The events of September 11, 2001
forever changed air travel and the changes have come continuously and
not without controversy. The creation of the Transportation Security
Administration was a massive undertaking and the standards and
procedures for screening millions of U.S. air passengers daily, has
been an experiment in progress. Strangely, the failed attempt by
Richard Reid to ignite explosive material in his shoes while on a
flight inbound to the U.S in December, 2001, just three months after
the World Trade Center disaster, may have resulted in causing more
perceived inconvenience than fear, as the screening process was
further complicated by requiring all passengers to put their shoes
through the x-ray equipment. Initial, and understandable, fears
associated with commercial flying diminished over time as new plane
hijackings by terrorists failed to occur and passengers and passenger
rights advocates came to view the new screening and restrictions on
luggage contents as arbitrary, unnecessary and in some cases
irrational. Numerous examples of inconsistent and nonsensical
behavior on the part of screeners supported this mindset.
Still there has been a great deal of
false hysteria as claims to “privacy rights” and “
unconstitutional and unreasonable search” were levied. Some
individuals claimed that the ghost like figures appearing on early
scanning screens were “virtual strip searches” and the object of
leering groups of men in back rooms. These charges were demonstrably
false but others, ignoring the fact of the voluntary nature of
flying and the implied consent when purchasing a ticket, as well as
the realities of the security threat, were offended by most of the
screening process. It all seemed to come to a head with the 2010 “If
you touch my junk” threat by self described libertarian John Tyner.
While patting down octogenarian grandmothers in wheel chairs makes
little sense, claims by some that security measures should be relaxed
because “no bombs have been found” by these procedures, also
makes no sense since the purpose of the system is both discovery and
deterrence. That the tactics of the terrorists has shifted from
hi-jacking, as cockpit doors have been secured and some pilots are
now armed, to abandonment of shoe bombs as shoes were examined, to
underwear bombs, and now to non-metallic bombs, is clear evidence
that deterrence works.
The TSA has made adjustments to address
some passenger complaints. “Backscatter” full body scan equipment
is being replaced with Millimeter Wave units which create a facsimile
outline of the human body without anatomically accurate features.
Older “backscatter” equipment still in use is being outfitted
with software to produce the same type images. As the owner of metal
knees I get patted down more than scanned and I have found that pat
downs are brief and if done properly are hardly objectionable,
certainly not anything like the “sexual assaults” claimed by
Tyner and others. Still, occasional dumbness and/or arrogance on the
part of some of the TSA's 43,000 plus screeners is inevitable and
frustration on the part of travelers is understandable. There is
certainly room for improvement. Current pay scales for primary level
TSA screeners range from $29,000 to $44,000 per year. This
correlates with pre-employment qualifications of a high school
diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate, “or”
experience in the field of “security”. Such experience is very
broad indeed and would not be much of a recommendation if the former
“security” employee had neither a high school diploma nor a GED.
However, the terrorist threat to
commercial aircraft has not diminished. This month's (May) defeat of
a plot to have a suicide bomber blow up a plane en-route from from
Yemen to the U.S. should make that clear. The geopolitical
environment as described in the Gallup World Poll's “Who Speaks
for Islam?”(2008) survey of tens of thousands of ordinary citizens
in 35 nations with predominate or significant Muslim populations
offers a reality check in terms of attitudes. The poll claims to
represent the attitudes of 90% of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims.
The “good news” is that only 7% of respondents fall into the
arbitrarily defined “radical or extremist” category. Those
falling into this group are also described as “potential sources
for recruitment or support of terrorist groups.” Their answer to a
specific question was that the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon
attacks were “completely justified”.
However percentages can be deceiving.
Ninety percent of 1.3 billion Muslims is 1.17 billion individuals and
a radical/extremist component of 7% equals 81,900,000. The highest
concentrations of this group were found, unsurprisingly, in the hot
spots of the Middle East and in Pakistan.
The poll certainly does not suggest an
active terrorist cohort of this magnitude but it does suggest that a
dedicated fringe in the thousands is entirely realistic, as well as a
significant recruitment base for the foreseeable future. Even 60% of
the large “non-radical”majority of those polled view the United
States “unfavorably”.
As the private intelligence company
Stratfor recently observed, terrorist attacks against commercial air
travel are still a priority among some Al Qaeda operatives, and
jihadists are taking notice of, and adjusting to, changing security
procedures. Since the failed “shoe bomber” attempt in 2001,
intelligence agencies have uncovered a 2006 plot to bomb as many as
ten commercial aircraft in simultaneous attacks using liquid
explosives; the 2009 “Christmas underwear bomber” whose bomb
failed to detonate over Detroit; the 2010 discovery of printers with
ink cartridges containing explosives being shipped to the U.S. via
UPS and FedEx cargo planes, and the aforementioned May, 2012 attempt
which a was an updated version of an “underwear bomb” made with
no metallic parts. This bomb may not have been detected by electronic
scanners but might have been detected by a pat down if the bomber had
not been a double agent who turned the bomb over to U.S. and British
intelligence operatives in Yemen.
Al Qaeda in Yemen's (AQY) top bomb
maker, Hassan al-Asiri, remains at large. He is certain to be
sharing his skills with others. Despite the objections of some
passengers who apparently discount the threat, polls show that a
majority of the American public (80%) support the scans and 50%
support the use of pat downs. Still, as terrorists continue to
develop bombs that might defeat the scans, manual screening may have
to be reemphasized and travelers will have to make choices.
Post Script: On Friday, May 11, 2012, former Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner, 89 yr. old Henry Kissinger who was in a wheel chair, was "patted down" at NYC's La Guardia airport. Current and former senior federal govt. officials clearly should be provided with special identification to avoid this wasted time and effort.
Post Script: On Friday, May 11, 2012, former Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner, 89 yr. old Henry Kissinger who was in a wheel chair, was "patted down" at NYC's La Guardia airport. Current and former senior federal govt. officials clearly should be provided with special identification to avoid this wasted time and effort.
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