TSA Security Theater

Looking at the failed attempt by the “Christmas Bomber” to blow up a plane as he flew from Nigeria to Detroit, what can we say of the US government response eight years after 9/11? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was fortunately thwarted by passengers when he lit his pants on fire while he sat in his seat, but why was he allowed on the flight in the first place? His father had alerted the US Embassy in Nigeria of his son’s radicalism six months before the attack. He was already banned from the UK and previously refused a visa, despite being engaged in university studies there. Yet this was not enough to put him on the “no fly” list and to board a flight bound for the United States.

The TSA shouldn’t take the immediate blame—the goofs who fumble around mistaking bananas and shampoo for bombs were not responsible for checking flight boarding at airports in the Netherlands or Nigeria. But why can’t the Department of Homeland Security figure out which radicals should be banned from visiting the United States when it has this type of information? The Christmas Bomber is scary because it shows how all the overlapping layers of terrorist prevention can still easily fail through pure incompetence and systemal information overload.

What’s more, the TSA has announced absurd overreactive measures that no electronic devices, bathroom breaks or anything on laps will be permitted one hour before landing. How this would do anything to stop the Christmas Bomber, or future terrorist attackers, is beyond human comprehension—but fortunately, as I’ve noted before, the TSA runs a blog and in the latest post mindlessly refer to a press statement, refusing to comment on new, random security policies that will be in effect at airports worldwide, and predictably are hit by more than a hundred derisive blog comments . Some favorites:

I am an American Citizen with absolutely no crime history or affiliation with anything illegal. I’ve been traveling world wide for over 40 years. I am on a watch list. Where is Umar’s name on this list? What’s wrong with this picture?

So the TSA is saying methods are different from airport to airport and agent to agent and pilot to pilot because they’re “designed to be unpredictable”?

Why not identify the most effective methods and use them everywhere? Maybe because the security is all for show and will only capture idiots who bring hand grenades and machetes? (And, of course, water, cottage cheese, Gatorade, lotion, shampoo, contact lens solution, hummus. . .) Hmm.

Wondering whether or not an agent will make a passenger take their bulky sweater off or confiscate their peanut butter or be seated certain minutes of a flight isn’t going to thwart the sophisticated terrorist.

Designed to be unpredictable! It’s always been chaos. Way to own it, TSA.

let’s go people: soil yourselves and marinate in it for your final hour of flight…it will save a life! Rigggght.

After a few more incidents the passengers will be anesthetized and naked.

The blog is as much a joke as the TSA is—read about them justifying TSA policy when Britney Spears was reported to go through a checkpoint with a cup of ice, which is apparently permitted under TSA screening policy even if it is in excess of 3.4 fluid ounces. The first of 230 comments reads: “Because no terrorist would ever think to freeze a liquid explosive. But thanks for admitting once again that your policies are nonsense.”