Airport security.

• Author: Stewart, Bill
• Position: READERS' FORUM: VIEWS ... COMMENTS ... SUGGESTIONS - Letter to the editor

* The "Tunnel of Truth" in your March 2008 story (page 16) strikes me like an invention of Maxwell Smart of the '60s spy spoof. Remember the "Cone of Silence"?

The "security" issues Transportation Security Laboratory Director Susan Hallowell is spending large dollars to solve are in fact airline "service" issues.

If airlines could quickly and reliably deliver a passenger's baggage to the end destination then carry-on baggage--the point of most of these expensive scanners--could be eliminated. My recommendation is to fine an airline $10,000 for a lost bag; $500 for every bag that it isn't on the carousel by the time the passengers reach baggage claim.

Give all passengers decent, free food, like the good old days, then ban the carryon meals. This will be much less expensive and ever so much more convenient than scanners attempting to distinguish which bags are burgers and which are bombs. Give air marshals authority to fine airlines for bad food.

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Shoddy baggage handling and lousy food doesn't "save" money, it just externalizes it to the passengers and the government...