What came close to being the "Christmas Airline Explosion," but for the Flight 93-esque quick actions of alert passengers, is yet another example of the myriad things that are broken in our airport security system. But instead of responding to the disease, we respond to only the symptom. When would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid pulled the same trick 8 years ago, with the same explosive no less, the government response was to make passengers . . .take off their shoes. Will the airports now institute a Britney Spears commando rule in response to Umar Abdulmutallab?
And for years we've known about the unwieldy, uncoordinated, terrorist watch lists--which were initially used as McCarthyism as much as anti-terrorism (including people like me, the late Senator Edward Kennedy, and Cat Stevens)--which were overbroad yet under-inclusive of real threats.
I'm not an aviation security expert. But it doesn't take a genius to know that liquid and powder explosives--like pentaerythritol tetramotrate (PETN), a favorite among terrorists--are not detectable by magnetometers.
We are told that the technology and methods that could detect such explosives--such as whole-body imaging and baggage x-rays--are too costly, could slow airport screening, and raise privacy issues. I'll address each of these in turn.
Too costly?? The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has spent more than $30 billion on aviation security since 2004. Airlines worldwide spend an additional $5.9 billion a year. I don't know the cost of whole-body imaging scanners that use X-rays or radio waves to detect objects under clothing, but airport "puffer" machines are about $145,000 each ($30 million to outfit the whole country). Even cheaper, more reliable, and easier to maintain are detectors that test swabs wiped on passengers' clothing and baggage for traces of explosives. Or how about bomb-sniffing dogs?
The prospect of even slower airport security is enough to make most people reject new ideas out of hand, but Explosive Trace Detection machines (think of a Q-tip placed in a spectrometer) are quicker and more effective than the removal of shoes, pocket change, and other clothing with metal, the frequent after-wanding, and the hand-rummaging through luggage. Explosive Trace Detection can find explosives on people and in baggage.
As for privacy, at this point, I'd rather have my clothing and luggage swabbed than have a TSA official feel me up and rifle through my suitcase (when you're on the "selectee" portion of the "No Fly List," you must always undergo secondary security screening.) That brings me to another pet-peeve of mine: the ill-conceived, poorly-coordinated, overly-broad but underinclusive grand master terrorist watch list maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, which contains half a million entries in some computer database in McLean, VA.
Finally, unless security measures are standardized worldwide, they will do nothing to protect incoming trans-continental flights.
So the bottom line . . .
Explosive Trace Detection: cheap, speedy, non-invasive and highly sensitive.
Watch-lists: Virtually useless unless you scrap the original, questionably-motivated ones started by Bush, pare them down, coordinate them, and come up with something more streamlined and meaningful.