China Law Blog

Dan,

Shouldn't the UK be added to the list because - if I recall correctly - there was a CIA report that recently said they would be the most likely future source of terrorists plotting against the US.

Actually, shouldn't airline passengers just be racially profiled due to the rash of US citizens arrested this year on terrorism related charges.

Lets be serious: singling people out based on nationality is once again an instance of fighting the last battle.

Only problem is Dan, they say they've brought in profiling by country, but they haven't said that they'll abandon random screening. You're merely assuming that this will be the case, but past experience is not s clear-cut.

Finally - do you really see the US, UK etc. as nations under siege in the same way as Israel? Here is not the place to get into a dispute as to the correctness or otherwise of Israeli government policy, but surely you can see that Israel suffers under a special set of circumstances which stem from its creation and which are intrinsic in its very existence? The idea, therefore, of imposing limitations which were not, for example, applied in the UK during the troubles in Northern Ireland, to nations far larger and more integrated into the world system, seems wrong. Israelis probably view such precautions as necessary, and are not concerned by the negative impression they might create on foreigners since Israel will remain a deeply unpopular nation whatever it does. Should we share this attitude? Is it appropriate?

The problem with this kind of profiling is: There are still a lot of potential terrorists who make it behind the security lines.

Think about homegrown-terrorism. The Sauerland-group in Germany was a group of german nationals who converted to islam and then tried to blow something up. The UK has this problem too...

What about those threats?

Terrorists will simply fly into the US and only implement their plan after obtaining a fake drivers license and then board a long-distance domestic flight.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/01/04/new.jersey.airport.breach/index.html

After the debacle at Newark Airport today, I suspect that any half-brained terrorist just discovered a new and more effective way to terrorize. Apparently by walking into a "Do not enter" hallway an entire airport terminal will be put into lockdown for many hours.

I bet that soon a group of terrorists will organize to do this exact same thing at the same time at multiple high traffic volume US airports. They can even do this and get away 100% free if they change clothes / beards / wigs in a bathroom and slowly waltz home (the Newark person was never found). Leave a bag of fake bomb chemicals in a bathroom stall and Homeland Security will assume that the US is under attack = all US airports on lockdown for a day = countless dollars lost.

Newark just demonstrated how incredibly easy it will be in the future for terrorists to disrupt the US. Besides, if they still want to blow up planes they can always just become a flight attendant, a baggage handler, or an aircraft mechanic. This isn't rocket science - there is nothing the US can realistically do that will make air travel safer unless we somehow figure out how to make these people not hate us so much (send a teddy bear to everyone in the world?).

A "terrorist" could walk into the ticketing areas tossing firecrackers and talcum powder and shut down an airport.

So many ways to create chaos and havoc at commercial airports, while private airports have no screening what so ever (how dare we screen the wealthy!).

So to shut down an airport, load up on the baby powder and cheap majician's gear. To cause true terrorist damage, rent a private plane, load it with explosives and fly it out of a private airport.

I agree with both Luke and Xueyu Ouyang on this one. I know Nigeria has suddenly been added to the list of "countries of interest" because of this would be "plane bomber". However the characteristics displayed by this young man is totally at odds with what Nigerians are notorious for (fraud, scamming etc).

I boarded a flight from Nigeria to the US via London Heathrow Airport on the 27th of December 2009. I went through 2 metal detectors at MMA in Lagos and two physical searches of my hand luggage and two full body searches.

In heathrow airport (London), I went through 2 metal detectors, 2 physical searches of my hand luggage and two full body searches.

However, when I got back to my house in the US, I was amazed to find that my metal fabric cutting scissors (14inches) long had made it through all that. It was in my messenger bag. I had tried to find it when I was in Nigeria to put it in my checked in luggage, but when I couldn't, I assumed it was lost.

So lets recap...A US citizen of Nigerian descent boards a flight from Nigeria 2 days after a botched bombing. Goes through security in Lagos and Heathrow Airport (london), and still manages to come out on the other side with a potential deadly weapon.

Nothing is 100% guaranteed, but I think that the screening at airports is a dog and pony show. The focus should be on catching terrorists.

Putting extra restrictions on those traveling from "countries of interest" will have little effect on terrorism, and in the next few years likely the list will grow to include more countries, including perhaps Indonesia, which has more Muslims than Pakistan, Iran or Nigeria have people... then there are many of the new states that the Soviet collapse gave birth to, the countries of north Africa, India... logistically and diplomatically, it just won't be possible to sustain. Every election will bring new calls for more nations to be added to the list. One of the worst things about playing "us and them" is that this is the same game we are currently losing badly, and the "them" currently has us vastly outnumbered and out-enthused.

Long after the U.S. has forgotten about the bad guys of X and moved on to a new foe, they will remember us. And, and! Issuing edicts like this against entire nations, nations with wide and influential diasporas like Pakistan or Lebanon, doesn't strike me as particularly smart from a business standpoint.

Why isn't Israel on the list of "state sponsors of terrorism"? Aside from the screechings of the usual cast of anti-Semites, there are some serious indications that given the criteria the U.S. uses to judge other nations, Israel would fail miserably.

A brief link that illustrates what I am getting at:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/30/terrorism/index.html

Finally, whether or not anyone agrees with screening by either nationality, religion, or race, can anyone be satisfied with a new process created by those who have bungled nearly every security measure implemented before, and whose policies directly lead to a great deal of the animosity directed towards us?

It is morbid and morally wanting; how adept and truly skilled we Americans are at tracing the wide-ranging depth and nuanced effects of our national policies on our own populace over the last 50 or so years, but failing so miserably in seeing how our policies abroad affect others.

This should be a balm to no one.

Dan: We have to play the odds and the odds are overwhelming that Korean lawyers are not terrorists. And guess what, the odds of a Madrassa student from Yemen being a terrorist are way way higher.

Perhaps, but it's not obvious from looking at someone whether they've been a Madrassa student from Yemen. You will note that the bad guys go out of their way to pick bombers that don't look like they were Madrassa students from Yemen.

If it's obvious to people that Korean lawyers get screened less then the bad guys will find some Yemeni Madrassa student that can pretend that they are a Korean lawyer to do the bombing. Maybe 99.9% of Korean lawyers aren't bombers, and maybe 99.9% of terrorists don't look like Korean lawyers, but all you need is to find one, and they can put the bomb in. They found a Nigerian after all.

The statement was that country X will be added to the list, there's nothing in the statement that says that any other security measures will be reduced. Also, this isn't a new thing. If you've worked in the oil industry, you'll quickly find out how *PAINFUL* it is to get someone from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia into the United States.

The other issue here is that the main purpose here doesn't seem to be airport security but rather diplomatic pressure (i.e. if you don't cooperate with us, we'll make life annoying for your citizens).

That's the only possible explanation I can think of for putting *Cuba* on that list.

I think that will only antagonize the US with said countries more. Just screen everybody equally. After all, it is not just the person you are looking for, it is also the device. What if the terrorist has a passport of a different country? And so on...

I was going back to China shortly after Christmas and was glad to see the enhanced control on Polish airports.

What about canadian airports?

Sorry, but TSA will never prevent a terrorist attack. Its staff is relatively incompetent, relatively poorly paid, and overtly bureaucratic. If we have to depend on them to stop something, that thing is going to happen. We have to stop those guys way way way earlier.

We should stop random screenings because they are annoying and antagonize unnecessarily.

Hearing lots of reports that visa issues are getting much better in the US... unfortunately my home country Canada is going the other way and making tourist visas harder to get for the Olympics.

Recent example is my girlfriend who received a US visa relatively easy, and with the same documentation got denied for a tourist visa to Canada.

I have long advocated screening based upon the "walks like a duck" principle. And no, I don't think it's racist.
One of the reasons for those countries being on the list, I believe, has more to do with the fact that the airport security in those countries can be easily breached.
Yes, terrorists can always find a way around these systems. A thief can always get past a locked door, but that doesn't mean you should leave your home unlocked and the safe open.

Why would Venezuela need to be on that list? And the fact that Cuba is on it suggests that it is less than serious. Or perhaps Cuba was thrown in as a fig leaf to prove that we're not just targeting Muslim states.

You write that Korean Lawyers are less likely to be terrorists than a Yemeni madras student. That may be true, but I doubt they're all that significantly less likely. You're dealing with a statistically insignificant set of attackers - who presumably don't make up 1% of any demographic category that you'd care to throw them in. So how does singling out those categories make it more likely that you'd catch them?

What is more useful is looking closely at a guy who pays $3k in cash for a one way ticket to Detroit in winter with no coat and no luggage in the middle of winter.

The USG long ago realized that the airport security apparatus is the last line of defense, akin to what we called the final protective line (FPL) when I was a USMC ground combat officer. My fellow Marines and I learned early in our training at Quantico to set up a defense in depth, which includes a FPL as a last line of defense. That FPL is the point closest to that which you are trying to protect. If the enemy got as far as the FPL, you knew things were going very badly and you faced the real prospect of the enemy penetrating your defenses and doing real harm. Hence, the repeated emphasis was on aggressive patrolling outside your defensive zone to ascertain where the enemy was and to keep tabs on him.

The equivalent to that in fighting terrorism and insurgency is using intelligence assets of various kinds to go out, identify and track the groups and individuals who are most dangerous before they show up at the airport. The further from US soil you identify and track the foe, the better. For the most part, the US intelligence community working with foreign allies' intelligence and security services has done that job well. To my knowledge, there have been no successful attacks on US commercial aircraft between December 2001 and December 2009. Yet we know from various press reports that numerous terrorist groups and cells have been planning such attacks given the spectacular success of 9/11.

Hard though it may be to accept this at a visceral level, no anti-terorist defense system, however well designed, built and maintained, is ever going to be fool-proof. Israel has a far more formidable security system than that of the US in place, yet terrorist attacks still occur in Israel when relations with Palestinians or neighboring countries hit a low point. Hiring more or better qualified airport screeners won't appreciably change the security posture at US or foreign airports. The terrorist has the luxury of the initiative. They can simply sit back, watch a targeted facility's security team in action, picking up knowledge of its defenses and choose the time and manner of any attack. This time around the terrorists opted to send a young Nigerian man to take down an airplane as a suicide bomber. Next time, someone may choose simply to pull up to the airport in a taxicab and explode a car bomb in front of the terminal during Christmas travel. Or they may attempt to repeat the Madrid experience and explode bombs aboard an Amtrak high-speed train during the Memorial Day weekend.

As for foreign visitors not liking the treatment at US airports, I could care less and I make my money working primarily with foreign (many of whom are Chinese or Korean shipping clients). If any of these countries undertakes stringent security measures, I accept that as a fact of life and move on with my business. I seriously doubt anyone would not invest in the US due to airport security checks. Most likely, other economic and business factors drove that final decision to do business through another country and the airport security issue was an excuse.

Dan...Your posts have been increasingly moving towards the paranoid in the past several months.

You think that there are solutions to the growing perception of terrorism. When in fact every solution you support is yet another growth spurt for the business of terrorism.

It is a classic case of failing to see the forest in spite of the trees.

I'm sure if you had a airport screening technology firm as a client, you might emerge from the trees to see the forest.

im glad they are finally doing this. those [EDITOR'S NOTE: I deleted a derogatory term used here to describe Arabs] have been bombing us and others for years so i say search em!!!!!!!

I agree with many above me here that this policy further antagonizes the world against the US. It further justifies the hatred of the US. The world sees the unfairness and racism in this, just as your daughter can well see.

The fight against terrorism should be about fighting the hatred that motivates terrorism,not terrorists.

This policy disregards the esteem of life of those perfectly innocent and kind people coming under screening just because their government sucks. This disregard is what makes terrorism an awful thing.

Admiral: I have long advocated screening based upon the "walks like a duck" principle. And no, I don't think it's racist.

So what does a terrorist look like? The last one that Al-Qaeda was African. The one before that one was white. Chechen rebels have been known to use women to smuggle bombs aboard aircraft. Also not a terrorists are associated with Al-Qaeda. OK City and the Olympic bombings haven't had anything to do with Al-Qaeda, and North Korean agents have been implicated in blowing up airplanes (see Korean Air Flight 558).

If Aum Shinrikyo or North Korean renegade agents manages to blow up an airplane, I'm sure that the families will be relieved that the system worked in preventing Middle Eastern terrorists from blowing up an airplane, and that it's fine for non-Middle Eastern terrorists to blow up planes.

If the bad guys know that someone that "walks like a duck" will get through, they'll put the bomb in a swan.

theAdmiral: Yes, terrorists can always find a way around these systems.

If they can always find away around a system then you have a problem. The way of developing a good security system is "defense in depth" you have layers of security with the expectation that there are flaws in each layer, but that you can catch the bad guys before the reach the end.

theAdmiral: A thief can always get past a locked door, but that doesn't mean you should leave your home unlocked and the safe open.

You are the one that's suggesting opening a big security hole, not me.

The thing that I want to make clear is that I think there should be *more* screening, not less. If a terrorist knows that there is a 100% chance that a Korean businessman won't be screened, they'll find someone that looks like a Korean businessman, and people that look like Korean businessmen and tourists *HAVE* been known to put bombs on airplanes (see Korean Air Flight 858).

So the solution is to randomly screen anyone that looks like a terrorist, which includes everyone.

Dan, your 12 year old daughter is smarter than you.

I strongly believe the policy is racist, and is designed to comfort white americans rather than actually improving security. I have to agree with the ONE reader who hit the nail on the head: it's the incompetence of TSA that's to blame. Enforcement of current laws and standards is needed, not some new policy. Have we all forgot the details behind the Christmas day incident? His FATHER called a US EMBASSY to report his son was dangerous! We don't need a new policy, we need people to just do their jobs! What did Ben Franklin say about those who sacrifice freedoms for security?

agreed w/ everyone who says this profiling thing is a joke and defense in depth is the real key. As the final protective line, the TSA provides about as much protection as your shirt after the bullet has pierced your body armor. They're there more for show to make passengers feel safe and to prevent dumb accidents than anything else. If the intelligence and law enforcement agencies haven't stopped a terrorist before he/she reaches the airport, the underpaid/incompetent/wrongheaded TSA isn't going to help. How many stories have you heard about the TSA foiling some terrorist plot? None. Instead, you see articles like this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34708124/ns/us_news-airliner_security/ (TSA agents being nauseated and hospitalized by honey and mistaking an airline's marker bag for a bomb).

The process is probably justified as a necessary evil so that people continue to spend money to fly--the drain on economic resources presented by the post-911 airport security measures is minor in comparison to the precipitous drop in air travel that would occur without them.

It's great money for security industry folks like rapiscan (btw, marketing FAIL...you named a body scanner to look/sound like RAPE SCAN? Really?), but in terms of actual security, the heightened security measures are about as effective as using a bunch of mud and sticks to prevent water from running downhill--there will always be a way around.

Like your articles very much! As a Chinese, I am really wondering what is the root the terrorists always attack the US. It is like the rolling snow ball. More the US government does to the screening and fight in other countries, the more dislikes and attacks there will be from other countries. The US government should think about what is the root, instead of just looking at the iceberg beyond the water! A respected country should be mild and self-controlled.

Cuba... Yeah, big sponsor of terrorism... If I remember well, they make many attempts to assassinate US presidents, hijack planes, huge propaganda campaign to incite treason and domestic terrorism... Very rational move by the US, for sure.

Dan.

This is the stuff that we will look back at in 20 years and call the XYZ Scare. Yes, terrorists exist, but screening by country is a laughable wall that can be climbed over just as easy as the wall that my internet connection must leap over to access twitter.

So, I guess my question is at this point.. what is the goal of all this security? Is it to make us safe.. and I mean REALLY REALLY safe? Or is this just a kneejerk reaction to make us feel like the system is being "improved"

secondarily, what is "safe"? Is safe a statistical figure? Or is it a feeling?

... which leads me to ask what you re willing to give up to be safe? Are you willing to pay more on your ticket to pay for the additional training and equipment needed? Or, are you saying that the gov't should foot the bill, a government funded by travelers and nontravelers alike?

R

It sounds like your Korean lawyer friend was harassed by CBP agents after arriving in the US. This new additional screening is about harassing foreigners before they get on the plane to the US. I don't see why you think more harassing of foreigners before they get on the plane necessarily leads to less harassing after they arrive. The harassing is done by different agencies with different missions.

Could the treatment of the Korean lawyer not more easily be explained by assuming that [A] Murphy's law chose this day and this time to grant this Airport Official to be afflicted with a severe bout of PMS, or a spouse with PMS, or sports team having just lost, or a bad baloney sandwich, or so, and [B] that this official was one of these highly trained, highly paid citizens-of-the-world who operate under the stern belief that the world consists of (1) the USA, (2) Canada and Mexico (which may or may not be a suburb of L.A. rather than a country -- must ask my daughter to yahoogle this some time) and (3) them darn terrorist places. The unfortunate Korean would have looked like belonging to category 3, which was promptly confirmed by his unpatriotic annoyance with having all his luggage messed-up, getting goose-pimples while his shoes, socks, coat, jumper and pants were X-rayed for the sixth time, and not enjoying the anal probes and so forth. Just a thought...

A story from a friend. A classy middle-aged lady, who is a prominent business owner in a major Western European nation, overstayed her U.S. visa by one day. She was actually in the airport trying to leave the U.S. to go home.
Security officials grabbed her, handcuffed her, and marched her across the airport for questioning. What were they going to do? Deport her? She was trying to leave anyway.

It goes to show that it's not just profiling by country -- she wasn't a scruffy, disturbed looking man from Yemen.
It's random. Just about every international businessperson has a U.S. travel horror story.

what happens if the next terror attack is committed by a home grown terrorist? Should we then segregate americans by race or religion? Clearly what is going on will not help to solve the problem. Americans need to extricate themselves from the problems of the world and be a less obtrusive nation, like Canada.