Professional Soldiers ® - Airline Passenger Attempts to Light 'Substance' In-Flight

Professional Soldiers ® (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/index.php)

- The Early Bird (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=45)

- - Airline Passenger Attempts to Light 'Substance' In-Flight (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26816)

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Reaper (Post 306131)

That would seem to address handgun cases.

I was referring to long gun cases and the placement of the tag on them. I usually use a long gun case, even for handguns to reduce the likelihood that some baggage pilferer will open the luggage and make off with the handgun in its case.

You pays your money and you takes your chances.

TR

You're right. The only "long gun" I travel with is an AR-7 if I'm planning on hiking or camping. Because it breaks down nicely, I can put it in a locking case that still goes in my luggage.

My luggage is neither new nor fancy. It has a bright colored handle cover. This, however is insufficient to deter innocent picking up my bag at baggage claim. I'm now adding wide tape outlining my initials on the front and back of the luggage. That was suggested by a fellow more experienced in travel with firearms than I.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010302191.html

Obama aide defend trial for suspect in Christmas Day attempt to bomb plane

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 4, 2010
President Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser on Sunday defended the administration's decision to try in federal court the man charged with attempting to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day and indicated that he would be offered a plea agreement to persuade him to reveal what he knows about al-Qaeda operations in Yemen.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with the failed attempt on the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight, was initially "talking to people who detained him" but now has a public defender and "doesn't have to," John O. Brennan said on "Fox News Sunday."

"We have different ways of obtaining information from individuals" in the criminal-justice process, Brennan said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "A lot of people . . . understand what they're facing, and their lawyers recognize that there is advantage to talking to us in terms of plea agreements, [and] we're going to pursue that." Brennan told CNN's "State of the Union" that other terrorism suspects have "given us very valuable information as they've gone through the plea-agreement process."

Brennan's tour of the talk shows -- he also appeared on ABC's "This Week" -- came as the administration tried to counter, and move out in front of, widespread criticism of intelligence systems that did not identify Abdulmutallab as an al-Qaeda operative or detect the explosive he was allegedly carrying before he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

Much of the criticism Sunday, however, centered on the decision to try him in civilian court rather than hold him as a military prisoner. "If we had treated this Christmas Day bomber as a terrorist, he would have immediately been interrogated military-style, rather than given the rights of an American and lawyers," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said on CNN. "We probably lost valuable information."

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said it was a "very serious mistake" to send Abdulmutallab to federal court.

"He was trained, equipped and directed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," Lieberman said on ABC. "That was an act of war. He should be treated as a prisoner of war, held in a military brig, questioned now, and should have been ever since apprehended for intelligence that could help us stop the next attack or get people in Yemen."

Lieberman and others questioned the administration's ongoing plans to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer or release about 200 remaining inmates there....

This does not make things better.....in fact it makes me further question the competency of the officials involved.

Quote:

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 8 mins ago

WASHINGTON – During his flight overseas, Security officials had flagged the name of the Christmas Day airline bombing suspect for extra security screening once he landed in Detroit, U.S. officials said Thursday as they prepared to release the clearest look yet at government missteps in the near-catastrophe.

Full article is here

Heard on NPR yesterday that there are 710 million departures per year in the US.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dozer523 (Post 306896)

Heard on NPR yesterday that there are 710 million departures per year in the US.

And if things continue the way they are going with DHS, TSA, FBI, CIA, et al - it won't be long until the number of "arrivals" is less than that figure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dozer523 (Post 306896)

Heard on NPR yesterday that there are 710 million departures per year in the US.

That's 2 million per day. I don't think so. But then, it was NPR. :rolleyes:

2 million "passenger" departures per day, maybe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dozer523 (Post 306896)

Heard on NPR yesterday that there are 710 million departures per year in the US.

That can't be right. There's just over 304 Million people in the U.S.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=...=population+us

From the National Air Traffic Controllers Association:

On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only one-third are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings.

source is here: http://www.natca.org/mediacenter/bythenumbers.msp

I have a friend whos Mother works for TSA in a Major US Airport. Right after the whole Christmas Day event. We all know that TSA had to step up security as we all know. Within two days, 15 TSA worker (LEO) quit work at her airport. Just walked off the job becuase the new taskings were going to make them work to much or harder; as she said. Then everyone had to start working 14 to 18 hrs days; two or three more agents quit two days later.

This is just one Airport...

Maybe I should post this in Job opens!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warrior-Mentor (Post 306968)

That can't be right. There's just over 304 Million people in the U.S.

The census will fix that.....in all the right districts

Quote:

Originally Posted by HowardCohodas (Post 306966)

That's 2 million per day. I don't think so. But then, it was NPR. :rolleyes:

2 million "passenger" departures per day, maybe.

I might have gotten the number wrong . . . in the car with the kids making all that "Do-we-hasta-listen-to-NPR?" racket. Might have been 11 or 17:p

Well now some of the high(low)lights of the meeting conducted by the "O" and company are starting to trickle out. As I read through this I see the following statement:

Quote:

Extra air marshals — one of the additional layers of security ordered for air travel — will add to the more than 4,000 already in the system, officials familiar with the classified strategy said. Obama has also called for enhanced screening technology to detect explosives and other dangerous materials terrorists could try to sneak onto an airplane.

While Obama promised improved security, however, his solutions were laced with bureaucratic reshuffling.

In the situation that just recently occured I am trying to determine how having an A.M. onboard the flight would have REALLY helped. Seems the line of defense is prior to boarding. Once the cabin door closes then you have failed.

My impression is that it would have only served to add one to the body count. This goes back to the whole issue where DHS determined that Underoo-boy was a threat while the aircraft was already in flight.

Other than some concentrated oversight and scrutiny of each individual onboard I don't think the A.M. would be any more aware of the presence of someone wishing to do ill. At least not until the oxygen masks deployed.

YOMV

Article here

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02 :munchin

The thought process on this escapes me.....

Quote:

Nigeria to allow armed US air marshals on flights
January 13, 2010 - 10:55am

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria says it will allow armed U.S. air marshals on flights between the West African nation and the U.S. after the failed Christmas Day airliner bombing.

Aviation Minister Babtunde Omotoba says the government will sign an agreement with the U.S. to allow the federal agents on airplane. Omotoba said Wednesday that Nigeria will ask the U.S. to train Nigerian security agents to serve a similar role on other air carriers.

The U.S. has placed Nigeria on a list of 14 countries where passengers must undergo stricter security screening before boarding any U.S.-bound flight. The Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up the Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day began his journey at Nigeria's largest airport.

And so it goes...

Richard

Quote:

Head Of 9/11 Commission: Christmas Intel Errors Were Different
Howard LaFranchi, CSM, 7 Jan 2010

A former vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission and a member of President Obama’s inner circle of national security advisers says the Christmas Day terrorist attempt was the result of problems in analysis and data management that won’t be solved by reorganizing the nation’s intelligence bureaucracy.

“9/11 was a failure to share information [whereas] what we had Christmas Day was a failure to analyze and to integrate” relevant information on the bombing suspect, says Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman and now president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

At a Monitor breakfast Thursday, Mr. Hamilton said a focus on structural changes to the intelligence system would very likely distract policymakers in the fight against a sophisticated, agile, and adaptive enemy.

“I do not see this as a structural problem,” Hamilton says. “I see it as a situation where a number of government employees … simply missed things they should have caught.”

The information trickling out on the Christmas Day attack – including from Obama perhaps as early as Thursday afternoon – will highlight basic but egregious analysis mistakes, he said.

“It is fundamentally a data management problem. How do you manage billions, not millions but billions, of bytes of information every day?” he says, adding that it is "a colossally difficult job.”

Intelligence system overhaul
Now is not the time for a major system overhaul that could take three to five years, he says. Rather, the need is to address the problems revealed by the failed bombing attempt, and to realize that the planners of the Christmas Day attack are doing their own post-mortem of the event.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallah, the Nigerian suspected of blowing up a Detroit-bound flight, was reportedly trained by Al Qaeda in Yemen, which took responsibility for the bombing attempt.

“These guys in Yemen are examining this and saying, ‘How did we screw up?’ ” Hamilton says. “They are going to try to correct it, and they are going to try to come at us again.”

Defending national intelligence director
Hamilton acknowledges the criticisms of those who say the nation’s intelligence system has become more bureaucratic and unwieldy with the post-9/11 reforms, as well as those who say the position of director of national intelligence (DNI) – created at the recommendation of Hamilton’s commission – has been a failure.

But he stands by the decision to create the DNI post.

“Somewhere in the government you have to have someone who forces the sharing of information,” Hamilton says, “and somewhere you have to bring together all the bites of information our government produces every day.” And, he says, limitations were attached to the DNI’s powers that should now be removed.

“That issue will be taken up again after this incident,” he predicts.

Chasing Al Qaeda endlessly?
As for the broader battle with Islamic extremism, Hamilton foresees a decade ahead where a “sophisticated enemy” continues decamping from the places where the US pursues them to places “where we’re not” whether it’s Yemen or Somalia or Sub-Saharan Africa.

In that context, the US pattern of responding to evidence of Al Qaeda activity in a country with a sudden rush of military and other aid won’t solve the problem, he says. “We see them growing in Yemen, so we immediately triple our aid to Yemen. Is that the answer? I doubt it.”

From that perspective, was Obama’s decision to substantially increase the American footprint in Afghanistan wrong?

“I wouldn’t say it was the wrong decision,” said this adviser to the president, after the event. “What the president did was to escalate the war and narrow the political objectives at the same time. No talk of implanting democracy or nation-building. He’s talking about dismantling Al Qaeda. That approach makes sense to me.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politic...were-different

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard (Post 308132)

A former vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission and a member of President Obama’s inner circle of national security advisers says the Christmas Day terrorist attempt was the result of problems in analysis and data management that won’t be solved by reorganizing the nation’s intelligence bureaucracy.
Richard

I am more inclined to side with Herbert E. Meyer in his American Thinker Article .

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is the author of How to Analyze Information and The Cure for Poverty.

Quote:

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan administration...

Well - "The best minds are not in government." -- Ronald Reagan.

However - maybe true, maybe not true...better one believes. ;)

Richard's jaded $.02 :munchin