Lofty language devoid of any substance - and of course people mod it as insightful. So you're saying that if someone brings a gun on an airplane we shouldn't care? What about a grenade? Other explosives? You chose not to live in fear, after all.

A lot of people are misunderstanding the OP. The fact that someone sneaks past security justifies searching them. Similarly, the fact that someone in the terminal has contact with someone outside of the terminal, justifies searching both of those people. In both of those situations, there is a valid reason to perform at least some search. The OP is NOT talking about how much authorityTSA should have in general, who searches should be performed on, or how searches should be performed. In other words, the OP was NOT saying that, as a matter of everyday security, we should patdown four-year old girls. The OP IS saying that the specific circumstances OF THIS CASE justified at least some extra scrutiny. For a community that purports to be news for nerds, it sure does have an abundance of people who are incapable of independent thought/reasoning.

No, her grandma might have been handing off contraband to her (not the other way around). I don't know how much familiarity you have with airport design, but I'm a business traveler and know how these things look. They're typically designed such that the patdown area is the last point of security - that is, after the patdown zone, you basically walk right into the terminal. If someone manages to have contact with a person in the patdown zone, they could easily sneak items past security. This is very poor design and SHOULD be changed. But, from the TSA officer's perspective, that's the design that's there and under these circumstances suspicion seems reasonable. As I said, I'm normally as anti-TSA as they come (and I think that security is too regulated to begin with), but with that said in these circumstances the TSA officer had a valid reason to be suspicious. PLEASE NOTE that I can't say whether or not the patdown went too far (I simply don' t know) - I'm just saying that at least some form of pastdown was justified.

I'm normally as anti-TSA as they come, but I actually think that this patdown was more reasonable than the title suggests. From what I can gather about the facts, first the little girl went through security. Then, while the grandmother was waiting to get a patdown, the little girl ran up to her grandmother and hugged her. That seems like it would be a pretty damn good way to pass off contraband. I mean, I understand that this WAS a four-year old girl getting a patdown, but you have to remember that this four-year old girl was traveling with an adult who had control over her. It's not hard to imagine scenarios in which terrorists use children as mules. I think that this case is an example where the TSA actually did their job properly - some TSA agent noticed something that to the untrained eye would have been an ordinary hug, but very plausibly could have been a pre-planned ploy to sneak contraband into the airport. Maybe the TSA could have approached the child more reasonably and given her more time to cool off, but overall I think that a patdown was justified.

We have a technology that could potentially lead to self-organizing micro-particles capable of rapidly forming complex shapes, and your first thought is "What if someone uses this technology to create a club and then clobbers someone over the head with it?"

How is this Insightful in any way? It's a conclusory response that turns out to be, at a minimum, a broad simplification, and more likely factually incorrect. I understand that posters want to mod-up posts that tend to agree with their opinions, but posts that purport to be facts (and incorrect ones at that) are hardly "Insightful." On the contrary, they're flat-out misleading. I'm not saying whether or not these arbitration clauses should/shouldn't be legal. I'm just saying that we should be careful not to confuse peoples' opinions with actual facts. One way to do this is to mod up posts that actually cite sources, and not ones that are merely conclusory (like here). [Sorry for re-post. My last post was accidentally made before I logged in]

This case deals in the realm of copyrights, not patents. It's important to note that this is also the rule in the U.S. - neither ideas nor systems/processes/procedures can be copyrighted. The problem, however, is drawing the line between "ideas" (which aren't protected by copyright) and "expression" (which is protected by copyright). As in many areas of law, there is no easy way to determine what exactly is an idea and what exactly is an expression. That's what this case dispute's hinges around. In conclusion, not allowing copyright protection for ideas is nothing new and is absolutely not newsworthy. [DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a lawyer, and I am NOT offering legal advice.]

Then you would potentially face penalties for spoilation of evidence in which case you could potentially face imprisonment and a jury would be permitted to "assume the worst." Good job. (Note: I am NOT a lawyer and I am NOT offering legal advice)

You do realize that we're talking about college textbooks here, right? The library isn't going to store 100+ copies of the same book for everyone to use. And a lot of the time, you can't simply check out a coursebook for an entire semester - it's seen as unfair to other students (and people who aren't taking the course but may need to use the book). Amazon seems to have adopted a pretty reasonable solution, as many schools already have textbook rental programs of their own. Now, you can rent the book in digital format, which is going to be very convenient for obvious reasons.

Michael Bolton: "You think the pet rock was a really great idea?" Tom Smykowski: "Sure it was. The guy made a million dollars."

Motorola just posted a $89 million loss for Q1. However, they sold a good bit of Xooms: 250,000 to be precise (recall that some estates predicted they would sell less than 15,000 of the devices). http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=14488

The article says that the researcher's developed a "novel" method. However, I'm pretty sure the Salem Witch Trials used this first. If the majority called "Witch!" off to the fires she went.

Discovering the Higgs Boson would be a huge confirmation of the Standard Model, but it seems like the only reason popular culture cares about it is because of its stupid nickname. Can we just agree to stop calling it "The God Particle?"

$7 million FEDERAL dollars to give these kids iPad 2s, while some inner-city schools in Detroit can't even afford teachers. Ridiculous.