How much actual good is being accomplished by the TSA and the new “enhanced pat-downs” and the nude-o-scopes? Here’s a chart from our friends at Gizmodo that may illuminate things just a bit.
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From the chart, we can see that there were 4 successful airline terrorist attacks in a ten-year period from 1999 to 2009, out of six attempts. The two failures are noteworthy in that they happened well after 9/11, yet the perpetrators were not stopped by TSA or its sister agencies elsewhere. They were, in fact, stopped by the last line of defense, the passengers. According to Janet Incompetano, “The system worked.” Even more noteworthy is that in the case of the most recent attempt, there were many obvious clues passed to official channels warning of the attempt that were promptly ignored.
We clearly deserve much better. The current assault on our rights, our privacy, our liberty, and our naughty bits is all theater and no substance. These procedures would not have prevented either of the failed attempts and a case could be made they would not have prevented 9/11 as well. Given the rarity of attacks, let alone successful ones, the current procedures are gross overkill.
Middle Eastern terrorists hijack a U.S. jetliner bound for Italy. A two-week drama ensues in which the plane’s occupants are split into groups and held hostage in secret locations in Lebanon and Syria.
While this drama is unfolding, another group of terrorists detonates a bomb in the luggage hold of a 747 over the North Atlantic, killing more than 300 people.
Not long afterward, terrorists kill 19 people and wound more than a hundred others in coordinated attacks at European airport ticket counters.
A few months later, a U.S. airliner is bombed over Greece, killing four passengers.
Five months after that, another U.S. airliner is stormed by heavily armed terrorists at the airport in Karachi, Pakistan, killing at least 20 people and wounding 150 more.
Things are quiet for a while, until two years later when a 747 bound for New York is blown up over Europe killing 270 passengers and crew.
Nine months from then, a French airliner en route to Paris is bombed over Africa, killing 170 people from 17 countries.
Could you imagine what would happen if something like that were to happen? I would wager that if the scenario above were to transpire now, the world would practically roll up its collective sidewalks, go inside, curl up in a corner, and whimper and suck its thumb.
You want to know something interesting? The events above did happen. In a four-year period in the late 1980’s, skyjackers went nuts. Want to know something else? These were all the result of crazed Lutherans going wild (quelle surprise). They followed an approximately eight-year gap from the prior non-Lutheran skyjacking activity.
The big problem with air security is that it becomes vanishingly difficult to improve once you’ve managed to essentially eliminate the problem. I’m not saying that improvements should not be made; they should be, but they should be cost-effective – especially when seen in light of the benefits that are actually available to be accrued vs. the cost in terms of dollars, loss of liberty, and simple decency.
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