Abdulmutallab/Flight 253 Airline Terror links
- The Economist “The latest on Northwest flight 253:” “the people who run America’s airport security apparatus appear to have gone insane” and “This is the absolute worst sort of security theatre: inconvenient, absurd, and, crucially, ineffective.”
- Business Travel Coalition, via Dave Farber and Esther Dyson, “Aviation Security After Detroit:” “It is welcome news that President Obama has ordered an airline industry security review so long as it is strategic in nature.”
- Stuart Baker, “Six Uncomfortable Answers” which seems to boil down to “identity-based security has failed, let’s not address the good reasons why, and build more of it.” Usually Stewart has been more insightful than this. But then he writes “I asked several questions about how good the screening was in Nigeria and at Schiphol. I now think that it barely matters how good a job those screeners did. Without a reason to treat Abdulmutallab differently from other passengers, the current level of screening wasn’t likely to find the explosives.” Actually, as he points out, no acceptable level of screening is likely to find the explosives.
- The New York Times points out that “Questions Arise on Why Terror Suspect Was Not Stopped :” “That meant no flags were raised when he used cash to buy a ticket to the United States and boarded a plane, checking no bags.” It used to be that that got you extra screening. Why did we stop?
- Gawker, “The Shady Mainstream Media Payday of Flight 253 Hero Jasper Schuringa”
- I lost the link, but someone else pointed out that the new [link to http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/dec25_guidance.shtm no longer works], alleged TSA rules would have made it a crime to get up and stop Abdulmutallab when he tried to set off his bomb.
- This comment on the Flyertalk thread raises the interesting question: are terrorists planning to fail, expecting over-reaction by governments? Provocation would not be a new page in terror playbooks.
- Alleged text of SD 1544-09-06
- Every international traveller to the US is being asked to spend an extra hour on these measures. Cormac Herley’s “So Long, and No Thanks for the Externalities: the Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users” is absolutely irrelevant, unless travel to the US falls [link to http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gW0k9nzBC6HnafIwxJfGcmXxhGaQ no longer works]. Again. Which, of course, makes the odds of each remaining traveller [link to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html no longer works] being a terrorist materially higher.
Sadly, the only comment I can think of is, “so what else is new?” Our government wants to be seen to do something, even when that something is useless and worthless. But in an economic slump, it is providing a lot of jobs.
The security only provides jobs if no one stops flying, which seems unlikely.
If you’re feeling like there’s nobody in charge at the TSA, that’s because there’s nobody in charge. The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama’s nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union. [link to http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/81356.html no longer works]
A fact that is not widely mentioned is that the explosive used was PETN, which is easily detected by hand swabs or the whole-body “sniffers” that many airports are equipped with. The one that I noticed at SFO was off in a corner, unused.