If the DC ADIZ (or
something similar) did not exist, there would be no opportunity to
determine how much of a threat those flights might be, and the
military would have no other option but to shoot them down.

Not true. The military would always have the option of not shooting
them down. The likelyhood that an aircraft flying around Washington DC
is a threat is miniscule. I am comfortable continuing with this
assumption. If historical fact is to be any guide, airliners should be
banned from DC, certainly from National Airport. Anyone wanting to fly
the airlines into DC should have to fly to Baltimore and catch a bus.

The DC ADIZ is protection against an imaginary monster in the closet.

The DC ADIZ, at it's present size, seems to have been effective so far
in preventing erroneous killing of wayward, non-treating flights. If
it did not exist, I could easily see unidentified/unauthorized flights
that penetrate the FRZ being downed by mistake.

What has been effective has been our reluctance to down aircraft that
are already =in= the FRZ. This appears to be ending.

You mean like the CIA did in Peru:

Yep. Exactly like that. But the CIA, like the Secret Service, does
whatever it wants. I'm not convinced it's really accountable to
anybody. And I know people personally who have witnessed and been
victim of other atrocities in this country (USA) at the hands of US
agencies like this one.

What would you propose in place of the DC ADIZ and FRZ?

Class E and class B airspace, the way it was in 2000.

The cat is out of the bag. Just as you cannot reasonably defend
yourself from being hit by gunfire while walking down the street, we
cannot reasonably defend ourselves from having our own high-energy
devices turned against us. There are too many of them, manned by too
few people, too low on the pay scale. You'd need armed guards around
every gas station's storage tank valve, escorts for every delivery truck
in the city, and a listening watch on the entire internet and cellphone
network.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
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