Posted on 10/20/2003 10:06:40 AM PDT by george wythe
What a bunch of crap. They could have easily smuggled their own shit on. Thank God people some of us have the guts to test this so-called security, what a joke. Kudos to the kid.
But the kid notified TSA almost immediately within 3 days.
Don't blame the kid because TSA didn't even bother to go look. Don't blame the kid for a nationwide search either, when the kid told TSA exactly where to find them.
I think the kid has a lot of guts. And even if Elbucko is right and he is publicity seeking, I say, so what. If he can highlight security lapses like that, he deserves publicity.
They also seem to be incompetent. That's why they missed 9-11
Well you can question his wisdom, but he did find and expose multiple serious security breaches. He also exposed the incompetence of TSA for not at least attempting to verify the kids letter.
Had TSA acted, the fallout would have been minimal.
I've heard it reported that TSA has consficated over 5000 box cutters since 9/11. Which makes you wonder how many of those were testing the system and how many were really a stock clerk who forgot and how many were terrorists.
On 9-11 all the box cutters they carried were perfectly legal to carry. Before then, I had always carried something like it in my bag.
This was clearly an error on their part, it would only have taken a few seconds to ask LUV to check out the information. I believe that the email told them exactly where to look and on which planes.
See post # 15 for the incompentence I've been addressing on this thread.
Yeah, but it looks like they failed 6 times in a row with this kid. And failed to follow up when the kid told them about it.
But I also question who and why 5000 people attempted to bring box cutters on the plane. I'm sure an occasional mistake occurs, but 5000? How many stock clerks fly?
Teach terrorist to obey the law, THEN you'll have something.
The point is that the current approach to aircraft security is a smokescreen. It's focus is directed (very poorly) at keeping hand weapons which may be used to convert an airliner into a cruise missle out of the aircraft. I sumbit this is a virtual impossibility since very effective expedient weapons can be fabricated on the aircraft after it is airborne.
The focus needs to be on effectively neutralizing a developed threat ON THE AIRCRAFT. The current approach is a howlingly inadequate substitute as this kid illustrated in spades.
Let just quote a small segment as described by CNN:
The left hand did not know what the left hand was doing.:At least 14 people who had contact with six of the hijackers before the attacks had come to the FBI's attention during counterterrorism or counterintelligence inquiries.
The report says four of the 14 people were the focus of active FBI investigations while the hijackers were in the United States. The contacts helped them find housing, open bank accounts, obtain driver's licenses and locate flight schools, the report says. But a government official told CNN the FBI doesn't believe any of those individuals knew of the hijacking plot.
San Diego connection
The report singles out as the intelligence community's "best chance" to unravel the plot connections that two of the hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, made as they settled in the San Diego area in January 2000. Both men were among the hijackers who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
CNN previously reported Alhazmi and Almihdhar, while in San Diego, lived in a house belonging to a man who was an FBI informant but who, sources have said, had no information about the men's intentions.
But one FBI agent who was responsible for the informant in San Diego told the joint inquiry that he was unaware that intelligence information was available on the two hijackers before September 11.
"It would have made a huge difference," the agent said. "We would have immediately opened ... investigations."
o The intelligence community failed to capitalize on the United States’ technological advantage. The Joint Inquiry found that the NSA failed to develop and utilize analytical tools for making sense of the vast amount of intelligence it collected. In fact, this forced some analysts to rely on manual methods, such as storing information in card files or translating by hand. Even at the FBI, which had replaced its written reports with the electronic Automated Case System in 1995, still required analysts to manually sift through electronic files to find information relevant to their investigation instead of having it automatically routed to them (in addition any information collected as a result of an investigation through the foreign intelligence surveillance act was not included in the system). This technological collapse was culminated in the failure to develop a single database for counterterrorism data.o Failure to bring data on terrorism from all sources into one central repository or to share relevant information with all agencies with a counterterrorism mission including those outside of the intelligence community. The report found that counterterrorism intelligence collected by the FBI was rarely transmitted to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center nor was the FBI able to reliably call on the CIA for assistance in counterterrorism investigations. Similarly, FBI agents working at the Counterterrorism Center were not given full access to information.
o In addition, collected data was not transformed into actionable information or preventive measures by other agencies. This failure is most vividly illustrated by the CIA’s failure to put known terrorists on the State Department and other terrorist watch lists, which prevented the State Department from denying terrorists’ visas or INS from refusing entry into the United States. In fact, the Joint Inquiry concluded that there was no system for putting suspected terrorists on a watch list, despite the importance of such tools in denying terrorists an opportunity to attack, survey or fundraise. Another example includes the FBI’s failure to inform the FAA of its investigation into terrorist flight training despite the obvious relation to aviation.
o The Joint Inquiry also found that the process the FBI relied on for obtaining warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (the body of law that governs the domestic investigation of agents of foreign governments and terrorist organizations on national security grounds) was hampered by an overly adversarial court and cumbersome processes, that required extraneous information and banned certain agents from appearing before it. Similarly, policy guidelines existing prior to 9/11 strove to separate foreign intelligence from domestic, which prevented the development of a coordinated counterterrorism effort.
agreed.
people are fond of slandering the low wage screeners, but it seems that the tools and processes are where most of the deficiencies lies.
how would a more highly skilled worker have known that the liquid in that bottle was bleach?
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