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we have to be right every time, they just have to get lucky once. that's the scary thing.
http://www.slate.com/id/2239935/
Flying High
Why are we so bad at detecting the guilty and so good at collective punishment of the innocent?
By Christopher Hitchens
Slate.com
Posted Monday, Dec. 28, 2009, at 12:03 PM ET
It's getting to the point where the twin news stories more or less write themselves. No sooner is the fanatical and homicidal Muslim arrested than it turns out that he (it won't be long until it is also she) has been known to the authorities for a long time. But somehow the watch list, the tipoff, the many worried reports from colleagues and relatives, the placing of the name on a "central repository of information" don't prevent the suspect from boarding a plane, changing planes, or bringing whatever he cares to bring onto a plane. This is now a tradition that stretches back to several of the murderers who boarded civilian aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, having called attention to themselves by either a) being on watch lists already or b) weird behavior at heartland American flight schools. They didn't even bother to change their names.
So that's now more or less the routine for the guilty. (I am not making any presumption of innocence concerning Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.) But flick your eye across the page, or down it, and you will instantly see a different imperative for the innocent. "New Restrictions Quickly Added for Travelers," reads the inevitable headline just below the report on the notoriety of Abdulmutallab, whose own father had been sufficiently alarmed to report his son to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, some time ago. (By the way, I make a safe prediction: Nobody in that embassy or anywhere else in our national security system will lose his or her job as a consequence of this most recent disgrace.)
In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do it. It's also incredibly, nay, almost diabolically clever of our guardians to let it be known what the precise time limit will be. Oh, and by the way, any passenger courageous or resourceful enough to stand up and fight back will also have broken the brave new law.
For some years after 9/11, passengers were forbidden to get up and use the lavatory on the Washington-New York shuttle. Zero tolerance! I suppose it must eventually have occurred to somebody that this ban would not deter a person who was willing to die, so the rule was scrapped. But now the principle has been revisited for international flights. For many years after the explosion of the TWA plane over Long Island (a disaster that was later found to have nothing at all to do with international religious nihilism), you could not board an aircraft without being asked whether you had packed your own bags and had them under your control at all times. These two questions are the very ones to which a would-be hijacker or bomber would honestly and logically have to answer "yes." But answering "yes" to both was a condition of being allowed on the plane! Eventually, that heroic piece of stupidity was dropped as well. But now fresh idiocies are in store. Nothing in your lap during final approach. Do you feel safer? If you were a suicide-killer, would you feel thwarted or deterred?
Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can't—or won't. The answer to the second question is: Because we can. The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to "feel safe." The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens' toothpaste. My impression as a frequent traveler is that intelligent Americans fail to protest at this inanity in case it is they who attract attention and end up on a no-fly list instead. Perfect.
It was reported over the weekend that in the aftermath of the Detroit fiasco, no official decision was made about whether to raise the designated "threat level" from orange. Orange! Could this possibly be because it would be panicky and ridiculous to change it to red and really, really absurd to lower it to yellow? But isn't it just as preposterous (and revealing), immediately after a known Muslim extremist has waltzed through every flimsy barrier, to leave it just where it was the day before?
What nobody in authority thinks us grown-up enough to be told is this: We had better get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless and planned assault from the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, sexuals, and dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated slaughter victims. Our civil aviation is only the most psychologically frightening symbol of a plethora of potential targets. The future murderers will generally not be from refugee camps or slums (though they are being indoctrinated every day in our prisons); they will frequently be from educated backgrounds, and they will often not be from overseas at all. They are already in our suburbs and even in our military. We can expect to take casualties. The battle will go on for the rest of our lives. Those who plan our destruction know what they want, and they are prepared to kill and die for it. Those who don't get the point prefer to whine about "endless war," accidentally speaking the truth about something of which the attempted Christmas bombing over Michigan was only a foretaste. While we fumble with bureaucracy and euphemism, they are flying high.
we have to be right every time, they just have to get lucky once. that's the scary thing.
It's not that scary, Oh gee.
I'll bet you'd think differently if you were on that flight.
Dumbass.
Keep fapping the fear. It's what you're good at.
Please explain.
Darrin, I have to agree with WH on this. There is only so much that is acceptable. Travel has become a nuisance now. I can accept extra safeguards, but they are out of control. As long as they cannot make it into the pit and use the plane as a weapon, I think it better to lighten up a bit, and realize we still cannot 100% prevent a hijacking. We may lose a few lives that we wouldn't otherwise, but then, we do on the streets every day by being so lax in traffic laws.
How about we really save lives and enforce the 2 and 3 second rules. Fine people heavily for speeding, following close, and any other daily activity we see that increases the possibility of accidents? We would save so many more lives by putting that money to work in the police departments rather than the airlines.
Don't even get me started on the quality of the Justice system. Want to save lives? How many people die each year from violent crimes vs. 2001 airline incidents?
Terrorism isn't that big a threat, statistically speaking. It makes more sense to be afraid of choking, drowning, illness, falling down and the drive to and from work.
Statistically speaking, the fear of being struck by lightning is more well founded than fear of terrorism.
And isn't it funny how coconuts kill more people than sharks, but what are people afraid of?
Naturally the first reaction of the state is to clamp down on the people.
Here we see the best (*ahem*) of the current American left and right. An inordinate focus on equality and order which endangers the people.
That's a good example, WC. What's on your dinner plate will kill you far more quickly and surely than terrorism, but you'll seldom see that in featured in newspapers or on cable TV.
And we spend something like three quarters of a trillion dollars per annum on national defense and we can't protect civilians from someone's drawers? Mother er.
The people like to be shocked and awed. Sensationalism rules the day. A sober people would never allow the Cons ution to be desecrated and defecated on as it has been.
The notion that our government can prevent terrorism is totally unrealistic. Manage the problem? Yes. Make us safe, no way.
No matter what you do, unless you ins ute a complete police state, ingenious people will figure something out.
I see this as only a white-wash to make people feel safer. they got the strong doors now to the pit, I think that's enough.
I agree in the sense that I don't spend much time thinking about being killed in a terrorist attack. And I don't think this recent event justifies all the new security "procedures" that we'll have to endure. All I was saying is that I'm sure those passengers who heard the "pop" and saw the fire and ensuing struggle were afraid.
I always found it strange that they confiscate nail clippers, but not a pencil or pen.
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Why are you scared of pencils and pens, Darrin?
Yes, there's always a chance. Such is life. In this tale the utter failure of that which you would expect to be running well by this point, past nine years since 9/11, is glaring. A perfect failure of modern Western society is indeed to clamp down on rights of the innocent while attempting to avoid offending the sensitivities of those least a part of it.
Sure, the fear is understandable. Especially when you have no place to go. Still, the TSA is under-skilled and overburdens the public. The changes were, and recently prove the still are, a knee-jerk reaction.
the scary thing being that after enough attempts one is bound to be successful. It's seems to me that we could never have a 100% prevention rate--one or two are going to not only get through (like in this case) but succeed as well.
Don't think that I'm afraid for my personal safety; I'm afraid for those unfortunate people that will be present one unlucky day.
300 Americans killed by a bombed airplane
What's the difference? We got 300M more.
How many Americans are killed every year in accidents with guns of less gun nuts?
I would venture a guess less than those killed by gun-toting wanna-be ganagsters.
Each state keeps a record of shootings involving registered gun owners. Even further up the chain, they keep records of concealed carry permits involved in shootings.
Again, I venture to say both of those groups combined (with the obvious overlap) compose an infinitesimal percentage of gun-related deaths.
I would guess most fatal shootings are between family members. If it wasnt a gun, it would have been a knife while theyre sleeping. Cant fix vengence.
So, in conclusion, I would say " less gun nuts" compose a rather incredibly small percentage of gun crime in this country. Its criminals (drug dealers and street gangs) and family members who comprise the majority of that list.
There is already a failing War on Crime using a nationwide para-military police force and we arent outlawing families from getting into personal, heated arguments, sooooo.....
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