Doug Maughan's pre-flight checks (Letters, December 21) are unlikely to uncover concealed explosives, but the checks harm no-one. Random searches of rail passengers by police are similarly unlikely to detect terrorist activity, but are not so benign.
Transport minister Tom Harris may enjoy the prospect of the police reading personal and confidential correspondence, or rifling through packed underwear in public, but this pointless intrusion is less welcomed by those of us who risk arbitrary detention by the Transport Inquisition while going about our lawful, everyday business.
The government's policy of instilling fear in the population does nothing to make us safer. The notion that we must give up our privacy or liberty to protect our way of life is absurd.
Police should stop trying to terrorise us and get back to proper community policing.
Geraint Bevan, 3e Grovepark Gardens, Glasgow.
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