The Tegucigalpa threat.

If private pilots can avoid security completely, airlines serving small airports come pretty close to attaining the same result. "Many of these airports have no metal detection, no security screening, and no inspection of luggage for explosives," writes The Washington Port's Sam Kehaulani Goo. Yet small airports can serve thousands of people. The North Las Vegas airport had 64,000 passengers last year. And their planes fly into large cities like Dallas with targets like the Cowboys' Texas Stadium that are very tempting to terrorists.

The small airport problem here is another version of one that has long worried me: the Third World airports that, despite lax security procedures, send planes to large cities in the United States today. Passengers from London and Paris may be carefully scrutinized--in fact steps have recently been taken to make sure they are--but just imagine what the security is like in San Salvador, Guatemala City, or Tegucigalpa?