A Modest Proposal
While air travel goes through yet another tightening of security, while making flying as unpleasant as possible, I started thinking back to the “Shoe Bomber” who is now rotting in a maximum security jail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid_%28shoe_bomber%29 .
In 2002, Richard Reid tried to light his shoes on fire; so now we all have to take our shoes off at the airport. Where does this leave us with”Captain Underpants bomber”? Will we all be asked to disrobe before boarding?
There are those who are flogging machines that will do just that. Electronic disrobing is suppose to protect us. It seems that the ones who are helped the most are those who sell the machines, yes Michael Chertoff, I’m talking about you and your buddies.
Before our government and the airlines go on another very expensive quest for perfect security, by the way there isn’t any, lets see what the shoe bomber and the underpants bomber have in common. No I am not talking about radical Islam, alienation, or dateless Saturday nights.
Both bought their tickets with CASH, about $3,000 to be precise. Both had no luggage for international flights. In the case of Richard Reid this raised enough suspicions that because of scrutiny and questions he missed his first flight and had to take one the following day. But it appears no one followed up their suspicions about him either. When the underpants bomber paid cash and didn’t have any luggage, it appears he didn’t raise any red flags at all.
I am going to make a modest proposal. Nobody can pay cash for international flights. Terrorists are loathe to leave a paper trail of messy credit card applications and receipts, that is why they deal in cash.
Lets try this before we spend untold billions of dollars on electronic disrobing machines. I commend to all the IV Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution . I still believe that we have a right to be secure in our persons as the Bill of Rights claims.
Anyone who has watched a 78 year old cancer patient struggle to put her shoes back on after having be frisked (yeah, my Mom) knows that this system is broken. Behaviors, not shoes or underpants are the “tell” as they say in poker. It is time to focus on this.
Janelle Kennedy:
While in hindsight it seems like a good idea to ban cash transactions, it is impractical. Nigeria and several other economies are run on a largely cash-only basis. Most of the tickets purchased there are cash only. You argue against using new scanners in part because of the moneyed interests, but to require everyone to use some form of electronic payments is also serving a moneyed interest. He did not use a fake name or take any measures to hide his identity, so even if he had used a credit card to pay for the ticket, it would have been unlikely that there would have been a different outcome. Many people point to the cash transaction and the fact that he did not check any baggage as warning signs when in actuality, neither alone or jointly is uncommon.
The fact is that the “rogue” gunman/terrorist is the most dangerous threat there is and is nearly impossible to guard against. Though the underwear bomber had ties to terrorist organizations, they were not close ties. There will always be risks, and there will always be better measures to stop them. But as we get smarter, so will those who wish to do harm. It is a reality of the new world we live in.
1 January 2010, 5:05 pmleslie:
Thanks Janelle for commenting. In the 70′s when we had a spate of hijackings, I believe we did institute extraordinary screening for those buying tickets with cash and having no luggage. I actually thought this procedure was still in place until the shoe bomber proved otherwise.
The underpants bomber would not have been deterred with the full body scanners either, from what I understand.
While I am sympathetic to the “un-banked” of Nigeria, remember he was already in Europe. He could have paid several ways if he didn’t have a credit card.The rationale of those who would do us harm, is to use cash to hide the transaction from being traced. I am unwilling in the hierarchy of needs to put those who want to pay cash for tickets in front of millions of airline passengers who believe flying should not be an aerial gulag.
2 January 2010, 11:45 amMichael S:
I ALMOST totally agree with this blog, except how easy now that we’ve announced it as search criteria will it be for would-be terrorists to start bringing luggage and using credit cards? This criteria is VERY easy to sidestep, and frankly I’m surprised that the Al Quaida Handbook doesn’t now REQUIRE affiliated bombers to book with Visa/MC and bring a suitcase of leaflets to rain down in the unlikely event they’re successful.
Unpopular as it is, National profiling (not racial or ideological) will yield the best results since it is only a small number of countries with large percentages of highly radicalized muslims fueling this.
22 January 2010, 3:44 pm