When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty last week to the attempted murder of 289 passengers, Obama's critics were notably silent. That's because his plea underscores that U.S. federal courts are the most effective place to try terrorism suspects.

The new airport security measures demonstrate a frightening willingness on the part of the government regulators to apply an authoritarian, and ultimately nonsensical, logic to a real, but controllable security problem.