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The security scanning procedures at Philadelphia, in common with those across America and the rest of the world, were becoming progressively tighter. Less than a month previously, Richard Reid, the would-be ‘shoe bomber’, had been tackled and subdued on board a flight from Paris to Miami, thereby intiating the era of compulsory shoe-checking for all travellers. Pilots were not excused all these rigorous new checks, and when Woodie Menear’s turn came, the security screener expressed concern about the presence of a pair of tweezers in his cabin baggage. As it happened, tweezers – unlike corkscrews or metal scissors, for example – were not on the list of forbidden items; Menear was not breaching regulations by trying to bring them on board. But the official paused just long enough to spark frustration on the part of the pilot, who, like his colleagues, had been growing ever more exasperated by each new restriction. This time it was too much. Menear did not explode in rage; he merely asked a sarcastic question. But it was one that would lead to his immediate arrest, a night in jail, his suspension by US Airways, and months of legal wrangling before he was finally acquitted of making terroristic threats’ and permitted to return to his job.

‘Why are you worried about tweezers,’ Menear asked, ‘ when I could crash the plane?’

‘There are precisely two things that have made air travel safer since; locks on cockpit doors, and teaching passengers that they have to fight,’ Schineier told me.

Security was up at the nation’s airports, railway stations, and other transports hubs, including the construction of blast-resistant barriers. A posting on Schneier’s blog explained that the barriers would be constructed at Liverpool Lime Street, that city’s primary rail station, but that they would not be constructed at less busy suburban commuter stations, a few miles along the same stretch of track. The blog post was headlined: ‘UK Spends Billions to Force Rail Terrorists to  Drive a Little Further.’ Brown’s announcement was a classic piece of security theatre: a costly way to make travellers feel safer –  so long as they didn’t reflect too closely on the details – while doing nothing to deter an even slightly diligent terrorist.

Excerpted from ‘The Antidote – Happiness for People who can’t stand positive thinking’ by Oliver Burkeman