Mr. bin Laden, you're clear to fly

Imagine if the world's most notorious fugitive, Osama bin Laden, attempted to board an airliner in the United States. Suppose he were clean-shaven, sporting short hair, wearing a pinstriped business suit and looked like so many other travelers that no suspicions were raised. How far might he get? If he used aliases such as names of family members, he would be nabbed instantly and whisked away for questioning. That's because many of his relatives are on the FBI's secret "no-fly list," according to intelligence sources.

But suppose he boldly decided to use his own name. Would he be cleared to fly? Insight recently learned that scenario was tested at a U.S. airport in the South during January. The result was troubling: America's most-wanted fugitive is cleared to fly. According to airline-security documents obtained by this magazine, the name Osama bin Laden was punched into the computer by an airline official and, remarkably, that name was cleared at the security checkpoint all passengers must pass through before being issued a boarding pass.

The realization that Osama bin Laden made the cut sent shivers down the spines of airline-security officials who discovered the system gap.

After spending years and billions, the TSA seems to have given us a system that could be defeated by a child. Consider this simple tactic: enter the airport with your team of terrorists and collect your boarding passes. Then, all the terrorists meet in the bathroom and give their weapons to anyone among them who didn't have a big, red S stamped on his boarding pass.

Of course, they hardly need to go to such trouble. Enterprising people have managed to smuggle guns, knives, box cutters, even fake plastic explosive on to airplanes simply by walking through security.

Remember, too, that even though these airline security watchlists have yet to catch a single terrorist, they have already harassed and humiliated hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people whose opinions are critical of the Bush Administration. The Nazi's used gold stars; we use a red S. The effect, at the moment, seems to be similar.