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Dec 29th, 2019
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Joined: Jan 2003
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I don't know if anyone has labeled it this way, but thanks be to Christ, there was no disaster of a plane of 300 people being blown up that day, because, in my opinion, that Nigerian fellow being allowed on the plane was a monumental mistake...For one, after 9/11 and the failed Shoe Bomber miracle, it was said that the biggest flag of these terrorist murderers was that they checked into an international flight with no luggage! HELLO! So, this Nigerian fellow does this too and no flags were raised?!? Also, we also learned that another 'clue' to a prospective airplane murderer/bomber/terrorist is having only a one way ticket, which this guy also had!!! Have we learned nothing? How can we have faith in our system working now???
So, WASP grandmothers continue to get taken aside to be patted down, Christian families like my husband's cousins visiting from Greece (and are British citizens) continue to get detained by our airport authorities, teenagers (like my daughter when she studied abroad one semester), for no apparent reason continue to get red flags in the computer to search their luggage, etc., etc. etc., so that we can feel good that we are being 'politically correct' in screening for terrorists, and foreign Muslim men with all the 'clues' of intent to kill walk right through our screenings...UNBELIEVABLE...and that is why I call this a 'Christmas miracle'. Thank you Lord.
US aware 'Nigerian' prepared for terror attack
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been charged over the incident The US was aware that "a Nigerian" in Yemen was being prepared for a terrorist attack - weeks before an attempted bombing on a US plane. ABC News and the New York Times say there was intelligence to this effect, but its source is unclear. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam before changing planes for a flight to Detroit on which he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb. The Netherlands is to introduce body scanners on US flights within weeks. Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst said Mr Abdulmutallab did not raise any concerns as he passed through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to board the flight. She said the airport would be able to use body scanners on all flights to the US from the airport in three weeks, adding that they would be a permanent fixture. Obama denounces lapses US President Barack Obama has said security failures were unacceptable. He has said a systemic failure allowed Mr Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, to fly to the US on 25 December despite family members warning officials in November that he had extremist views. The source of the intelligence about "a Nigerian" in Yemen was reported as coming from the Yemeni government or from US intercept intelligence, which can refer to intercepted e-mail and phone calls. Mr Obama said he wanted to know why a warning weeks ago from Mr Abdulmutallab's father did not lead to the accused being placed on a no-fly list. "We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix flaws in the system," Mr Obama said. "When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could have cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred." Some passengers and crew tackled Mr Abdulmutallab in his seat about 20 minutes before landing in Detroit as he allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his underwear. Following a preliminary investigation, the Dutch interior minister described the bomb as professionally made but executed in an "amateurish" way. Mr Abdulmutallab has reportedly told investigators that he trained in Yemen with al-Qaeda. He was living in Yemen from August to early December, the foreign ministry said, according to an earlier report from the official Saba news agency. He had a visa to study Arabic at an institute in the capital, Sana'a. CIA spokesman George Little earlier said the agency had become aware of Mr Abdulmutallab in November when his father, who had lost contact with him, visited the US embassy to seek help in finding him. He said the agency had ensured the Nigerian's name was added to the government's terrorist database, and was forwarded to the National Counterterrorism Center. www.bbcnews.com [ bbcnews.com]
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Decisiveness cannot be delegated. I hope President Obama will never need to be decisive.
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It is incomprehensible to me that every possible suspect (like this one, whose own father reported him to the American embassy) is not put into the computer system to be taken aside and examined more thorougly, or that at the very least, those who have no luggage for an international flight are not taken aside!!! The mistakes that occured are seriously frightening for all airplane travelers.
I also find the 'new' rules after these miraculous failed attempts silly. We are not thinking out of the box, but just reacting to something that already happened and which will be different in the future. For instance, we all know how we have to remove our shoes to board international flights since the shoe bomber. Now, we will all be forced to our seats for one hour before landing...that is so stupid--does that mean that a prospective bomber will not make an attempt during another hour of the flight?!? Just because that was the way it happened this time, does not mean that it will be attempted the same way next time.
I just find all this so reactive rather than proactive. Lord have mercy.
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The flaw with a purely reactive response is that a terrorist only needs to slip through the cracks once to achieve terrorism, they can adapt much faster than procedures can react.
The radicals' war of Jihad is borderless and ideological, that makes it difficult for a nation to defend itself from attacks here and there.
Terry
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Alice,
I was the victim of it myself.
I tried to visit a friend in Canada and got harrased for over an hour. All because I had made two pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
Stephanos I
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Alice,
I was the victim of it myself.
I tried to visit a friend in Canada and got harrased for over an hour. All because I had made two pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
Stephanos I How totally ridiculous for them to do this to a priest!!!  My 75 year old, white haired mother recently, on embarking on an international flight got asked to step aside to be put into a cubicle/room without any explanation. She was in there all alone for ten minutes. When they opened the door to let her out, she said "I couldn't get out!", to which the person replied: "that was the whole point". Again, totally ridiculous! I just heard that it was not the bravery of the men who jumped on the terrorist, but the faulty detonator (thanks be to Christ on His birthday) that prevented this explosion. For those who need to travel abroad on a regular basis for whatever reason, family, business, etc., or even for one time trips, what Terry argues is of little consolation and comfort. (no offense, Terry  )...We need to empathize with all our brothers and sisters, whether or not we can relate to their international travelling. Personally, I think that german shephards should be placed alongside the metal detectors one passes through, and that every single person going through that should be sniffed for explosives, since those who we trust to be doing their job to protect us are not doing it so well. The cost of these trained dogs in every airport in this country and around the world is minimal. The other new precautions are simply ridiculous, and will make no difference to the plan of a terrorist. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize this. In Christ, Alice
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Joined: Nov 2002
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I found the Israeli gentleman who has had experience in counter terrorism measures related to airport security to have the best suggestions. He said we need to train our airport security people much longer; we need to profile--though he said we somehow seem to think this is some sort of civil rights violation; we need to refuse to allow airport security to unionize and also to let each person involved know that one mistake traceable to him means firing with "no mercy." He said that we need to use dogs to sniff out contraband and that they are cheaper than the pricey gadgets that we seem to want to buy so many of. He said that this is a life and death business and that we seem to have a lot of political correctness that we seem to think needs to be part of the equation.
He's been interviewed on two cable channels I've seen in the past two days.
BOB
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Unionization and "firing without mercy" are not compatible objectives, Bob. Never have been, never will be. That aside, I have since before 2001 advocated the Israeli model, which is based on profiling of behavior and certain other factors (age, sex, place of origin, traveling alone or in a group, one-way or round trip, cash or credit card)--as well as cross referencing with extensive databases of "persons of interest".
The sad fact is none of the security measures implemented by the TSA since 2001 has done anything to improve airline safety, and in many instances is actually counterproductive (those long lines of people backed up at the security gate provide terrorists with what we in the business call a target-rich environment.
The key to Israel's success is hiring very intelligent people, giving them extensive training, paying them enough to retain their talents, constantly reassessing and testing all assumptions, and understanding that terrorists only have to succeed once. We've never really taken airport security seriously, in large part because a substantial part of the electorate and one of the major political parties refuses to take terrorism as a serious threat and as a mode of asymmetrical warfare. When I fly (which I do less and less frequently), I mentally note all of the ways in which I, as a terrorist, could wreak havoc at the airport and in the air. I have jotted down some notes, and I could, of course, put something together that could be forwarded to the TSA, but I fear that would merely make me a "person of interest". I'll wait until the government gives me a contract before I put my thoughts on paper.
Last edited by StuartK; 12/30/09 08:33 PM.
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Catholic Gyoza Member
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I think that I should have given my bank account number to that Nigerian guy who e-mailed me. Maybe if the Nigerian gentleman would have gotten his 70% of the $47,000,000 he wouldn't have tried to blow up the airplane. 
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The *most* interesting proposal I've seen is a *discount* for legally armed passengers . . .
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Bob, the SCOTUS has ruled racial and religious profiling to be a violation of civil rights. Therefore, until it makes i to the SCOTUS again, in the US, it is in fact unlawful to use on US soil. (But rest assured, the DOD uses it all the time in threat analysis as does the CIA... just not acted upon for persons within the US, wink wink nudge nudge...)
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That is true, albeit stupid. But one can profile behavior without any violation of civil liberties. For instance, a person who subscribes to jihadist web sites or publishes jihadist tracts (as did both the Fort Hood shooter and Captain Underpants) would be noted because of that behavior, not because of their underlying race or religion. Similarly, other behaviors are already profiled (but were in the most recent case ignored): buying a one-way ticket; paying for the ticket in cash; traveling without luggage (not even carry-on).
Let's face it--everybody profiles, because it is a survival mechanism. Black cabbies in DC won't pick up young black men after dark. Are they racists? Or perhaps they know the majority of violent crimes in DC are committed by young black men, and they are willing to pass up a fare and risk a fine in order to enhance their chances of getting back to their families in one pience?
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The Monks from HRM in California are usally taken aside for a special frisk when travelling by air in the US. One of the airport security said on one occasion that flowing robes are an indicator for a special search. I think their Abbot Archimandrite Nicholas is always taken aside. Looks Greek, flowing robes and a beard. Does that description match any of the bombers whose photos are already know? 
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Israel has two international airports and ten domestic airports. On the scale alone it will be easier to find and fill the security with talent; everything is more visible when on that narrow scale and accountability naturally more severe.
If TSA adds too many more delays to the passengers they may kill the short-haul flights, as it will be faster to take the 4/5 hour drive from Houston to Dallas, for example, than it would to fly.
Terry
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If you implement an Israeli-style screening system, then you spend much more time questioning and interviewing people than searching their luggage. That alone speeds the process along. The number of people who are actually selected for intensive search is relatively small, but it is not random--in fact, it is eminently logical and not based primarily on appearance or national origin. The following contains a good description of what goes on: Profile Me if You Must
MICHAEL J. TOTTEN - 12.31.2009 - 9:36 AM
I don’t want to be profiled at the airport. It has happened before, and I hate it. Volunteering for more isn’t what I feel like doing right now, but our airport security system is so half-baked and dysfunctional it may as well not even exist, and flying is about to become more miserable anyway. So rather than doubling down on grandma and micromanaging everyone on the plane, we might want to pay as much attention to people as to their luggage, especially military-aged males who make unusual and suspicious-looking travel arrangements. That’s what the Israelis do, and that’s why security agents take me into a room and interrogate me every time I pass through Ben-Gurion International Airport.
Israeli airport security is the most thorough and strict in the world, as one might expect in one of the most terrorized countries. No plane leaving Ben-Gurion has ever been hijacked or otherwise attacked by a terrorist. The system works, yet you don’t have to take off your shoes in the security line, no one cares if you pack perfume from the duty-free in your carry-on, you can listen to your iPod 55 minutes before landing, and you don’t have to stand in front of invasive and expensive body-scanning machines.
The Israelis look for weapons, of course. You aren’t at all likely to sneak one on board. Just as important, though, the Israelis are on the look-out for terrorists. Who would you rather sit next to? A woman carrying shampoo and tweezers, or 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta, even if he’s not carrying anything?
Israeli security agents interview everyone, and they subject travelers who fit certain profiles to additional scrutiny. I don’t know exactly what their criteria are, but I do know they aren’t just taking Arabs and Muslims aside. They take me aside, too, partly because of my gender and age but mostly because a huge percentage of my passport stamps are from countries with serious terrorist problems.
“Does anyone in Lebanon know you’re here?” they usually ask me. They’ve also asked if I’ve ever met with anyone in Hezbollah. I am not going to lie during an airport security interview, especially not when the answer can be easily found using Google. They know I’ve met with Hezbollah. That’s why my luggage gets hand-searched one sock at a time while elderly tourists from Florida skate through. I can’t say I enjoy this procedure, but I don’t take it personally, and it makes a lot more sense than letting me skate through while grandma’s luggage is hand-searched instead.
The United States need not and should not import the Israeli system. It’s labor intensive, slow, and at times incredibly aggravating. Americans wouldn’t put up with it, and it wouldn’t scale well. The one thing we can and should learn from the Israelis, though, is that we need to pay as much attention to who gets on airplanes as to what they’re bringing on board.
I don’t like being profiled, but the Israelis aren’t wrong for looking more closely at me than at, say, an 80-year-old black woman from Kansas or a 12-year-old kid from Japan. When I get on a plane in the United States, though, I often breeze past women decades older than me while they’re being frisked. Almost every single person in line knows it’s ridiculous. We don’t say anything, partly so we don’t want to get in trouble, and partly because it feels vaguely “fair.”
Maybe it is, but it’s no way to catch terrorists. And it’s not as if the only alternative is a separate policy for Arabs and Muslims. Racial and religious profiling won’t even work. Shoe bomber Richard Reid wouldn’t have been caught that way, and it’s probably safe to let a 90 year-old woman from Dubai through with minimal hassle.
Right now there appears to be no effort whatsoever to discriminate among passengers using any criteria, let alone racist criteria. “Pants bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not have a passport, did not have any luggage, and bought a one-way ticket with cash. His name is in a database of possible terrorists. Any Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, or all-American white boys from Iowa who fit that description should be stopped. Abdulmutallab wasn’t stopped. In 2004, though, Senator Ted Kennedy found himself with his name on the no-fly list.
The TSA’s whole mindset is wrong. Its agents confiscate things, even harmless things, and they apply additional scrutiny to things carried by people selected at random. If they were also tasked with looking for dangerous people, they would rightly ease up on grandmothers and senators, and they’d have a competently compiled list in the computer of those who are known to be dangerous. And if some kind of broad profiling means I’ll have to suffer the indignity of being frisked while the nun in line behind me does not, it’s no worse, really, than the embarrassment and contempt I’ll feel if the nun gets frisked instead.
Security agents will never find everything or everyone. It’s impossible. Abdulmutallab sewed a bomb into his underwear. Not even the most draconian new rules imaginable will allow agents to search inside anyone’s underwear. Patting down grandpa below the mid-thigh won’t do any good. Patting down Abdulmutallab below the mid-thigh wouldn’t have done any good either — all the more reason to start paying as much attention to people as to what they carry.
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