[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
All it takes to get America ginned up about terrorism and air travel security is to have another attempt to down a jetliner hit the press. Detroit has done just that.
Suggestions for solutions to this problem cover the range from idiotic to inspired. One genius on CNN suggested we ban anyone with an Arabic name from flying at all. One rather thoughtful expert suggested that there are a number of devices available that are capable of sniffing out explosive compounds.
Americans cannot be both safe and free. Until the time when and if technology takes over, if you really want to be safe in the air, you will have to accept some diminution of your personal freedoms, like virtual screening and body searches. If you want to be free, you will have to reject such measures and perhaps not fly.
Let’s face it, Americans have already accepted major intrusions into their personal freedoms with warrantless wiretapping and most of the other measures instituted by the Bush administration under the Patriot Act after 9/11. So, you see, your horse has already left the barn.
One CNN “expert” has suggested that what is wrong is that we are focused too much on weaponry in our anti-terrorism measures. What we should be doing, he suggested, is focusing on the people. Terrorists, he and many others have said, have many common and identifiable factors. They are all Muslims and have strange names, for example. Forget the legal issues, we need to profile them.
If you look at Muslims around the world, they are black, white, tan, Asian, European and Middle Eastern. Consider Nigeria, the Arab world, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, China, Russia, Bosnia and Albania. That covers the human color range. There are no common denominators in those groups other than their religion, and that only if they are Muslim and choose to say so.
In addition, they now include numbers of converts who are entirely atypical. Some are white Americans and Europeans.
Quite apart from those absolutes, any good terrorist organization has its document specialists. Any such specialist can create or alter just about any passport by giving the bearer a new name, date and place of birth, or any of the other identifying characteristics contained in such a document. That really puts the torch to any foolproof system that would focus on the individual rather than the chosen weapon. In fact, the best known, most competent and highly blacklisted terrorist can foil the entire watch list system by assuming a new identity. So much for watch lists and no-fly lists.
The only potentially effective system available is based on common sense and technology. Common sense dictates that we have a system that will tell us unequivocally that any given person: bought a one-way ticket; bought a ticket with cash; had only a carry-on for a three-week stay. Or that that same person had been reported to U.S. authorities as an increasingly radicalized Muslim. We have computers. What we need is more reliable input and analysis.
Technological solutions now include machines designed to detect explosives at airports as part of security screening. Although performance specs on such technology are understandably closely held, they are said to work very well and to have low failure rates. The only impediments to the use of such technology are the availability of the machines and the decision to install them.
If the terrorist is able to get his bomb past airport controls, today’s carry-on bomb materials clearly require privacy to be assembled and armed. That can best be done in the toilet. There needs to be a way to learn that such a process is under way; given our high level of technical sophistication, that is certainly possible.
Of course, it would be useful if there actually were someone in charge at the Transportation Security Administration. The nominee, Erroll Southers, has been held up by Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina since early September, because the senator fears that Southers will unionize airport screeners. Now, there’s a good way to keep us safe in the air!
We are at the point where technology and common sense, instead of prejudice, stereotyping and hysteria, represent the possibility of saving us from our baser selves, while measurably increasing our security without further diminishing our personal freedoms. That certainly is worth a try.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.
