Working tangentially to the legal field as I do, I occasionally have to enter courthouses and other government buildings. The Federal building here in Tampa has extremely tight security: first, you have to show photo ID before even being permitted to put your possessions onto the X-Ray conveyor. Then, once your items have been cleared, you may step through the metal detector, which is calibrated so high that the zipper on my jacket sets it off. Which means standing on an insulated pad and assuming the position to be wanded. Then, once they're satisfied, you can collect your possessions — but if anything arouses the guards' suspicion, you have to explain it and (if possible) demonstrate that it operates without exploding.

The guards recognize my MP3 player by now, but my flash drive caused some consternation this morning. And of course I didn't have a computer to demonstrate it on, but they let me through with a healthy dose of suspiciously furrowed brows.

Now, if I were a terrorist, and had designed some dangerous item of that size which I wanted to smuggle through security — a remote detonator, say — I certainly wouldn't make it out of eye-catching green transparent plastic which showed electronic circuitry inside. I'd make it look like a common item, such as a car's remote-entry keyfob (which they didn't even look twice at on my keyring).

But that's just me. Perhaps terrorists have a penchant for brightly-colored objects.