How Much Risk Will We Take?

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Every time the government scrambles to defend against the newest threat, it runs the risk of shortchanging more pressing ones. Investing in body-scanning machines or prohibiting carry-on luggage might provide a degree of security against liquid explosives, but such steps would do nothing about the fact that most of the cargo shipped on passenger planes goes entirely uninspected--for bombs or anything else. DHS relies instead on a program it calls Known Shipper, which leaves it up to air carriers and freight forwarders to screen regular cargo customers so they can load boxes onto planes with only spot inspections. The Government Accountability Office warned last October that the industry isn't adequately investigating shippers. But the Bush Administration and the airlines, which make about $17 billion a year from cargo on passenger planes, have resisted introducing tougher rules.

The key, though, has less to do with the sheer number of searches than with trying to make sure we're conducting the right ones. Several security experts interviewed by TIME said they hope the London plot encourages Americans to do more sophisticated profiling of suspects. The U.S. already profiles all passengers, using computer software. But the methodology is outdated. The system searches for people who pay with cash or book their flight less than 24 hours in advance. The country has a legal, moral and political aversion to officially sanctioned discrimination. But there are ways to profile other than skin color. Software could search passengers' previous travel itineraries or their nationality, for example.

While the U.S. tries to improve its fragmented intelligence capabilities, the second best defense might be vigilance. Most terrorists make mistakes, just as other criminals do. Mohammed told CIA interrogators that he had inadvertently packed a copy of the Bojinka plan with all the targeted flights and explosion times in his bag on the Philippine Airlines test run. Nobody noticed. Today someone might--just as a flight attendant noticed Richard Reid trying to light his shoe in a failed attempt to blow up a transatlantic plane. "We're lucky the people we're up against are so incompetent," says Larry Johnson, a former State Department counterterrorism official.

The trick is to find that narrow space between vigilance and paranoia. After the Bojinka plot was uncovered in 1995, aviation officials banned carry-on aerosols and most liquids and gels heavier than an ounce on U.S. planes leaving Manila. Eventually, the ban faded away. And people kept flying.

Regular people are often more comfortable assessing risk than officialdom expects. They may not be perfect at it, but they do it every day. Nancy Bort of Arlington, Va., landed at Washington's Dulles International Airport on the first flight from London Heathrow after the arrests. The plane arrived nearly two hours late, and the passengers emerged clutching plastic bags for their passports and not much else. But Bort was unfazed. "I still think I have a greater chance of being hurt in a car accident than getting killed by a terrorist," she said.

Last year car crashes claimed the lives of an estimated 40,000 people in America. Terrorists? Zero.