This would be utterly laughable, if not for the fact that it’s, what’s the word, frightening?
Somewhere in the world, there’s a navy blue suitcase with a small pack of explosives tucked in its side pocket.
Four days after police at Charles de Gaulle Airport slipped some plastic explosives into a random passenger’s bag as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs, it is still missing—and authorities are stumped and embarrassed.
As Bruce Schneier notes, it’s reasonable for authorities to plant real plastic explosives in a test of airport security, but it is completely ridiculous for the “plant” to be an innocent, random bystander.
Unfortunately, it shouldn’t take any kind of security expert to figure this out.
I’m all for suspense, but ladies and gents, let’s keep it in the movies.
(via Schneier on Security: “How Not to Test Airport Security” [December 20, 2004]; MSNBC/AP: “A police exercise with the stuff of mystery” [December 7, 2004])