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Huh? No, I am talking about walk-through metal detectors.
As for the boxcutters, are you not aware that they were used because they were perfectly legal to bring on planes at the time? Is the regulation that now bans them also "secutity theater"?
And, tell me, why did the "underwear bomber" have to use some half-assed method instead of one which, you know, was more likely to work? Could it be because "security theater" prevented him from doing so?
Thus proving the x-rays and metal detectors were security theater - there were (and still are) legal ways of coming on board an airplane armed.
It's because he was an incompetent idiot, and that's the only sort of person these measures have a chance of catching. If "white-hat hijacking" was legal maybe I could show you what I mean, but since I don't want to end up on a list I prefer to not go into details.
The thing that's actually preventing another 9/11 is that competent people have a lot to lose, and nothing to gain from such an attack. The next time a charismatic leader radicalizes a group of reasonably intelligent people, the TSA will be just as powerless to stop them.
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