An expert on airport security offers an interesting take on the Christmas Day bomber:
With all the talk about the failure of airport security to detect the PETN that the Christmas bomber sewed into his underwear — and to think I've been using the phrase "underwear bomber" as a joke all these years — people forget that airport security played an important role in foiling the plot.
In order to get through airport security, Abdulmutallab — or, more precisely, whoever built the bomb — had to construct a far less reliable bomb than he would have otherwise; he had to resort to a much more ineffective detonation mechanism. And, as we've learned, detonating PETN is actually very hard.
Additionally, I don't think it's fair to criticize airport security for not catching the PETN. The security systems at airports aren't designed to catch someone strapping a plastic explosive to his body. Even more strongly: no security system, at any airport, in any country on the planet, is designed to catch someone doing this. This isn't a surprise. It isn't even a new idea. It wasn't even a new idea when I said this to then TSA head Kip Hawley in 2007: "I don't want to even think about how much C4 I can strap to my legs and walk through your magnetometers." You can try to argue that the TSA, and other airport security organizations around the world, should have been redesigned years ago to catch this, but anyone who is surprised by this attack simply hasn't been paying attention.
Makes one wonder why we're investing in high-tech stuff instead of more bomb-sniffing dogs.
ON THE SAME SUBJECT: TPM has a well-researched, must-read piece examining everything that was known about the bomber before the event. Although there's something about the sort of pleasantly analytical and faceless graphics in the image they use that strikes me as pretty terror-inducing on its own. (Achtung: the story refuses to evidence much in terms of political bias, so it may prove less fruitful to readers in search of a liberal-conservative brawl.)
