Regulatory corruption and 9/11

There has been much written about how our civil liberties have been irrationally eroded after 9/11, and how burdensome air travel has become. What seems to have been forgotten is that a significant factor in 9/11 was our corrupt regulatory system. The FAA had become another federal agency largely unable to regulate because of industry lobbying. The airlines resisted pre-9/11 FAA proposals to strengthen cockpit doors, for example. Failing to require those doors be strengthened was one of nine fatal mistakes made by the government that could have prevented the tragedy, according to the 9/11 Commission.

The industry also was not following passenger screening rules, and the FAA was not holding airlines accountable for this. Some of the hijackers paid for tickets in cash at the airport just before their flights, which should have triggered additional screening. What's more, the hijackers did this several times before 9/11 as a test, and none were subjected to additional checks. If regulations had been followed, the hijackers might have been caught, since some were already on watch lists and the FBI was trying to find them.

Our safety has gotten worse, not better, since 9/11, because in the name of security, we vote for politicians who simultaneously promise more security and preach that we'd all be better off if government just left business alone. In contrast to the some of the overreaction in airline security, regulation abdication by government has made us less safe in so many other ways. For example, although we may be less likely to die in a hijacked airplane, our kids and our pets are more likely to die from tainted food or dangerous toys.