It Worked! – ? (Update)
From today’s New York Times:
Obama administration officials scrambled to portray the episode, in which passengers and flight attendants subdued Mr. Abdulmutallab and doused the fire he had started, as a test that the air safety system passed.
“The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days,” Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary said, in an interview on “This Week” on ABC. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, used nearly the same language on “Face the Nation” on CBS, saying that “in many ways, this system has worked.”
Update:
Putting things in context:
Ms. Napolitano said Monday on NBC’S “Today” that her remark the day before — “the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days” — had been taken out of context. “Our system did not work in this instance,” she said. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”
What worked was the public! What failed was the bureaucrats! Read the NYT account.
Where were the air marshals?
Short of banning all carry-on luggage and hand-searching all checked luggage, frisking and X-raying all passengers, and banning all blankets or wraps during flight, the government cannot guarantee absolute safety from these sorts of maniacs.
Bureaucrats will lumber along until they retire on government pensions, and the bureaucracies will lumber along forever, growing accordingly. Like old Reagan used to say; ‘the closest thing to eternal life on earth, is a government program.’
The public meanwhile; well, we need to keep our wits about us.
The first thing we ought to tell the bureaucrats is to not inconvenience people to the point where no one but the wealthy can afford air travel. Left unsupervised and uncontrolled, the natural tendency of the well meaning but empire building bureaucrats in the TSA and other security agencies – not to mention the profit motives of all the contracted security services the government and airlines will likely also employ – is to take their efforts to the extreme; to the point where air and train travel will be greatly restricted. That is frankly, un-American.
We need to guard against people being reduced to an infantile hysteria. We need to guard against those American who tend toward giving up their freedom and ours for a (false) sense of security.
Ken
You need to read the NYT for today.
Napolitano has backtracked on that: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/us/29terror.html?_r=1&hp
The Times has a related story about the privacy issues that beset the system. This guy would have had to be stripped search to get at the explosive material. If the watch list were used more effectively, perhaps he would have been. And, of course, given the “signals” reported in the story: that he returned to Nigeria and left almost immediately for Amsterdam buying his ticket with cash and carrying no baggage, we could ask about the security provisions operative there.
What else could she do?
As I recall there was a good deal of controversey about establishing the Homeland Security agency in the first place. And in part because critics foresaw that its size and disparate bureaucracy would create–well, a bureacratic nightmare.
Napolitano is just another political appointee and I put no stock in her blathering.
I simply do not have confidence that, given the nature of air travel, the bureaucrats can do much of anything except make life miserable for law-abiding air travellers.
The one thing bureaucrats could do the address this situation; they refuse to do. Rather than wasting time chasing Mexican farm workers around California and Texas, or enforcing the nonsensical travel ban to Cuba, our Immigration Service would do well to stop issuing travelling visas or green cards to foreigners from Islamic countries, and put all American Muslims on notice that, while they can travel via airplanes, given the circumstances in which we have found ourselves since 9-11-01, that as a group they are suspect, they are on a watch list, and are therefore subject to random search at the airport.
Since we do not want to offend Muslims however, we will not do any such thing. Muslims fanatics are willing to commit suicide in order to kill us; we are not even willing to offend them in order to defend ourselves or prevent violence.
And so the TSA and other security bureaucrats will busy themselves taking away blankets and purses, keeping people from using the toilet on the air plane, and frisking elderly Filipino nuns etc., because of some nonsensical bureaucratic rule they have implemented like blindly frisking every tenth passenger.
With time they (the new security bureaucrats) will begin stealing valuables from luggage, or simply throwing the luggage away altogether, all the while demanding higher wages, more benefits, and fatter pensions, which they will probably get. And the INS will still be chasing Jose across the California and Texas lettuce fields, and nobody will be allowed to visit Cuba (they are commies down there you know – oh my!), and old Ahab or Mohammed will get a tourist visa easier than any Latino could.
And on and on it goes.
I guess the moral of this story would be; Get a government job.
Considering that suicide bombers are ‘successfully’ operating on a DAILY basis in the middle east, we have been protected by the fed agencies that seem to be detested on these posts.The presidents, Bush and Obama should have little praise or blame about safety. That we have not had a succsssful gun, bomb , shoulder fired missle attack on an American airliner, train etc for 8 years.. it’s the civil servents in the trenches we should thank.
I agree with you Ed, that the behind the scenes police work by the FBI and other real police agencies in foiling various terrorist plots has so far been quite successful, but that work of course does not include your garden variety so-called ‘civil servant’; the TSA person hollering at people to remove shoes, or the other grim sorts of airport or airline employees.
As for civil servants; to borrow a phrase; the TSA and other security bureaucrats are hardly “servants”, and they are becoming less “civil” with each passing year.
I do not favor giving them any more authority that we have already granted.
Suggestion: let’s abandon the term “suicide bombers” for the more accurate “homicide bombers” and perhaps remove some of the grandiose aura of self-sacrifice in the bargain.
Experts in safety management will tell you that just because you don’t have any “adverse events” doesn’t mean your system is safe. It could just mean you are lucky! At some point, the weak points in the system all line up in the right order and something terrible happens.
We have to remember–as the history of the development of the IED has shown–that terrorists continue to innovate. Right now there are almost certainly a number of terrorist “scientists” busily studying how they can solve the problem of getting a small portion of this type of explosive to detonate without a blasting cap or an electrical charge. It’s a chilling thought, because defending against “lone nuts” is probably going to be more difficult than defending against the kinds of techniques that were used by the 9-11 hijackers.
The problem–and this is a problem in other complex systems as well–is that our security systems can be 99.9% reliable and still be inadequate. The International Airline Transport Association estimates that the airlines will handle 2.75 billion passengers by 2011. If you assume, for example, that the TSA reps were sufficiently thorough in their pre-check in screenings 99.9% of the time, that still means that 275,000 people would be inadequately screened before getting on a flight.
I suspect the “solutions” to this system failure will be a combination of 1) more thorough airport screenings for targeted passengers; 2) more stratification of the various “watch lists,” 3) clearer “escalation” criteria for analyzing tips. Somehow we have to do all that without making it impossible for people to travel to and from the United States.
These are actually hard design criteria for a system. I hope analysis of this recent system failure can proceed dispassionately and not get caught up in partisan rancor.
I like how Mark Steyn recently put the matter into perspective:
“…This was a failed terror plot. But with failures like this who needs victories? If that Air Canada rule becomes generally applicable, that last hour will be a big time-waster for some of us. But no doubt some enterprising jihadist will attempt to self-detonate in mid-flight or shortly after take-off, and pretty soon we’ll have to sit in isolation for the full seven or eight hours. Another couple of attempted takedowns and they might as well ship us freight.
A couple of years back in NR, in a column I wrote in flight (though not on Air Canada), I related my ill-fated attempt to bring home a souvenir snow globe from Auckland, New Zealand for my daughter:
The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, “Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?” I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that… the twinkly fluid inside the snow globe had been deemed to count as a liquid. In theory, I could smash the incredibly thick glass, replace the sparkly stuff with something more incendiary, re-glaze it in the airport men’s room with help from co-conspirators among the shadowy networks of antipodean jihadist glaziers, and board the plane to explosive effect…
The jihad may never achieve global domination but it has already achieved snow global domination… Next time round, they’ll foil some entirely different scheme – explosive suppositories, dirty-nuke hip replacements – and another avalanche of pitiful constraints will fall upon the hapless traveller.
And so it’s proved. If only we had a National Snow Globe Association to point out that snow globes don’t kill people, people kill people. What will they do after, say, a burka-clad woman boards the flight with breast impants packed with plastic explosives? Playing the game this way lets the terrorists set the rules and forces us to react defensively to every innovation.
What difference does it make whether the plot succeeds? After all, long after Richard Reid has died of old age in prison, we’ll still be removing our footwear in eternal homage to the thwarted shoebomber.”
Peter,
Dispassionate, non-partisan … and sobering!
Ken,
On any number of flights it feels like we are already being shipped freight.
Memo to TSA:
I am sick and tired of being inconvenienced as is and any more will drive me bonkers. I want to reserve my right to pack everything possible ont he plane and stuff those overhead luggage racks with things that don’t fit.
BTW, if you don’t render my air flights 110% safe, I’ll find some way to sue you.
Have a nice day, though.
Probably, wealthier Americans will soon get tired of all this nonsense from the large airlines (some already are), and will leave the commercial airline system entirely, booking chartered flights or time with specific private carriers who use regional or executive airports, as opposed to the national and international airports.
And think about it; if you have the dinero, why bother with all the hassle and ignorance to which the government air bureaucrats routinely subject the great unwashed masses? Why jostle your schedule so you can arrive at the airport three hours early, to sit in a loud, stuffy terminal, only to have fat and loud TSA types barking at you about removing shoes and belt, etc., and to “mach schnell” about it all, only to ultimately be cramped into a large jet rubbing shoulders with nit wits who willingly tolerate the flight crews routine insults to their intelligence? And now they won’t let you have an in-flight throw (it is too small to be a blanket) or to even use the toilet for an hour before they land the (surely already late) plane?
Please, if someone is smart enough to make a lot of money, they are too smart to subject themselves to all that.
Why would they not just book a flight on a private airline, show up a half hour prior to flight time, hop on board have a drink? Why should they not enjoy traveling via airplane?
That of course will mean the first class cabin will shrink or at least will have another row or two of chairs squeezed in – for business types who have flyer miles and do not want to be in steerage like the rest of us, and who will pay for the privilege.
And the TSA folks who today are barking in the airport terminals will retire on reasonable pensions that we paid for, and new ones – maybe they will be even more strict – will be hired to take their place. Maybe they will even give the next generation of TSA barkers brown shirts and armbands that say “TSA” of course.
Just remember, it is either “for the children” or “for your security and convenience”
Ugh!
Well if we are going the route of reacting to the terrorist instead of trying thoughtfully to pre-empt him, and punishing decent people with mindless regulation, it is probably high time we dispensed with carry-on luggage altogether, and removed the cabinets entirely.
Ladies’ purses and new mothers’ diaper bags should still be allowed of course, but no luggage, laptops, CD players, cell phones, I-pods or any other electronic equipment of any kind would be allowed.
Also, in the sprit both of the security and the common good, food and drink will be provided only by the airline; no food or drink will be allowed to be brought on-board by the ignorant childish masses known as “the passengers”. Instead, everyone will be offered either a chicken sandwich or vegetable dish, one piece of fruit, and one bottle of clean water. The fruit and clean water will also indirectly help to control health care costs. Soda or other drinks would not be offered because they do not put downward pressure on health care or dental costs. Alcohol or persons who have been drinking alcohol will under no circumstances be tolerated on airplanes or in airports. And it should go without saying, but tobacco in any form would not be allowed either in airports or airplanes. Finally, for comfort and convenience a soothing, while there will be no headphones allowed on the plane, each seat will have a small speaker with volume control, and after safety and appropriate health tips and lifestyle advice are given, a calming or quietly inspiring or patriotic movie will be played at a volume low enough not to disturb. This will be coordinated to flight time so that the proper amount of soothing music, health instructions and more lifestyle advice and information can be given prior to landing.
While we probably will not be any safer, as a trade-off for losing these few freedoms, at least we would all have a nice lunch, some peace and quiet, and some decent head room.
:-)
Face it, Americans. There is no fool-proof way to prevent all terrorist attacks. You can blame the bureaucrats till you’re blue in the face, but when suicidal people are determined to take others with them they will eventually succeed, and in time they will do so more than once. The only question is how many will be taken with them.
More Americans will die here unless we change the mindsets of the terrorists. That is, we must eliminate whatever reasons (real and imagined) they have to hate us. And that might not be possible either.
Terrorists cannot defeat a robust democracy. they can spread fear and have the fear cause overreation to the threat. As Ann says ‘There is no fool-proof way to prevent all terrorist attacks’. The situation requires endurance [without hyping complaints]. Think/imitate London’s bombed populace in WWII.
Thanks Ken for having the courage to tell it like it is. Total over reaction. And please note don’t blame Air Canada, they simply announced what they had been told by your security forces because they have the most short haul fights to America and announced the change to their customers before the TSA did to the populace in general.
When oh when oh when will the average joe/betty flyer finally rebel at all this over reaction. To read the NYT account you would think everyone inconvenienced by 8 hours of delay going through American security were just so pleased to be so well taken care of. You know that is b.s. as well as I do. Some must have been steaming mad, especially those with their kids in tow.
My first reaction is …okay no more fights to America… from now on, it is the car.
This from Gizmodo:
The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart
http://gizmodo.com/5435954/the-true-odds-of-airborne-terror-chart
Just to keep things in perspective, eh!