I have a friend who went through security holding onto a Mountain Dew soda beverage.  Security at the airport.  The airport where congress in the United States has made that illegal.  So my friend was told by security, “You cannot take that drink through security, sir.”  His curt reply was, “What?  Am I going to make a bomb out of Mountain Dew?”

They really made the rest of his stay at the airport exciting and irritating.  Security, whose purpose is to make sure we’re all safe, was not a joke.  While traveling through the security checkpoint at the Denver International Airport, around the same time, I discovered I had accidentally left my pocket knife in my pocket (where it belongs).  I quickly slipped it into my computer bag with my keys and wallet and let it go through x-ray.  If they find it, I want them to find it and remove it from my bag and I’ll blush for having forgotten to put it on my night stand.  Security didn’t catch my knife on the x-ray screen.  I got to keep it, hidden, and then when I arrived in Grapevine, TX, I put it in my luggage that was checked so as to not get it confiscated by the DFW screeners who are effective at finding knives in bags… I’ve lost two to them.

Last night I watched Spaceballs at the movie theater with my brother-in-law.  In that movie there are a few really, really good bits on security holes that often exist in real-life security situations.  The combination number for the planet Druidia’s security system was 1-2-3-4-5 [as was the president’s luggage combination]. The security guards protecting the self-destruct mechanism inside of Spaceball One (the extra-long battleship) help foil the security.  Mel Brookes, the genius behind Spaceballs, saw the idiotic nature of much of our security in the world and cried foul, and nearly made me cry because it was so funny.

This morning I watched Pinky & the Brain with my daughters.  Again, they bring to light the comedy of lax security in what should be important situations.  Comedy makes us laugh about what is really important.  What is so often funny in the comedy is that we all know that the human error involved in the scenarios is quite probable.  Worse, we can laugh because we see the horrible catastrophe playing out before our eyes.  Even more we see in books like Dave Barry’s Big Trouble has a great section at the end of the book where terrorists jump through security with guns as if its no problem simply because they can time the system and game it.  The writing is hilarious (as is most of Dave’s work) but the problem is real.

Does the staff at the TSA, FBI, CIA, BMW or AT&T [that was a little comedy right there.  Very little.] ever watch comedy movies or television shows?  Because when they make choices about security it isn’t always obvious?  Bruce Schneier, a respected security expert and security blogger, has written on many occasions about the bumbling choices that get made in the name of security.  I would laugh if it wasn’t so irritating to have so many good examples.  I hear you loud and clear from here, Bruce, there’s very little that we won’t try in the name of security, except for the stuff that works, because that’s just ridiculous.