Explosive device set off aboard airliner at Detroit Wayne International Airport

[davidbfpo]

Nice, simple commentary on airport security:

What we need is security that's effective even if we can't guess the next plot: intelligence, investigation and emergency response. Our foiling of the liquid bombers demonstrates this. They were arrested in London, before they got to the airport. It didn't matter if they were using liquids -- which they chose precisely because we weren't screening for them -- or solids or powders. It didn't matter if they were targeting airplanes or shopping malls or crowded movie theaters. They were arrested, and the plot was foiled. That's effective security.

Finally, we need to be indomitable. The real security failure on Christmas Day was in our reaction. We're reacting out of fear, wasting money on the story rather than securing ourselves against the threat. Abdulmutallab succeeded in causing terror even though his attack failed.

If we refuse to be terrorized, if we refuse to implement security theater and remember that we can never completely eliminate the risk of terrorism, then the terrorists fail even if their attacks succeed.

From:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...ecurit_12.html

Missing brave politicians, an effective lobby (not military-security-industrial) and public pressure.

[Stan]

David,
I totally agree. Short and sweet, and to the point !

To the extent security failed, it failed before Abdulmutallab even got to the airport. Why was he issued an American visa? Why didn't anyone follow up on his father's tip?

[slapout9]

David,
I totally agree. Short and sweet, and to the point !

Absolutely, in my 5 rings of violence under ring one you will find FATHER any information from a father should have been sending signals of the highest alert, how this slipped through just baffles me that truly was a systems failure of the highest order.

[davidbfpo]

With the usual caveat may not be internationally viewable. A BBC-TV documentary on this attempted attack, the clip focusses on an explosive test on a similar aircraft and the documentary adds little.

A test explosion on a Boeing 747 suggests that a US Christmas Day flight would have landed safely even if a bomb on board was detonated successfully. The test plane's fuselage did not break in the controlled blast, which used the same amount of explosive allegedly carried by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8548021.stm

[Stan]

There are two USG organizations and one private company that now argue the chemical underwear cocktail would never have caused a detonation. The first two reports concluded a fire was about all you could expect. The private company has tried several unstable combination/doses and concluded only an idiot would wear it as designer underwear

Umar will have time to think over his training abroad