In the aftermath of the terrorist attempt on Flight 253, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed that “the system worked” like it should. How so?
Billions have been spent since 2001 on creating the new Federal Department of Homeland Security in order to organize and coordinate the information that flows into other government agencies and make us all safer. But did it really work in this case? Hardly.
The parents of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (Flight 253 bomber) warned our State Department earlier that their son might be a potential terrorist threat. The Muslim Nigerian was supposedly on the threat list yet somehow was able to get on the flight even without a valid passport.
The answer that Homeland Security comes up with to stop similar terrorist threats in the future is to require passengers to stay in their seats for the last hour of the flight. But exactly how would that stop a terrorist with a bomb? It was passengers getting out of their seats to subdue the bomber that stopped this recent terrorist event. How does this policy make any sense at all? A terrorist with a similar bomb could merely detonate it from their own seat. Fortunately in this case the bomb did not entire work the way it was designed and the terrorist was subdued by passengers before he could make it work.
Meanwhile our PC State Department and Homeland Security are working overtime to make folks from Muslim countries feel welcome and have bend over backwards to lighten their onerous security procedures. While in the US on domestic flights, PC security procedures have 80 year old American grandmothers and one year old babies being subjected to the same rigorous random security inspections as Middle Eastern men between 20-50.
Also, I have read several reports that some Homeland Security professionals are really uncomfortable with passengers becoming ‘vigilantes’ and would prefer that it be left to the professionals to take down terrorists. That is part of the reason that they came up with the new ‘stay in your seat for the last hour’ security procedure. It combats potential vigilantes more that any terrorist threat—thanks be to the PC bureaucratic mindset.