The first thing I thought of was that this is an excuse for more free feelies for TSA goons. The state has to keep people in a state of fear so they will quietly accept violations of their rights.
All these “we could have stopped this if we had this,” “we stopped some unidentified something in some something country that would have been real bad,” et cetera are just a bunch of lying bullshit.
TSA, DHS et al can’t find their butts with both hands and a flashlight. Anything they’ve stopped where it’s been show that it was an actual threat was as a result of them MISSING it and the perpetrators failing.
Underwear bomber: detonated in flight, failed.
Shoe bomber: tried to light in flight, failed.
Boston: successful - NSA, TSA, DHS, FBI too busy listening to our phone calls to care.
Incompetents.