The FCO claim that records of extraordinary rendition flights to Diego Garcia were destroyed by water damage is an insult to all our intelligence. The FCO is refusing to say where the records were at the time, or what else was damaged in the (presumed) flood. This is of a piece with, but much more serious than, the “accidental” shredding of all Tony Blair’s parliamentary expenses claims. It is not that they expect us to believe them – they just don’t care. They have the power, and we don’t.
Just as much an insult to our intelligence is the new scheme of security measures at airports. These are all to do with maintaining the fear levels that keep the population compliant, and nothing to do with aviation security. If you have some kind of bomb inside an electronic device, you need a power source to trigger it. The last thing a bomber wants is a flat battery.
It is over twenty years now since I went on a MI6/SAS hosted course at “the Fort” near Gosport. One of the things we were shown and had explained to us, was a laptop which had been converted into a very effective bomb incorporating a slim sheet of semtex. That laptop could switch on and work absolutely normally. The laptop battery was the power source for the detonator.
Explosives detectors at airports would today pick up the semtex. That a mobile phone with no power source could be a bomb, in a way not immediately spotted by x-ray or explosives detector, is a nonsense. If you want to cause real damage on a plane, buy two one litre bottles of 50% strength premium vodka in duty free and set fire to them. You would be surprised at the extreme heat that can produce in a confined space.