Terrorism in 'Murica (aka The Homeland)

otm. and this works in both directions, obviously -- the actions of al qaida open up space in the u.s. domestic discourse for dick cheney and the mad torturers of Neoconnia. and really this suits the interests of radicals on both sides and can end up trapping everybody in endless cycles of retaliation.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Monday, December 28, 2009 10:06 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not really sure about that. the last time i checked pretty much everybody hated al qaeda and dick cheney.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, December 28, 2009 10:09 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u must admit they had a good run

i know what you mean, but they both narrowly missed defeats that would have resulted in them being forgotten completely - cheney with the '00 election and al-q having been shunned by basically everyone and driven into the hinterlands of afghanistan. naturally once assholes like this succeed in grabbing the spotlight they will attract other assholes, like some kind of asshole magnet, but after the initial bump as far as i can tell cheney's actions have brought only deepening derision and mistrust, and al-q's only substantial friends these days appear to be certain ratfuckers in the pakistani intelligence services

i personally find it v heartening that people somewhat tired of the bush/qeada codependent shitstorm after a while - and i think yr right that there was a perfectly inauspicious moment that made it all possible - but theres still a mighty appetite in america and worldwide for all sorts of dire conquest

ok phew dont hav to vote 4 palin http://www.businessinsider.com/live-tv-is-back-on-jetblue-flights-2009-12

Yeah, ABC Radio just reported that the DHS/TSA were hastily scaling back the additional restrictions

in case anyone is wondering why we dont have a TSA head its because some republican senator has a secret hold on the nomination

once again a+ to the framers of our constitutions for creating the most useless body in modern politics

i've been asked to arrive four hours before departure for check-in

tbf the senate at this point has mostly created itself - iirc the only weird thing thats constitutional per say is unproportional representation

Customers traveling from any Canadian destination to the United States should be advised that effective December 28, Transport Canada (a department of the Canadian government) put into place a ban on any carry-on baggage that customers would have access to during flight.

Items that are excluded from this restriction include small purses, cameras, coats, items for care of infants, laptop computers, diplomatic or consular bags, crutches, canes, walkers, containers carrying life-sustaining items, medications and medical devices, musical instruments and special-needs items. This directive is in effect until 9:00 p.m. EST on December 29, 2009, although it may be extended.

o u too now canada

I'd love to see a Thick of It style dramatization of the "decisions" that lead to these policies.

But my main concern is whether airplane cabins have finally been equipped with rolls of duct tape. It is nearly 2010 people.

Update: my writer friend who was concerned about profiling found that BA moved a white guy into his exit row seat and shunted him up to the middle of the plane. If they are going to do this to people with 'funny names' (his words) maaaaybe they should get one education and learn about the difference between Hindu and Muslim?

"The warning that the bathrooms would be shut down led to lines 10 people deep at each lavatory. A demand by one attendant that no could read anything either elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter.

Book bombs, it was only a matter of time until someone in the government remembered they used to hide squirt guns and contraband in them in high school.

Removal of fake arms and legs ought to also be on the slate.

Colostomy and urostomy bags, too, because they have the capacity for some volume.

No using of the bathroom because you might be removing your 'plan' filled with something or other. (See Papillon.)

Running discussion and comment carried over from Sunday on the bomber's underwear bomb, efficacy, overreaction, weak leadership and the usual ease with which failed plots turn into wins when the country acts like it has a glass jaw.

At my blog:

http://bit.ly/74SqRz

Thanks for the link, Gorge / DD.

Flew home from Knoxville today. No problems, nothing different, plane on map still there.

ok, i admit that if this kind of story came out under the bush administration, i'd be prone to "what a bunch of keystone kop"-type head-shaking. so fair's fair -- what a bunch of keystone kops. i know the communications problems and information-aggregating is more complicated than it always seems after the fact, but there were sort of an awful lot of red flags here. (and i also know that a lot of those problems are structural and institutional and transcend presidential administrations, and that the republicans are being complete idiot hypocrites in all their phony outrage, but that's just par for the course really. it's always been clear that in any attack under a democratic administration, there will be no rallying-behind-the-president, that's not how they play the game.)

The system clearly didn't work on several levels. The intelligence community didn't recognize this guy as a legit threat, the State Dept. was oblivious to some obvious red flags, the flight list vetting process probably should have prevented him from ever getting on the plane, and the airport screening system failed to detect a bomb. All of this is true, but the lesson here is that no system will ever be foolproof, or even particularly effective. We can pump billions of dollars into the problem and erode civil liberties and cause major headaches and inconveniences, and it still won't stop terrorism from happening. All this hand wringing and finger pointing misses that fundamental truth.

rip cia dudes (not in 'murica but still)

We can pump billions of dollars into the problem and erode civil liberties and cause major headaches and inconveniences, and it still won't stop terrorism from happening. All this hand wringing and finger pointing misses that fundamental truth.

― Super Cub, Thursday, December 31, 2009 9:14 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

this is obviously otm. with the depressing corollary that the bigger we build our "security" apparatus, the more dedicated the apparatus becomes to preserving and expanding its own institutional power and resources. terrorism is in a way a bigger gift to the military-industrial megillah than the cold war, because while it doesn't necessarily produce vast investments on the scale of thousands and thousands of warheads, it is also much less likely to evaporate as a persistent threat -- because all you need to keep it going is one guy with a bomb every couple of years. which makes the failures of the system work to its own advantage.

"terrorism is in a way a bigger gift to the military-industrial megillah than the cold war"

otm

according to my airline, security arrangements are back to pre-Dec 25 for UK-US flights

also I'm kinda puzzled why the US government is in the business of providing airline security anyway, as opposed to the airlines themselves.

airlines cant even make bags go from one place to another reliably

i can't imagine how insane security would be if the airlines ran it

If airlines are no longer giving me my free bag of cashews I at least want to know that my bags aren't packing shoe bombs.

I guess I'm thinking like a right-winger but it seems to me that The Market could provide a better airline security situation than the crazy, useless, time-waste we have now.

yeah prob not

problem with market-based security is kind of the same problem we already have. if the incentive is to get more money into the system, then every failure of security just leades to more investment. if it created incentives for anything, it would be for them to send a guy with explosives through every couple of years to almost blow up a plane.

if it created incentives for anything, it would be for them to send a guy with explosives through every couple of years to almost blow up a plane.

would watch this movie btw

I don't trust The Market with security situations. First, providing security is a bedrock reason for government. If it shouldn't do that, it's hard to imagine what it should do. Second, for a host of reasons, market incentives are not consistent with good security measures.

But yeah, I'd watch that movie too.

wait, so you're saying that if you let Business handle airline security, rather than the government, then Business would do whatever it takes to get more money, including tricking people into thinking the risks are worse than they really are?

duh

El Al to thread

so is that what's going on now? b/c Business is already making big green off the nonsense in place now

airlines could get people to fly based on the "fly us & you could be on the new reality show 'To Catch A Terrorist'"

people'll do anything to be on TV

yeah we talked about El Al a few days ago, and it's what's getting me thinking about how they do security so well and how we do it so shittily.

don't trust The Market with security situations. First, providing security is a bedrock reason for government. If it shouldn't do that, it's hard to imagine what it should do. Second, for a host of reasons, market incentives are not consistent with good security measures.

Good idea. Unfortunately, not what rules in the US, which explains much. The market has been left to rule entire swaths of national security, making it entirely into the national security business. What that means is they get their people into positions where they right security policy which does nothing but favor their business interests. This is very noticeable in the outsourcing of security and intelligence work within the agencies of the natsec infrastructure ot private business.

The marquee example is Blackwater, but -- really it's all across the board. The big players like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Science Applications, myriads of defense contractors, have all expanded market rule into homeland security.

I've written about it quite a lot, for various places including blogging. One recent summary, focused on national cybersecurity issues is here:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2009/12/cybersecurity-schwick-earlier-today-j.html

wait, so you're saying that if you let Business handle airline security, rather than the government, then Business would do whatever it takes to get more money, including tricking people into thinking the risks are worse than they really are?

That's one way of putting it although it doesn't perfectly capture what really happens.

What happens is the natsec businesses oversell their undeveloped and imperfect technologies as perfect answers, get them bought and paid for by the taxpayer, and these only provide security theatre. They don't provide the solution originally promised, but after the fact this becomes immaterial.

Or they provide leased contract workers at premium rates, more than what the government would pay employees indigenously. In fact, they get into the business of poaching civil servants and turning them around, after they've been trained by the government and the taxpayer dime, and lease them back to the same agencies at higher rates.

You'll have noticed this has nothing to do with improving national security.

if it created incentives for anything, it would be for them to send a guy with explosives through every couple of years to almost blow up a plane.

Already been done and being done. There are entire operations devoted to this. The problem is they only approach the problem from an unlimited resources what-can-we-do-as-Americans-with-anything-we-want-on-the-plate approach. This isn't the same as real life, where the terrorists are forced to come up with things like underwear bombs or things cobbled together by people who totally lack resources, both material and human, which is the opposite of the US model.

I am now officially getting drunk in preparation for tomorrow.

Additional security was a joke. I'm white btw.

Now at the gate and desperate for a wee. Pro-tip for ailsa: depending on your gate, you may not be able to go to the toilet for a couple of hours once you clear the additional security.

Got my junk touched though. Start the year as I hope to go on.

The first time I flew through Heathrow (in 1997 I think) the security guy fondled my nuts so thoroughly that I thought he should have bought me dinner first.

two of the cia dudes killed a few days ago were dudettes and one of them was a friend of mine from high school, if what i'm hearing is correct. all i know is she was killed a few days ago by a bomb.

v sorry to hear that

yikes, that's horrible.

have to say that after everything i'm sort of shocked that blackwater (oops, XE) employees are still on CIA payroll. how many fuck ups do these guys have to make? or are there just few or no other options?

background on that attack http://www.slate.com/id/2240446

just got back from nyc, flew in from manchester on 27 and came back through the fucking chaos that was an evacuated newark airport last night.

on the flight there they turned off the map AND the movies, because it was all one system but yeah pretty dumb anyone can use a watch and figure out roughly where they are - or look out window.

newark last night was horrendous, and almost put me off flying to the states ever again. 7 hours stuck in the entrance area with thousands of other people - nobody telling us what was going on for the most part.

the bonus was that when i finally got back through the gates my reserved seat was taken and they put me up in business class. excellent!

I just read about the Newark evac!!!!! FUCKING A, there are not the words to say what that must have been like. It makes my experience on Dec 21 look tame and I thought people were going to riot then.

thanks for the article link, cr?m. i don't know for certain that she died in that bombing, but the lack of info being released and the timing suggests that it's probably the case. she wasn't a soldier, i know that much. her recent facebook updates are tough to read.