Why in the world was the passenger in custody for “several hours”? They didn’t do anything wrong.

In short the reason is due to,

1, Uncertainty.
2, Political wallpapering. //

So “uncertainty” will always be there even if the probavility is very small.

Which is where we move from demonstrating “uncertainty” to demonstrating “political wallpapering”.

From a political perspective if it became known after a bomb went off that some one had alerted the authorities and the authorities failed to investigate then it would at the very least be a total PR disaster[2] for the politicians.

So to avoid such “PR disasters” happening for “Politicians” they have authorities under their nominal control issue avoidence rules that effectively say,

“Until proven otherwise all notified threats are to be treated as credible and must be acted upon.”

So if person B says the object person A has in their possession is a security threat the “Untill proven otherwise…” rule kicks in untill the uncertainty is resolved.

However this rule is not just in relation to aircraft security… //

Thus a “Political Rule” has become a weapon in it’s own right. That can be used against individuals and organisations via “denial of XXX” be it “Service”, “Rights”, “Liberty”, “Reputation”, etc, etc.

As we saw with the “bomb in a printer” scare, some years back, the bomb does not have to be viable in any way what so ever to cause very substantial damage.

The thing is it is a “no win” issue no matter what you do. 9/11 two decades back happened because those who committed the acts, had previously tested and found they could get box-cutters onto aircraft in their pockets or “carry on”.

Any expert will tell you “any object can be seen as a weapon” all that has to be done is “Work out how to realise the transformation”.