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Submitted for Your Inspection

This week's column comes to you from a cyber-cafe in Sitka, Alaska, where bandwidth is at a premium, so we will again postpone our promised discussion of cryptography and send something shorter, about something that happened on our way to the last frontier.

It took us three flights to get from Florida to Alaska. When we arrived in Sitka and picked up our checked bags from the conveyor belt, Stephen noticed that his bag had a blue plastic tag attached, acting like a seal between the zippers used to open the bag. The tag had a serial number and the letters "TSA." When we checked into the hotel and opened our bags, Stephen found a printed note that said:

"To protect you and your fellow passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is required by law to inspect all checked baggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection."

The note continued:

"If the TSA screener was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the screener may have been forced to break the locks on your bag. TSA sincerely regrets having to do this, and has taken care to reseal your bag upon completion of inspection. However, TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution."

Now this is what you call a security dilemma. Do you lock your checked bags to stop people stealing things out of them? Having experienced theft of this nature, we find the idea of not locking bags hard to accept (although it must be said that we generally avoid placing precious objects in checked bags).

Is leaving bags unlocked an invitation, a temptation? What if terrorists decide to exploit the fact that bags are routinely traveling in an unlocked state and slip stuff into them in transit? What if a jealous lover slips something banned into your unlocked bag on the drive to the airport, then calls TSA to warn them? Of course, as a traveler, you now have a very strong case for claiming that anything found in your bag was planted. After all, in accordance with federal government requirements, it was not locked.

And what kind of damage is going to be done by the TSA if you really lock your bags tightly? We have friends who enjoy the shooting arts. What happens to a gun safe placed in a checked bag? Or a jewelry safe placed in a checked bag?

All interesting questions, but perhaps not as troubling as the realization that, two years after 9/11, we have all been made suspects. Is there a pattern of American citizens who are also middle-aged businessmen of European descent carrying out deadly terrorist attacks against America? Not that we have heard of. So why rifle through their luggage? The resources required could surely be better deployed checking more closely those people who do fit the terrorist profile.

And what does the government risk by continuing this current behavior? We suggest that it risks the goodwill of the citizenry, some of whom are already beginning to wonder if the war on terror is going to be like the war on drugs, a never-ending excuse for going over budget and needlessly interfering in innocent lives, at home and in far-flung places, annoying patriots and allies alike.

If you doubt this, wait until your bag rolls off the conveyor belt bearing a blue tag and you open it to find someone has rifled through your things.

*Please note that, by the time this column appears we will be on a fishing boat in the Gulf of Alaska out of range of the Internet and unable to answer email until later in the month.

[Chey Cobb, CISSP, the author of "Network Security for Dummies," is an independent consultant (www.cheycobb.com) and a former senior technical security advisor to the NRO. She can be emailed as chey at patriot dot net. Stephen Cobb, CISSP, has been a U.S citizen since 1981, and points out that, unlike most citizens, he passed a test to become one. He can be emailed as scobb at cobb dot com.]

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