Airport screeners at Edmonton International Airport found a pipe bomb in a young man鈥檚 carry-on luggage, but let him on the plane and didn鈥檛 call police until four days later. One source says the security officers even tried to give the bomb back to the man, 18-year-old Skylar Murphy of Spruce Grove, Alta., but he didn鈥檛 want it.
The bomb was a steel pipe filled with gunpowder, with a metre of fuse at each end, so it would fit even the most casual observer鈥檚 definition of 鈥渟uspicious.鈥�
Airline travellers jump through security hoops every time they fly. We put our liquids and gels into regulation-size plastic bags. We take off every bit of metal. We heave our coats and bags into trays. We submit to metal detectors and full-body scanners. Our possessions are swabbed for traces of explosives.
Frail seniors in wheelchairs are made to stand and be scanned with wands. We are warned that even joking about bombs will be treated as a criminal offence. We know that the slightest mistake will bring the police running.
We know that all this is done to protect us from hijackers and bombers. It gives us a sense of security, if not actual security.
But all that aggravation is pointless if the security staff see the bomb and do nothing but tell its owner to have a nice day.
