From Glenn Fleishman’s post to the Interesting People mailing list:
I heard the strangely frank head of TSA on NPR this morning–perhaps he forgot he was speaking to the public?–talk quite honestly about what I would describe as “yield management for risk.”
Basically:
* The pilots are now protected, so the plane won’t be weaponized even if many passengers were to die on board.
* Passengers will overwhelm someone armed with relatively minor weapons, even if some passengers die. That’s acceptable risk.
* A lot of stuff on planes can be used as weapons already (he didn’t elaborate).
* The evaluated risk of smaller knives is low in their testing — meaning whatever air marshalls wear for protection will resist punctures from smaller knives.He said the focus is now on explosive detection.