High-flown nonsense over terror (The Times)

I have a piece in today's Times on the US' demand to know details about passengers flying over US airspace. Here's an extract: 

When was the last time you let a bunch of potential terrorists into your house? Indeed, when was the last time you let any group of strangers walk around your house without asking them what they wanted or where they were from?

You haven’t done either of these, of course. You’d be mad not to want to know who they were before you let them in. And you’d have to be especially mad if you had recent experience of people blowing your house up.

...Forgive me for stating the obvious, but isn’t Mr Chertoff being perfectly sensible? Given the experience of 9/11, of the shoe-bomber Richard Reid and of other Islamist terrorists’ attempts to use aircraft as flying bombs, the most basic security precautions surely involve cross-checking passengers’ data against suspicious behaviour patterns. Or should the Americans have no rights to keep out people they consider to be a threat?

The latest issue of The Economist adopts the outraged tone of the objectors, arguing that “risking death alongside American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan makes you a valued ally – unless you want to visit the US. Then you are a security risk and have to pay a hefty fee for a visa . . .” Eh? As if the welcome behaviour of some EU governments in sending soldiers to support the War on Terror means that they are less likely to harbour terrorists. Unfortunately, terrorists are not renowned for deciding that they will not operate from America’s allies.

The real issue, surely, is not the US; it is why we don’t demand the same information about passengers flying over our own airspace.

...The solution to this non-existent problem is straightforward. If you don’t like America’s terms of entry, don’t go.