knows what scorn he'll dispense if airlines ban high-octane booze on flights out of concern someone might make a molotov cocktail.

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Posted by Ryan Singel at June 7, 2005 12:36 PM

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