Airport Security is Not Effective

The attempted terror bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day has proved two things beyond any doubt;

First, none of the policies or procedures adopted after the 9/11 attacks are working to protect American lives against terrorists today.

Second, when it comes to the very real threat of Jihadist terror, the Obama Administration remains dangerously out of touch with reality.

Everyone who has taken a commercial flight following the 9/11 terror attacks has put up with today’s airport security procedures. We’re all too familiar with the drill. We dutifully remove our shoes and walk through metal detectors in our socks. We carefully separate three-ounceor less toiletries, remove laptops from their cases and endure screening lines that are sometimes too long.

We endure intrusive, even humiliating procedures in the mistaken belief that these government dictated measures make air travel safe from the threat of terrorism.

Everyone knows that since 9/11, the Federal government maintains lists to protect us. There are Federal lists of bad people (including potentially bad people) known collectively as the “Terror Watch List”. Another Federal list made up of really bad people (or completely innocent folks with names similar to those of really bad people) is known as the “No Fly List”.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, nearly succeeded in blowing up Flight 253.

The 23 year old Jihadist was indeed on a government “Terror Watch List”. That fact did not prevent him from boarding Flight 253, nor did it subject him to a strip search by airport security staff. Mr. Abdulmutallab carried powerful explosives on his person, but these were not detected by common airport screening procedures.

Janet Napolitano, President Obama’s choice for Homeland Security Secretary, declared that the near disaster aboard Flight 253 somehow proved that “the system worked”.

Napolitano’s Orwellian double speak is an outrage and her words insult the intelligence of any human with basic knowledge of the facts.

The system did not work.

The system failed completely. It will fail again and again and again until it is scrapped for a reality-based approach to Jihadist terrorism.

Let’s be very clear here: The only thing that prevented hundreds of innocent lives from being lost aboard Flight 253 on Christmas Day was a defective detonator.

The “system” that Ms. Napolitano praised allowed a suspected terrorist to book a flight on a commercial aircraft. Then, the “system” failed to detect an explosive device carried by a suspected terrorist.

Americans will continue to be at grave risk of terrorist attacks against public transportation modes until we finally get serious.

Getting serious means accurate, actionable intelligence shared among all agencies in real time. Getting serious also means that anybody whose prior behavior has earned them a place on the Terror Watch List should also be placed on the No Fly List and denied entry to our country.

Since terrorists continually seek out new soft spots in transportation security procedures and then exploit these weaknesses, our entire focus must change.

We must now shift from detecting only bad things like box cutters and flammable liquids to detecting bad people.

As long as they are allowed access to our transportation system, terrorists will always discover new ways to kill innocent people.

Instead of telling innocent passengers they can’t use the bathroom or get out of their seats, let’s prevent terrorists and suspected terrorists from boarding our planes, our trains and our ferries in the first place.

Ed Kowalski, of Pawling, is a Director of 9/11 Families for a Secure America. His niece, Elizabeth Butler, was murdered in June 2005 by illegal alien Ariel Menendez, who was felony and misdemeanor-convicted prior to her murder.