Governments REact After Terror Attempt on US Plane

[Dave_In_Norfolk]

Ya, I don't see BO being someone really to blame here, if I did have a criticism or two on this matter it would be his cold non reassuring response to the American public regarding the terrorist attemtped attack, which clearly we can see he is not comfortable in this role and the appointment of Janet Napolitano as Secretary of DHS. Let's not forget, not only did she make the stupid comment regarding how "the system worked", but this is also the same lady who earlier this year put out on an alert on Right Wing Militias and how they pose a serious threat to this country.

 

Ya, she's a dumbass, and she needs to go.

Ya, because Oklahoma City never happened, right?

[keepthefaith]

Ya, I don't see BO being someone really to blame here, if I did have a criticism or two on this matter it would be his cold non reassuring response to the American public regarding the terrorist attemtped attack, which clearly we can see he is not comfortable in this role and the appointment of Janet Napolitano as Secretary of DHS. Let's not forget, not only did she make the stupid comment regarding how "the system worked", but this is also the same lady who earlier this year put out on an alert on Right Wing Militias and how they pose a serious threat to this country.

 

Ya, she's a dumbass, and she needs to go.

 

She's worse than that. If you were the President, wouldn't you want a tough minded and experienced person in this job? Someone with a military or intelligence background rather than a career lawyer and politician who has an open border mindset? Janet has to be one of Obama's worst appointees in terms of qualifications. Another Clinton retread who leans very far left. Al Quaeda and company must be laughing their asses off at her. She's an embarrassing pick for this position.

[Nanker]

The only ones that seem to be seriously debating Obama's "failure" in this is the partisan press. MSNBC is salavating over the attack by Cheney and Fox is orgasmic over the chance to brand BO a surender monkey but I don't think anyone is really paying attention. Oh, and Pearl Harbor was 1941. People actually got killed there, too. The Undie Bomber didn't kill anyone

Thanks for the correction. My bad. I should know better. I had an uncle on the Arizona.

Lots of civilians died on 9-11 too, which was the point I was following up on.

[The Big Cat]

The underpants bomber was issued his Visa two years before his father reported him as an extremist.

 

If people were placed on the no-fly list because of "evidence" such as his father's report, there'd be approximately a half million people on the no-fly list.

 

The only people who "failed" were the ones who let him through the airport with an explosive substance on his person. Don't we have dogs for this? Doesn't one have to pass through a detection device in BUFFALO that would have flagged him?

 

If you want to criticize Obama for something, criticize him for declaring the system a failure. It's not. And it didn't fail in this instance. And low and behold, there was no torture neccesary, he was given his rights and treated as a prison in the US Judicial system would be and the FBI was able to extract all pertinent information from him.

[keepthefaith]

The underpants bomber was issued his Visa two years before his father reported him as an extremist.

 

If people were placed on the no-fly list because of "evidence" such as his father's report, there'd be approximately a half million people on the no-fly list.

 

The only people who "failed" were the ones who let him through the airport with an explosive substance on his person. Don't we have dogs for this? Doesn't one have to pass through a detection device in BUFFALO that would have flagged him?

 

If you want to criticize Obama for something, criticize him for declaring the system a failure. It's not. And it didn't fail in this instance. And low and behold, there was no torture neccesary, he was given his rights and treated as a prison in the US Judicial system would be and the FBI was able to extract all pertinent information from him.

 

Yes, those in the airport failed. From what I'm reading, we had info on this guy and the visa should have been revoked on that alone. He should not have been sold a ticket in the first place. Apparently we don't have the technology in place to identify these people and deny them plane tickets or any other access into our country. These jokers love to blow up planes and it looks to me like they could blow up 50 of them in one day if they planned accordingly. Scary. At what point do we hold the government of their citizenship responsible? I know Nigeria is a wreck, but if I'm the President, I hold that government responsible as well.

[Adam]

Perhaps it has to do with the perception that President BO is soft on terrorism and his choice for Homeland Security Secretary is less bright than Sarah Palin. Post 9-11 the perception was we were doing everything possible to make the country and its citizens safer than we were before that infamous date. So when shoe-bomber-boy surfaced the argument was put forth to ramp up security by arming pilots and sky marshalls. The President and his supporters seem to take the view that there's no concerted terrorist threat to America. They seem to want to ramp security measures down - not up, and they see attacks like these as isolated criminal events. "The system worked" - "no it didn't" - "yes it did".

How many in FDR's cabinet got sacked after December 7, 1942?

Speaking of hypocrisy, how's the effort to shut down the NSA's wiretapping of American's telephone conversations going?

How would you like to be a politician in this country nowadays? How would you know what you are supposed to do, when all the constituents want something different. In that case, how is anything hypocritical and how is anything not?

[The Big Cat]

Yes, those in the airport failed. From what I'm reading, we had info on this guy and the visa should have been revoked on that alone. He should not have been sold a ticket in the first place. Apparently we don't have the technology in place to identify these people and deny them plane tickets or any other access into our country. These jokers love to blow up planes and it looks to me like they could blow up 50 of them in one day if they planned accordingly. Scary. At what point do we hold the government of their citizenship responsible? I know Nigeria is a wreck, but if I'm the President, I hold that government responsible as well.

 

Firstly, he was in Yemen when he was "radicalized." Secondly, the "info" was his father's account. To my knowledge, there were no other such flags. His daddy's tattling doesn't qualify him to make the no-fly list.

 

Again, how does the substance pass through all the friggin hoops we jump through at the airport to begin with?

[Gene Frenkle]

Airport security has never been effective. This is not a case of someone not doing his job correctly, but rather a reminder that the current screening procedures achieve nothing more than giving the masses a false sense of security. Technology is the answer here. Then again, terrorist attacks rank pretty low in yearly 'cause of death' stats.

[DC Tom]

These jokers love to blow up planes and it looks to me like they could blow up 50 of them in one day if they planned accordingly. Scary.

 

Considering that they haven't successfully blown up even one in a great many years, your fear is probably unfounded.

[Chef Jim]

Firstly, he was in Yemen when he was "radicalized." Secondly, the "info" was his father's account. To my knowledge, there were no other such flags. His daddy's tattling doesn't qualify him to make the no-fly list.

 

Again, how does the substance pass through all the friggin hoops we jump through at the airport to begin with?

 

So what's need to qualify for the no fly list a full confession?

 

And how does is pass through the hoops? I imagine Nigeria doesn't have too many hoops and if he just connected through Amsterdam did he have to go customs and another security check or does he hit customs in the US?

[keepthefaith]

Considering that they haven't successfully blown up even one in a great many years, your fear is probably unfounded.

My point is how easy it is to board a plane with an explosive. If a bunch of terrorists want to blow up a bunch of planes in a well orchestrated fashion, I believe it can be done and this recent incident is evidence of that.

[Gene Frenkle]

My point is how easy it is to board a plane with an explosive. If a bunch of terrorists want to blow up a bunch of planes in a well orchestrated fashion, I believe it can be done and this recent incident is evidence of that.

This has ALWAYS been the case.

[DC Tom]

My point is how easy it is to board a plane with an explosive. If a bunch of terrorists want to blow up a bunch of planes in a well orchestrated fashion, I believe it can be done and this recent incident is evidence of that.

 

Easy? The guy had to sew it into his underwear to smuggle it on.

[The Big Cat]

So what's need to qualify for the no fly list a full confession?

 

And how does is pass through the hoops? I imagine Nigeria doesn't have too many hoops and if he just connected through Amsterdam did he have to go customs and another security check or does he hit customs in the US?

 

From Spencer Ackerman:

 

SPENCER ACKERMAN: On what Obama called “systemic failures,” it’s important to point out that these do not appear, based on the information that we have right now—so take that as my caveat—that these are actually intelligence failures. If they were intelligence failures, it would mean that we had a lack of inputs for understanding the guy was dangerous. What we had was probably one of the strongest possible inputs for understanding that, and that’s his father going into the US embassy in Abuja, Nigeria on November 19th and saying he was concerned about his son’s radicalization. In the actual existing world of intelligence, that’s pretty good. That’s really good for what you’re going to get.

 

The problem is—and we can now debate, as we surely will next month when there are congressional hearings on this—whether that’s actually sufficient to put someone on the no-fly list. And I’ll explain what I mean by that.

 

The way the procedure works is, as what happened after the fathers walk into the embassy in Abuja, he goes on something called the TIDE list, which is sort of a database around the government, in both the intelligence community and the law enforcement community, and the diplomatic community, of people you have sort of pre-probable-cause suspicion about. There are reportedly about 550,000 individuals or pieces of data on that list.

 

What’s supposed to happen from there, and what did happen in this case, was that an interagency review occurred, asking, “Do we have enough information to recommend this individual to a further list called the Terrorist Screening Database?” And what happens is, the FBI, the intelligence community, the National Counterterrorism Center, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security evaluate that question according to a criteria. And that criteria is specific information leading to credible cause for reasonable suspicion, meaning it’s still pre-probable cause—it would not hold up in a court of law—but would be enough, from an intelligence and Homeland Security perspective, to recommend that person go to the Terrorist Screening Database. That’s housed in the FBI.

 

And what would happen there would be the State Department would receive notice from the intelligence community that it should revoke the guy’s visa. Now, remember, the guy gets a visa, Abdulmutallab, in London in June 2008 that’s good for two years. So, before we have any reason to believe he’s a threat, he gets his visa, and no one considers that particularly controversial.

 

What then would happen if an additional review occurs from the Terrorist Screening Database, is then, if there’s additional information perhaps, or rather additional policy considerations, he would then be put on the no-fly list. There are an untold number of people on the no-fly list. It’s several thousand. It could be in the tens of thousands. I am not currently sure about how large that is. But that asks, basically, are you not going to be allowed to get on a plane headed into the United States?

 

Now, remember, two years ago, three years ago, there were a whole lot of concerns from civil libertarians and other people really concerned about the no-fly list saying that the government was going too far adopting lax standards or insufficient standards for considering someone a threat. They were put on that no-fly list because of dubious or incomplete information.

 

Well, now what we’re talking about in this case, when we’re talking about a systemic failure here, is because Abdulmutallab gets on that plane, lowering those standards further. Now, if that’s the conversation the country wants, then fine. We should debate that, and we should decide that. But understand that if we do that, that if we say the standard for the TIDE database, where the guy was, specific credible information leading to reasonable suspicion that he’s a threat, should be enough to put someone on the no-fly list, that we’re really going to expand that no-fly list. The TIDE database is 550,000 people.

 

Now, perhaps there’s a sweet spot that we can hit, there’s a further balance that can be struck, and ultimately there would be some kind of balance acceptable from both a security perspective and a civil libertarian perspective for who should be on that flight, and from an economic perspective, because we’re also ultimately talking about a whole lot of international trade that will be cut off if the no-fly list expands to such a significant way. So, perhaps, you know, that’s a reasonable debate to be had. But there’s a suspicion—and you saw that from Clark Kent Irvin, the former Republican-appointed inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security—that we really are talking about expecting perfect security from Homeland Security.

 

And that’s not to diminish the threat that could have occurred from Abdulmutallab on this flight, but it is to say that there really is this balance to be struck and ask if we’re prepared to really expand that no-fly list. Are we going to regret that in another year or so after the passions of the moment subside?

[PastaJoe]

The solution is to make anyone who is flying to take off all their clothes and put on paper gowns or jumpsuits and booties issued at the airport, and then go through the body scanner. You get your clothes back when you depart the plane. It will create a new market for the U.S. garment industry. Make the jumpsuits out of some biodegradable material so they can be thown away. If you don't like it, take a cab.

[Chef Jim]

The solution is to make anyone who is flying to take off all their clothes and put on paper gowns or jumpsuits and booties issued at the airport, and then go through the body scanner. You get your clothes back when you depart the plane. It will create a new market for the U.S. garment industry. Make the jumpsuits out of some biodegradable material so they can be thown away. If you don't like it, take a cab.

 

They'll have to empty their bowels too.

[PastaJoe]

They'll have to empty their bowels too.

 

I was going to reserve the anal cavity searches to those on the watch list, but your idea would reduce the weight on the plane, and reduce the need to get up and go to the restroom.

[Nanker]

The solution is to make anyone who is flying to take off all their clothes and put on paper gowns or jumpsuits and booties issued at the airport, and then go through the body scanner. You get your clothes back when you depart the plane. It will create a new market for the U.S. garment industry. Make the jumpsuits out of some biodegradable material so they can be thown away. If you don't like it, take a cab.

Now yer talkin'!

[Nanker]

I was going to reserve the anal cavity searches to those on the watch list, but your idea would reduce the weight on the plane, and reduce the need to get up and go to the restroom.

Irrefutable logic! I'd like to recommend your name be taken under consideration for the next Secretary of Homeland Security.

[/dev/null]

I was going to reserve the anal cavity searches to those on the watch list, but your idea would reduce the weight on the plane, and reduce the need to get up and go to the restroom.

 

Plus less weight means less fuel. Less fuel has a double benefit: less carbon emissions and lower fuel costs. Lower fuel costs mean lower ticket prices

 

The only problems here are:

Less carbon emissions = Less government revenue from a reduced need to buy carbon credits

Lower fuel costs = Less government revenue from petroleum taxes

Lower ticket prices = Less government revenue from taxes and fees