Like most people, I have endured the airport screening, and have often scheduled my flights early so that I would deal with the least amount of it. However, I am becoming more on more convinced, after listening to a variety of talking heads, that this is more of a jobs program than it is about safety. It is my understanding that there are dogs out there who can sniff out various contraband, including the explosive material carried by the underwear bomber. We also have this thing called a computer which can deal with huge data bases of names with ease. There are programs which can deal with various permutations of names; and a visa can be easily revoked or flagged in such a database.
Along these same lines, it was my understanding (and maybe I got this wrong?) that Homeland Security was supposed to facilitate all of the various intelligence agencies talking to one another. However, one of the very first things that this Homeland Security chief put out was a booklet warning of right-wing radicals and terrorists and how the United States was in danger of recently returned vets being proselytized by dangerous right-wing groups. Heads at Homeland Security need to roll, if for nothing else than, not having a clue.
In the private sector, apart from unions and governmental regulations and lawsuits, one can be fired for not doing their job. Why does this not seem to be an option for governmental agencies? Various employees had pieces of information on the underwear bomber that should have flagged him. Why did they (excuse the expression) sit on this information? There are people and agencies in charge of the no-fly database and whatever other databases we have (like the terrorist watch list); why is there no integration and no movement of information across agencies? If the information was supposed to go from point A to point B, and someone did not do this, that person needs to be fired. If the system was not set up to allow this sort of information to flow (which I thought had been fixed since 9/11), then those policies need to be changed.
There were over a half-dozen red flags set off by the underwear bomber before he set foot on the plane. If the government cannot handle this, how can they handle healthcare, which is far more complex and has many more moving parts?
The American people are tired of political correctness when it comes to national security (whether we are speaking of the underwear bomber or the Fort Hood killer). Many blame, in part, political correctness for these incidents (as several recent polls have shown).
It is my understanding the Israeli flight security look people in the eyes and ask them questions. What is the one thing American security never does? They never look you in the eyes and they never ask you any real questions. Mark Steyn, this past week, talked about how carefully his driver’s license was inspected by a security person, who never spent any time looking Steyn in the face.
Surprisingly enough, what will Obama do to solve this problem? He will threw more money at the problem. Here is a problem which is clearly identifiable; and Obama’s solution: create more federal agencies, hire more federal employees and spend more money; because more federal employees and more federal agencies spending more tax dollars will solve any problem.
In any case, do not lose heart; the system sometimes works. Michael Yon, former Green Beret and war correspondent, was arrested at the Seattle Airport for failing to divulge his salary to a SeaTac official. Another dangerous right-wing radical caught by the system. So, I guess this means, the system works? Another possible right-wing terrorist act averted.
A retired math teacher who spends most of his time exegeting the Old Testament and, once a week, puts out an ezeen.