Janet Napolitano May Have Been Right…And Other Flight 253 Truths

Earlier this year, a security expert revealed to CNN the true folly of reliance on systems like the full body scanner or the puffer machine:

Bruce Schneier, an internationally recognized security technologist, said whole-body imaging technology “works pretty well,” privacy rights aside. But he thinks the financial investment was a mistake. In a post-9/11 world, he said, he knows his position isn’t “politically tenable,” but he believes money would be better spent on intelligence-gathering and investigations.

“It’s stupid to spend money so terrorists can change plans,” he said by phone from Poland, where he was speaking at a conference. If terrorists are swayed from going through airports, they’ll just target other locations, such as a hotel in Mumbai, India, he said.

“We’d be much better off going after bad guys … and back to pre-9/11 levels of airport security,” he said. “There’s a huge ‘cover your ass’ factor in politics, but unfortunately, it doesn’t make us safer.”

He’s exactly right. Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab could easily have worn regular underwear, completed that flight uneventfully, and picked up a pile of handguns at a gun show once he got here, or committed any number of other destructive acts.

To the degree we can harden a target, all the terrorists need to do is switch targets. This insight was reflected in Robert Gibbs’ much more sensible reaction to the Detroit incident, in which he focused on the US’ efforts to strike at terrorism’s roots.

It also reveals the degree to which Janet Napolitano’s tin-eared contention that the system worked may yet be borne out. The restrictions that we currently have in place obviously played a part in Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab’s choice of a device. Had he been able to carry on a bottle of shampoo or hair gel, his choices would have been greatly expanded. The fact that the device didn’t work may turn out to be more a function of the materials, rather than the design or execution: (from WSJ)

(Explosives expert Jimmie Carol Oxley’s) view, consistent with initial reports from investigators of the incident, is that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up the plane, “was looking for a chemical reaction that would be hot enough to initiate” the PETN and cause it to explode. “It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy either and it obviously didn’t work for him,” Prof. Oxley said.

There has been a neat effort at overselling the effectiveness of PETN, as well. Typical of reports I’ve heard on TV and elsewhere is this nugget:

PETN was widely used in the plastic explosives terrorists used to blow up airplanes in the 1970s and 1980s.

The fact is, PETN is typically not the primary explosive, but is commonly used as a detonator. As the star of the show, PETN has a dismal record. A failed assassination attempt, a failed shoe-bombing, and this failed crotch-bombing are balanced by a 1983 attack on the Maison de France in Berlin in 1983 that killed 1 and injured 23. That attack used 24 kilos of PETN, over 50 lbs.

The media has an obvious reason to exaggerate the danger of the PETN device: If it bleeds, it leads. Obviously, the attack is cause for concern, but some perspective is in order, perspective that the media is supposed to give.

Without all of the facts, it is tough to say whether converting the entire 550,000 person database into a “selectee list” is feasible, or even a good idea. Common sense dictates that, whatever the perceived harms inherent to such a move, the benefits would outweigh them. The reviews of list procedures that Robert Gibbs spoke about yesterday should, indeed, happen quickly.

But we, as a people, need to remain calm and not be frightened into a “DO SOMETHING!” hysteria that will lead us to divert resources that would be better used elsewhere.

The actions of terrorists, especially suicide terrorists, are anomalous to human nature, even to dark-sided human nature. Even “bad” people have an instinct for self-preservation, and even most killers don’t kill indiscriminately. For a person who doesn’t care who he kills, including himself, the whole world will always be a target-rich environment. The best way to stop them is to either kill them before they can act, or to make them not want to do that.

That won’t stop people from trying to sell you nekkid body-scanners, and puffer machines that don’t work, and color-coded alert systems, or from trying to convince you that we’ll be safe if we just get a big enough list going. The truth is, we can be safer, but never completely safe.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.