some ideas on how to execute flight security (at all)

Submitted by myth (Germany), Dec 28, 2009 at 17:52

The only good thing in this whole story is that this terrorist was known to the intelligence community. The bad thing is nobody reacted, that is put him on a no-fly list. Even worse, without the terrorist attempt nobody would have taken notice, Let me draw a couple of conclusions that I would advise on:

1) after a certain amount of, let me call it activation time, after somebody has been spotted by intelligence this individual should be put on the no-fly list, given the evidence has been refreshed at least once. That activation time depends on the recorded experience of time-gap between detection and terrorist activity as experienced by the intelligence services in the past. With this case we have a first guess what the maximum activation time should be.

2) there is no way that somebody who is actually on the screening list only can be allowed to enter the US without making contact with security personnel. The idea is to get information as to what the goals behind the visit actually are, who is visited, simply get more information. Naturally the best way of doing this is a contact not obvious to the individual in question. Of course the information gathered by electronic detectors should be kept in this case also.

3) It is important that the airport security is not transparent. I do advocate a minimum of two distinct exclusive checks. So everybody would have to pass one or the other. The idea is to make it hard to figure out the expected security and have both systems expose their weaknesses one by the other. Have the exact same security when someone leaves the plane even to change flights.

4) Information about past security checks on other airports should be available on all airports, so that in the event of a detection there is full information on all previous checks that failed. Even if this cannot be achieved overnight, people who actually change flights should be given some higher level of attention.

5) Homeland Security must investigate on muslims when they fly as a target group using real people to investigate and not rely on electronical screening. I advise to pick muslim people at random and collect any information possible as to how the flight was booked and what the activity at the destination was. This shall provide substantial information as to how precisely terrorists differ from ordinary muslims. Learn the rules of the game, learn to detect the terrorist, not the explosives.

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