Please take your shoes off. Please step over here while I empty the contents of your bag. Please do four jumping jacks. Please do not bring any hockey sticks or ballistic missiles onto the airplane.

Does any of this sound familiar? Over the past two years, air travel has stepped up from a hassle to a full-fledged debacle. But it is a sacrifice that almost all of us are willing to make; a necessary inconvenience. It is the price that we have been forced to pay for safe air travel.

But the question remains: Are we really safer, or do we just feel like we are safer? Well, while we are all sitting here thinking about how to answer this question, a 20 year-old Maryland man went out and proved his answer to the question.

Nathaniel Heatwole, a student at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., took it upon himself to prove how ineffective new airport security measures were. He brought several box cutters and other banned items onto at least two Southwest Airlines planes and then, undetected, left them on board in the bathrooms. He then got off the plane.

All the while inflicting no harm on anyone, he was simply trying to prove his point: that security did nothing to prevent him from carrying these potentially harmful objects onboard. Heatwole proceeded to e-mail the Transportation Security Administration (an agency created in the aftermath of September 11 designed specifically to prevent things like this from happening) and tell them about the items still on the planes.

No one took his e-mail seriously. It took four weeks for these items to be found, which were still stowed away in bathroom compartments on the aircrafts. The security breaches not only occurred when entering the airport, but also when no routine checks of the plane revealed the location of these weapons.

While the FBI, the TSA and everyone else in the air travel industry runs around like chickens with their heads cut off, we, the American Public are left with several thoughts: Is this guy crazy? What else could he have brought through security? Is he going to receive the maximum allowable penalty of ten years in prison? Because, in essence, he really did help the TSA out by serving as an unknown undercover agent to reveal holes in their policy.

I do not, by any means, condone this guy's behavior. But, at the same time, I have a little bit of respect for someone who would perpetrate such a "crime." As far as anyone knows, he had no intention to harm anyone — he was merely proving a theory that security is really no match for anyone with half a brain.

Obviously, the federal government has to take offense at a 20-year-old kid making a mockery of their "security measures," but they should also learn the lesson that no one can be underestimated. I do not know how his case will end up or what punishment he will receive. But I think he should get a slap on the wrist, a red flag on his permanent file and an under the table thank you note for exploiting some flaws in a system that could have really turned out bad for the United States. Who knows, maybe this whole ordeal will further the prevention of future terrorist attacks by forcing the TSA to fill in holes now, instead of after another tragedy.

Randall Jay Payleitner is a junior in LAS. His columns appear Fridays. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.