Free Republic

"In the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, full body scanning technologies such as millimeter wave and backscatter are regaining popularity, writes blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in a recent post. But, he asks, do they really work? The TSA seems to think so. It has just issued a contract to purchase more millimeter wave scanners from L3 Communications.

Yesterday Newsweek revealed that on December 22nd, three days before the attempted underwear bombing, the President was warned that an attack might be imminent. In a background briefing for reporters on December 29, also attributed in an official White House transcript to a "senior administration official", that official asserted that in the wake of the attempted underpants attack, it had become clear to the President and top advisers that before Christmas, the US government was in possession of "bits and pieces" of information, which, if they had been properly knitted together, "could have...allowed us to disrupt the attack or certainly...

Newsweek follows up its story on Obama being informed of a Christmas terror plot with the story that White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan being briefed about the kind of bomb used during the holiday attack: White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination attempt by Al Qaeda that investigators now believe used the same underwear bombing technique as the Nigerian suspect who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, U.S. intelligence and administration officials tell NEWSWEEK.The briefing to Brennan was delivered at the White House by Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi...

Not just underwear bombers generally, either, but underwear bombers trained in Yemen. I feel about this the way I felt about Napolitano’s “the system worked” comment: It’s almost a shame that it didn’t happen under Bush, just because the fireworks from the media’s outrageous outrage afterwards would have been so spectacular. As it is, don’t expect more than a few sparklers this time.