As we Americans depart for the Thanksgiving holiday, we often engage in a large amount of travel around the country. This year, I would like to have all of our readers pay special attention to the safety measures being used to protect you as you travel about.

On the roads, check out the numbers of police, their laser/radar guns and the automated systems they have been placing around the country for the last year or more. Do these deployments and tools really make you safer, or do they just make you feel safer?

At the airport, you will be asked to remove your shoes, place your laptop in a bin and put everything liquid into a clear plastic bag. Do any of these processes actually make you safer? Does having someone look at a clear liquid in a baggie make it more or less safe, or is this security theater?

Even trains, busses and other forms of public transportation have begun to deploy similiar techniques and new technologies. What is the value of these mechanisms?

So, as you travel this year, please pay attention, ask questions and compare the implementations to the risks. Some of the steps out there certainly make sense and protect us. My opinion is, many others are simply a waste of time, money and resources – since they truly provide little more than a feeling of safety or security through theater.

You decide. Maybe together, enough of us can help those in charge of such things make better choices about solutions. Maybe we can get them to focus on real risks, real threats and effective mitigations…

Either way, have a safe and happy holiday!