TSA has released a warning that terrorists are attempting to bring explosive devices onto planes by surgically implanting them into the bodies of suicide bombers. While no specific plot has been discovered, TSA has released the statement in order to bolster airport security. This is in spite of the fact that experts say current security measures are largely unable to detect explosives under the skin.
While discussions of these methods in terrorist circles is not new, the desire to employ such extreme tactics draws into question the entire approach to security that we currently rely upon. The TSA is constantly playing catch-up to an innovative and determined network of terrorists. This not only puts us on the defensive, able only to respond, but has steadily placed greater restrictions on our freedoms. With TSA removing the diapers of 95-year old grandmothers and excessively and unsympathetically patting-down little girls, it is becoming questionable if our security methods are really protecting us - or letting the terrorists win by forcing us to drastically change our way of life.
Security is essential and we should all be willing to give up some freedoms to protect ourselves - that is the primary role of government. Little girls can, unfortunately, not be exempt from pat-downs as such a rule would inevitably lead to terrorist use of children to carry their weaponry. However, there is a need to find balance between security and freedom.
The first thing to understand is that we cannot continue to have knee-jerk reactions that restrict passengers behavior after every "chattered," or even attempted, terrorist plot. A determined enemy will always strive to find new ways around our security. While we should attempt to stay ahead of them, thwarting plots and instituting new security measures, security officials must be careful to understand the probability of such terrorist schemes actually working. For instance, the terrorist liquid plot failed yet travelers are still burdened with not being able to bring liquids on planes.
The response to discovered or thwarted plots does not always need to result in greater restrictions for the traveler. The more we continue to restrict ourselves in fear of that rare one-time event, the less the terrorists have to succeed to severely alter our way of life. Instead, there must be a greater focus on winning the offensive battle. Dedicated terrorists will never cease trying to destroy or injure the West. Probability alone dictates that in playing a defensive game of catch-up we will lose at some point. Instead we must rid the world of dedicated terrorists, both by directly killing or otherwise stopping current terrorists and preventing the creation of new ones through the use of our soft- and hard-power.
Admittedly, this alone is insignificant to protect us. Some will always be "out to get" the West and the TSA needs to continue doing a good job maintaining security. However, in order to achieve this we need to jettison the outmoded thinking of non-profiling. As Isaac Yeffet, former head of security at El Al, has said, it is essential to use profiling tools to screen for the greatest threats. Random searches of, say, grandmothers are a waste of time and resources and ultimately a threat to our security.
Such use of profiling is not about racial discrimination but about being smart in our approach to security, creating the least amount of inconvenience, and appropriately using our resources. Profiles are not a simple call to perform invasive searches on every Muslim- or Arab-looking man, but the use of a compilation of looks, behaviors, actions, and other statistically- and expertly-derived characteristics to screen for the most obvious threats. Such a profile will indubitably change, and it is the responsibility of security services to adapt accordingly. Our terrorist enemies would be foolish to present their foot-soldiers in the same readily identifiable form. Nevertheless, profiling will help us stop the clear threats while easing the burdens on the vast majority who offer no threat. Since technology seems to offer little to solve the problem of "body bombs" we seem to be left with a choice to reevaluate our methods or turn to drastic measures, such as invasive surgery, to maintain our security.
Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Who Is Responsible for al-Qaeda's Attack?
The recent attempted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight has served as ample fodder for attacks on the Obama administration and the TSA. While there are grounds for criticism, the knee-jerk reaction to begin the blame-game, alongside the TSA’s predictable reactionary response, needs to be evaluated in a more rational light.
Without going too far out on a limb, the administration does need some defending. Critics on the right, and even the left, have been lambasting the administration’s snafu. Bloggers, such as Karl DeVries at The Bootleg Press, have (tentatively) called for Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano’s sacking. Other critics have demanded explanations for why the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not on the no-fly list.
The problem is that in American political culture, the impetuous urge to find a scapegoat ubiquitously overrides true insight into a potential (or actual) disaster. When dealing with issues like security, particularly when threats come from disparate sources, there is always some probability that the ‘bad’ event will occur. No matter how secure a system is, it will never be foolproof. If a system is 99.99% perfect it means that 1 in 10,000 times the law of averages dictates that the bad guy will get through. This is especially true when having to weigh tradeoffs between security and issues such as efficiency and personal liberty. An extremely cumbersome yet vastly more secure process could be designed (Maybe have everyone disrobe, wear TSA issued jumpsuits, and be forbidden to have any personal effects on planes); however, the costs in terms of money, time, and personal freedoms would most likely outweigh the added security. For instance, it is absurd to demand that a single phone call from an individual’s father should warrant inclusion on a no-fly list. Such a precedent would overburden the system with meaningless names added to the list. [And, it might prompt fathers of rebellious teenagers across the globe to literally ‘ground’ their children.] Furthermore, such an inane system would still fail to be foolproof as some committed terrorist would inevitably find a way to beat it.
Likewise, the TSA has clamped down on security in the most arbitrary and ineffectual way. For instance pilots are now allowed (and have) to prevent passengers from keeping anything in their laps during the last hour of flight. It is not clear how keeping a Grandma from the Midwest from reading her copy of Going Rogue during the last hour of flight, is going to stop the next Abdulmutallab from blowing up a plane one and half hours before arrival.
The problem is not the current system, per se. Potential terrorists will inevitably find new and ingenious ways to breach our systems in the never ending game of cat and mouse. We should continue to monitor their methods and tactics and respond by altering our strategies. However, the unavoidable infiltration does not necessarily mean the system has failed. What it means is that the laws of probability have finally caught up to us. Instead of rashly throwing the baby out with the bathwater, mistakes like this need to be studied, understood, and used to incrementally alter the system. The costs of proposed changes need to be carefully understood and weighed against the perceived benefits.
More importantly, we have to dampen our urge to see heads roll. The fact is that the TSA is our defensive force. They will never be the ones to win this war for America. Their successes will be largely unheralded, while their failures painfully public. If every time a mishap occurs we reflexively burden ourselves with arbitrary restrictions and decapitate our leadership, we only raise the costs to the American people without actually addressing the source of the problem.
The real war is in the offense; America needs to stop these young, disillusioned men from becoming Allah’s warriors. The failed foreign policy that has yet to reap the grandiloquently stated rewards is where the Obama administration deserves its criticism. Regardless of who is on duty – whether Napolitano or her successor, Obama or the Republican President that follows him – no American airline will be one-hundred percent safe when there are still young Muslim’s willing to take their own lives to satiate their hatred of the West. The culture of scapegoating is futile. Let’s focus on the real problems.
Without going too far out on a limb, the administration does need some defending. Critics on the right, and even the left, have been lambasting the administration’s snafu. Bloggers, such as Karl DeVries at The Bootleg Press, have (tentatively) called for Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano’s sacking. Other critics have demanded explanations for why the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not on the no-fly list. The problem is that in American political culture, the impetuous urge to find a scapegoat ubiquitously overrides true insight into a potential (or actual) disaster. When dealing with issues like security, particularly when threats come from disparate sources, there is always some probability that the ‘bad’ event will occur. No matter how secure a system is, it will never be foolproof. If a system is 99.99% perfect it means that 1 in 10,000 times the law of averages dictates that the bad guy will get through. This is especially true when having to weigh tradeoffs between security and issues such as efficiency and personal liberty. An extremely cumbersome yet vastly more secure process could be designed (Maybe have everyone disrobe, wear TSA issued jumpsuits, and be forbidden to have any personal effects on planes); however, the costs in terms of money, time, and personal freedoms would most likely outweigh the added security. For instance, it is absurd to demand that a single phone call from an individual’s father should warrant inclusion on a no-fly list. Such a precedent would overburden the system with meaningless names added to the list. [And, it might prompt fathers of rebellious teenagers across the globe to literally ‘ground’ their children.] Furthermore, such an inane system would still fail to be foolproof as some committed terrorist would inevitably find a way to beat it.
Likewise, the TSA has clamped down on security in the most arbitrary and ineffectual way. For instance pilots are now allowed (and have) to prevent passengers from keeping anything in their laps during the last hour of flight. It is not clear how keeping a Grandma from the Midwest from reading her copy of Going Rogue during the last hour of flight, is going to stop the next Abdulmutallab from blowing up a plane one and half hours before arrival.
The problem is not the current system, per se. Potential terrorists will inevitably find new and ingenious ways to breach our systems in the never ending game of cat and mouse. We should continue to monitor their methods and tactics and respond by altering our strategies. However, the unavoidable infiltration does not necessarily mean the system has failed. What it means is that the laws of probability have finally caught up to us. Instead of rashly throwing the baby out with the bathwater, mistakes like this need to be studied, understood, and used to incrementally alter the system. The costs of proposed changes need to be carefully understood and weighed against the perceived benefits.
More importantly, we have to dampen our urge to see heads roll. The fact is that the TSA is our defensive force. They will never be the ones to win this war for America. Their successes will be largely unheralded, while their failures painfully public. If every time a mishap occurs we reflexively burden ourselves with arbitrary restrictions and decapitate our leadership, we only raise the costs to the American people without actually addressing the source of the problem.
The real war is in the offense; America needs to stop these young, disillusioned men from becoming Allah’s warriors. The failed foreign policy that has yet to reap the grandiloquently stated rewards is where the Obama administration deserves its criticism. Regardless of who is on duty – whether Napolitano or her successor, Obama or the Republican President that follows him – no American airline will be one-hundred percent safe when there are still young Muslim’s willing to take their own lives to satiate their hatred of the West. The culture of scapegoating is futile. Let’s focus on the real problems.
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