sensible memo from BTC: Aviation Security After Detroit

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
Date: December 27, 2009 6:32:50 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: sensible memo from BTC: Aviation Security After Detroit

FYI 

Begin forwarded message:

From: BTCgram <editor () btcnewswire com>
Date: December 27, 2009 5:44:25 PM EST
To: edyson () edventure com
Subject: INDUSTRY ANALYSIS: Aviation Security After Detroit
Reply-To: BTCgram <editor () btcnewswire com>

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 () BusinessTravelCoalition com

About BTC
Founded in 1994, the mission of Business Travel Coalition is to bring transparency to industry and government policies 
and practices so that customers can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations. 

 
 
 
 
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