British Airways Chair scoffs at TSA rules

Huffington Post:

"We need to keep passengers safe, but there's also a whole bunch of security rules that could be eased out," said Chris Yates, an aviation security analyst in London.

The requirement to remove shoes for screening, for example, was "the knee-jerk reaction after Richard Reid." The newest metal detectors would sense any metal such as wiring in shoes, he contended.

Many of the security rules are in place because of history rather than real risk, agreed Todd Curtis, a Seattle-based security expert at airsafe.com.

"Shoes get special attention because of their potential to hide explosives, but there are literally thousands of other items that do not get such screening," Curtis said.

He noted that laptops must be taken out of your bag for inspection, but not notebook computers, which have much more capacity than most shoes to carry explosives.