ABC has the pictures of Umar Farouk Abdulmutalla’s underwear:
And you can see for yourself none of the present day security at our airports could of protected us against that, except the technology our Congress is attempting to ban:
Privacy advocates, for example, have tried to stop or at least slow the introduction of advanced checkpoint screening devices that use so-called millimeter waves to create an image of a passenger’s body, so officers can see under clothing to determine if a weapon or explosive has been hidden. Security officers, in a private area, review the images, which are not stored. Legislation is pending in the House that would prohibit the use of this equipment for routine passenger screening.
The other method used is to use swabs on a persons skin to test for any trace amounts of the explosive but this is only used on those who are placed on the watch list, which they didn’t do for Abdulmutalla despite the warnings from his father.
Danger Room describes the process of the first scan: (h/t Hot Air)
“Facial features” (and, presumably, other body parts) “are blurred when our officers see the images,” the TSA insists. Nor will the agency “keep, store or transmit images. Once deleted, they are gone forever…. For additional privacy, the officer viewing the image is in a separate room and will never see the passenger, and the officer attending to the passenger will never see the image.”…
“Yes, there is some brief violation of privacy with a full-body scan,” Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, told Face the Nation. “But on the other hand, if we can save thousands of lives, to me, we have to make that decision, and we have to come down on the side of saving thousands of lives.”
As for Abdulmutalla, the terrorist had help of course and my oh my….guess where they came from:
Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi…
“The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke,” a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.
Art therapy……yeaaaaah.
These two were released under the Bush administration, and it most certainly was a mistake brought on by the intense pressure of the left to close Gitmo, but the releases under Bush will pale in comparison to Obama who now leads us now the path of mirandizing our enemy on the battlefield and closing Gitmo. Hell, it was just a few days ago that news of the impending release of 6 Gitmo prisoners to Yemen hit the airwaves:
The Obama administration is planning to repatriate six Yemenis held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a transfer that could be a prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen, according to sources with independent knowledge of the matter.
The release is a significant first step toward dealing with the largest group of detainees at the prison — there are currently 97 Yemenis there — and toward meeting President Obama’s goal of closing the facility.
But Yemen’s security problems and lack of resources have spawned fears about its ability to monitor and rehabilitate returnees. Critics of the administration charge that returning detainees to Yemen, a country where al-Qaeda is believed to be thriving, is tantamount to returning terrorists to the battlefield.
What will Obama’s reaction be? If he blames Bush then how in the world will he be able to justify the closing of Gitmo and the release of dozens of terrorists?
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