[Infowarrior] - Sensible BTC Memo on Aviation Security

[Richard Forno]

(c/o IP)

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Aviation System Security

Business Travel Coalition
December 27, 2009

By Kevin Mitchell

The Christmas attempt by a Nigerian man with PETN (one of the most  
powerful explosives known) affixed to his body to cause harm to an  
internationally-originated Delta Air Lines flight on approach to  
Detroit shone a bright light on much that is wrong with the U.S.  
approach to aviation system security. It is welcome news that  
President Obama has ordered an airline industry security review so  
long as it is strategic in nature.

It makes abundant sense in the immediate aftermath of a suspected  
terrorist attempt to tighten security measures to ensure that there is  
not a wider terrorist operation underway; to guard against would-be  
copycats; and to adequately complete an investigation such that there  
is sufficient visibility to the nature and extent of the threat. The  
restrictions ordered by the Transportation Security Administration  
(TSA) on passenger movement and use of personal items during the one- 
hour period prior to landing in the U.S. would defy logic, if they are  
kept in place longer than what near-term security precautions warrant.  
Someone wanting to terrorize would simply endeavor to do so 65 minutes  
prior to landing, or during the beginning or middle of a flight.

The immediate post 9/11 security priority for the U.S. was to prevent  
a commercial airline from ever again being used as a weapon-of-mass- 
destruction. Airport screening was strengthened substantially, the Air  
Marshall program was expanded, cabin and cockpit crews were trained in  
advanced anti-terrorism techniques, many pilots were armed, F-14s were  
placed on alert, and most importantly, cockpit doors were reinforced  
and passengers were forever transformed from passive participants in a  
time of threat to able defenders. All of this was accomplished within  
a relatively short period of time after the U.S. was attacked on 9/11.

 From that point forward the highest and best use of each incremental  
security dollar spent should have been on intelligence gathering, risk- 
management analysis and sharing, and on fundamental police work such  
that terrorists would never reach an airport, much less board an  
airplane. What does the immediate investigation into the near-calamity  
on Christmas reveal?

	• The father of the accused terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,  
informed U.S. officials months ago that he was concerned about his  
son’s extreme religious views. Not a friend, not a teacher, but his  
very own father issued the warning!
	• The accused Nigerian is in the Terrorist Identities Datamart  
Environment database (550K names) maintained by the U.S. National  
Counterterrorism Center. While not on the selectee list (14K names) or  
no-fly list (4K names), should not some of our scarce security dollars  
have been used to ensure that he was placed on the selectee list,  
questioned and subjected to extra searching prior to being allowed to  
board the Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam?
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appeared today on  
ABC’s This Week show and unabashedly steered clear of government  
accountability arguing that the U.S. did not have enough information  
to keep the accused man from boarding the flight or to add him to the  
selectee or no-fly list. However, his very father warned us! Moreover,  
the UK’s Daily Mail reports that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was banned  
from Britain; his last visa request refused! That the suspect did not  
but should have received additional questioning and physical screening  
is where the U.S. government’s focus should be, versus on the in- 
flight security illusion of restricted passenger movement, if it is  
intended to be more that temporary.

President Obama is right to review aviation system security. In doing  
so his advisors should consider that security-theater in fact also  
inconveniences all passengers, renders air travel less appealing for  
business travelers and negatively impacts our struggling economy as  
aviation drives commercial activity and job creation. What’s more, it  
is unconscionable that the U.S. has been without a TSA leader for a  
year and reprehensible that one Senator’s extreme political views are  
allowed to hold our country hostage and put our citizens in harm’s way  
by blocking the confirmation of President Obama’s nominee to run TSA,  
Erroll Southers. Politics trumping passenger security is a national  
disgrace! We desperately require leadership at TSA now.
CONTACT

BTC || Kevin Mitchell | 610-341-1850 | mitchell at BusinessTravelCoalition.com

About BTC
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customers can influence issues of strategic importance to their  
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