Accidental Blogger

Even if it was a couple of days late, following much-maligned misspeaking by Janet Napolitano, President Obama's comments on the Undie-Bomber brouhaha were right on the money.

Napolitano, interview on CNN, Dec 28:

"What we’re focused on was making sure that the air environment remains
safe, people are confident when they travel, and one think I’d to point
out is … is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role
here … the passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action
within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring all
128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures
in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight." (italics mine)

Obama, on Dec 29:

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally
unacceptable,” Mr. Obama said. He said he had ordered government
agencies to give him a preliminary report on Thursday about what
happened and added that he would “insist on accountability at every
level,” although he did not elaborate." (italics mine)

There were any number of points during the whole lead-up to the bombing attempt where red flags should have gone up and stayed up, but that didn't happen. How in the world does the CIA get tip-offs from the fathers of would-be extremists and not pass on the information to other branches? How do people whose visas were revoked by Britain continue to waltz around with unrevoked US visas, considering the so-called intelligence sharing that exists between those two nations? Does all this information reside in disparate databases, with no 'Database to rule them all' to make the connection at Langley VA?

Whatever the case, the best way to describe it is to indeed say that it was a systemic failure. Reviews will be made, hopefully heads will roll and a careful reassessment and calibration of threats to safety and how to deal with those threats is getting along post-haste.

The once great hopes that 'puffer machines' could easily detect explosives have been misplaced. They are now in the process of retiring those devices which kept breaking down more often than not, unsuitable for the rigors of a modern airport environment. One supposes that it would be of paramount interest to Al-Qaeda trainers and handlers, who might think the time was ripe for setting off an influx of undie-bombed acolytes on the aircraft bound for the US.

We need replacements for those machines, whether it be hand-held replacements like these (no doubt all sold out and shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan). The intrusive backscattering types of body scanners have generated much controversy, but combinations of simpler and less intrusive methods could also work reliably.

"The American Civil Liberties Union has opposed the imaging machines, arguing that the body images they produce are too revealing.  And some members of Congress have supported legislation that would limit their use, allowing passengers to opt out and submit to a pat-down search instead.

In an effort to increase privacy, the TSA screeners who read the images are placed in a separate room so they are not able to see the passenger who is being shown on the imaging screen.

Travelers at DFW Airport were divided.

"It's not like you're taking a picture and posting it on the Internet or selling it in a magazine," said Paul LeBon. "It's just a scan that lasts for 10 seconds.

"I am going to take issue with people being able to look at my children's bodies and my body," said Tamara Haddox, another traveler.

The TSA currently has 150 additional body imaging devices machines on order. But that's not nearly enough to cover all of the nation's airports."

Either that, or we are all forced to fly naked, shoeless and luggageless, just to thwart the shoe-bombers, undie-bombers, toupee-bombers, belt-bombers, tampon-bombers …..