Enough Terrorist Theater?

Like many of you, I have been following the Christmas Day terrorist event and the resulting political theater that has resulted from it.What has been interesting to me is not the the event itself but rather the public outrage that is being directed at the Transportation Security Administration.

As someone who has worked in local government, I know that there are times when it is politically important to be seen to be doing something, anything, to react to a crisis, even if that action is really meaningless. This sends a message that you are 1) taking the event seriously and 2) doing everything possible to deal with the crisis. However, this time TSA has just gone too far.

When the terrorists of September 11th seized planes using box cutters, TSA missed that they were successful because of the element of surprise, not their weapons, and took away our pocket knives, knitting needles, and other sharp, pointy objects. This despite the fact that not even Chuck Norris could hold off a hundred angry passengers with a one-inch Swiss Army Knife while he whittled his way through the reinforced cockpit door.

When another terrorist tried to light his shoes on fire, TSA required us to remove our shoes for inspection, forgetting that the limited amount of explosives that can be contained in a shoe has to be carefully placed to be effective and that there are generally two other passengers in proximity to the terrorist.

Next came the scare that terrorists would use binary explosives and TSA took away our water bottles, perfumes, and 4.5 ounce toothpaste tubes, despite arguments by experts that binary explosives are complicated and unstable and unlikely to be used successfully by terrorists.

We went along with all of this because it seemed to make sense at the time. After all, the people charged with our protection were being cautious and reacting to actual events. But this latest knee jerk reaction goes too far. Does anyone feel safer because you can't go to the toilet, work on your projects, read or watch a program for an hour before landing? How do you feel about a pat search?

In putting such ludicrous procedures in place, TSA is sending the wrong message and calling into question all of their procedures. It suggests that TSA cannot think creatively or pro-actively and can only react to past events.  The result is a considerable loss of reputation and respect. We are now seeing airports refusing to implement the new searches and articles in the media comparing the number of terrorists caught to the number of TSA employees arrested for various crimes. People are viewing TSA, rather than terrorists, as the problem.

What ever happened to the concept of risk analysis? TSA continues to view passengers as problems rather than allies and insists on perpetrating the myth that we can be protected from everything at all times. The simple fact is that terrorism, like crashes, are a risk that we take every time we travel by air. We need to accept it and move on. TSA does a decent job of keeping us safe but it is unrealistic to expect that they will be successful every single time. TSA needs to make us partners in their efforts to keep us safe, not treat us likethe enemy - passengers have demonstrated on several occasions, starting with September 11th, that they are willing to be part of the solution. Knee-jerk reactions create more disruption in an industry already on the ropes and, far from keeping us safe, actually furthers the terrorist goal of destroying us economically.

Comments

[Cynthia]

Nothing that has been done to date will stop another attack. It's all reactionary. I mean look at Canada banning books on flight after Christmas. What good did that do? Nothing. My chat lists were a flame with people grumbling once again about how miserable air travel is becoming. They've since backed off but still, it's just one knee jerk reaction after another.

And what about this disconnect between the TSA and Port Authority Police? The "security breach" at Newark Airport on Sunday showed how the two agencies don't communicate. It also shows how lazy we get, I mean the security camera was running but not recording? I think most 5 year olds know better than that. Of course that whole thing on Sunday I suspect was a test, either by a reporter or maybe a disgruntled employee trying to show how bad things had become.