At first, when passing through security at Kansas City International Airport, I was pleased — they have a separate security checkpoint for each series of gates, instead of one bottleneck like at other airports.
Then it dawned on me: the security checkpoints are only a few feet away from the actual gate, and the secure area is separated from the insecure area by a simple glass wall, about 10 feet high.
I know that the point here is to keep dangerous people off the plane, preventing something from happening inflight. But it occurs to me that you’d only have to walk into the airport and throw a small bomb over the glass wall. (Then again, I suppose you could blow up any airport with all the people standing in lines outside the secure area. Nevermind.)
Sort of reminds me of some European airports, where the security checkpoint is right there at the gate. (Then again, I haven’t flown to Europe in a few years; maybe things have changed.)