The morning of the British "liquid explosive" arrests, and security at BWI airport goes bonkers. The single security line stretches from one end of the terminal to the other and snakes back again.
This was done on deadline, which means I had about a half hour to get to the airport, get a shot, and transmit back to the paper. I was a little freaked because normally you need an exclusive "clearance" to shoot there, and there was no time to get it. So I went with what Matt Button taught me, the one about it being better to ask forgiveness then permission. Marched straight in, shot everything in sight, no one said a word. Cool.
Of course, what was the point? Does anyone really believe that there was a "liquid explosive" threat that could be packaged into tubes of chapstick? The guys they arrested didn't actually have any, they just talked about how great it would be if they did. In '05 they used plain old backpack bombs, and thats been called "England's 9-11". Wouldnt any committed bomber do a variation on that? Look at all those people, waiting patiently for some homeland security ju-ju man to wave a wand of burnt forskins over them to insure protection from the terrorist hoodoo. This is the "duck and cover" of our day, magical and fruitless.