Terror Attack in the Skies Thwarted

[guido911]

Originally this was reported as fireworks going off, but apparently this was a failed terrorist attack by a person with suspected terrorist ties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501355.html?hpid=topnews

It has been reported that our vacationing president could not be disturbed with this information for nearly three hours after the plane landed. Oh well, Bush's fault.

[Hoss]

Originally this was reported as fireworks going off, but apparently this was a failed terrorist attack by a person with suspected terrorist ties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501355.html?hpid=topnews

It has been reported that our vacationing president could not be disturbed with this information for nearly three hours after the plane landed. Oh well, Bush's fault.

Cite a source, Tony...oh wait, it's me, so unless someone else asks, you'll just ignore it.  This was on the news yesterday and reports were that the President was getting real time updates in Honolulu and calling this a 'working vacation'.  Or did you forget that's where he spent his childhood?  It's not like the ranch where our previous president spent all or part of 490 days during his four year term.  That's over 10 percent of his two terms.

[we vs us]

Here's an interesting post on Gizmodo (a tech blog) summarizing some of the immediate TSA security responses. Short version:  they range from keeping people in their seat for the last hour of a given flight to confiscating ALL electronics.  The important thing seems to be that TSA is randomizing its policy for each flight, so that policy will vary all over the place.  Also, these restrictions seem to be for international flights arriving in the US only, not domestic flights. 

I also think it's interesting that so much information is being reported first-hand through Twitter.

[guido911]

WE:

According to ABC the terrorist had his explosive device sewn into his underwear (talk about a power wedgie):

The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized and launched by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb materials into the suspect's underwear before sending him on his mission, federal authorities tell ABC News.

Seriously though, think about the new searches coming down the pike.

anyone:

Another seriously, has Obama spoken out about this attack or the bravery of those on the flight wprho evented a potential disaster? Haven't heard yet.

[Ed W]

It will be interesting to see Bruce Schneier's take on this once there's more information regarding the TSA's response.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/

He said that previous security measures have been little more than theater - exercises intended to provide the illusion of greater safety without actually doing so. 

...and Tony, it's probably not a good idea for the nation's top law enforcement official to make comments early in the investigation.

[guido911]

...and Tony, it's probably not a good idea for the nation's top law enforcement official to make comments early in the investigation.

Come on Ed, you are kidding, right? Because a walk down to a very recent memory lane tells a different story (go to 1:50 for the money shot):

Incidentally, the terrorist has already been charged by the justice department (or perhaps is it too soon to charge anyone).

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/December/09-nsd-1383.html

Finally, how much time is necessary to offer praise to those that could be responsible for saving lives?

[nathanm]

Once again we find that security theater is worthless and actual security would have prevented this fool from ever boarding the aircraft.

God forbid we use more of the nifty puffer machines rather than making people take off their shoes. That would make too much sense, however.

Instead, we will see more of the retardedness I've seen reported in the press.

I'm glad I drove to Florida this year instead of flying.

[custosnox]

Once again we find that security theater is worthless and actual security would have prevented this fool from ever boarding the aircraft.

God forbid we use more of the nifty puffer machines rather than making people take off their shoes. That would make too much sense, however.

Instead, we will see more of the retardedness I've seen reported in the press.

I'm glad I drove to Florida this year instead of flying.

It was in his underwear, not his shoes.  And last I flew, which was last summer, you had to take off your shoes.  The problem here is that if we come up with a measure to stop these fanatics, then they will find another way around it.  It's the way war goes (and in some sense we are at war here).  If one side builds better armor, then the other will build better bullets.  It's not a matter of how we fight this war, it's where.  The terrorists are determined to do the fighting (if it can be called that) wherever civilian casualties will be the highest.  Right now, it seems our best defense is to give up more of our personal liberties.  We are currently loosing this fight.  Either we hold that which is dear to us, which is our freedom and personal rights, which creates more holes for these terrorists to slip through our defensive lines at, or we give up what we fight to keep and allow things like the guy at the security gate when you go to fly grab your crotch to make sure you don't have explosives hidden there.  We have technology to get around this, but that would mean some guy in another room seeing us completely naked on a screen.  Either way, we loose.  We need to change tactics and find a new way to fight this war.  And pointing fingers and blaming administrations is not going to help anything.  What Bush did, right or wrong, has been done, and can not be undone.  What our current President does may be right, and may be wrong, but judging those decisions without knowing everything involved is fruitless, and trying to make everything he does out to be wrong is pointless. 

[guido911]

Our DHS genius Napolitano claims that the prevention of the terrorist attack shows that the system worked. The "system" described by an evil conservative:

I suppose one can make that argument — if one assumes that the system includes allowing a man included on a no-fly list onto an airplane, allowing his visa to remain in force even after his own father informs the US that he's become a radical jihadi, assuming that any explosive said terrorist will smuggle onto the plane will fizzle out, and that only quick thinking by the other passengers on the plane kept the jihadi from trying it again while he barbecued his crotch.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/27/poll-the-system-worked/

[patric]

The important thing seems to be that TSA is randomizing its policy for each flight, so that policy will vary all over the place.

By "randomizing" your policy you essentially have no policy,
or at least a universal excuse when something goes wrong.

TSA is for show.  The "terrorists" won because they were able to bring not only a bomb but someone intent on detonating it onto an American flight.

The reason this didnt become a tragedy was due to better educated passengers who didnt sit back and wait for some government agency to save their lives.

[waterboy]

Seems like it wasn't really thwarted. More like it failed. He did discharge it but it only succeeded in burning his hands and nuts. He was sitting over a fuel tank. Had it worked as planned the plane would have blown up on the runway.

[guido911]

Seems like it wasn't really thwarted. More like it failed. He did discharge it but it only succeeded in burning his hands and nuts. He was sitting over a fuel tank. Had it worked as planned the plane would have blown up on the runway.

You are right. Those brave passengers that jumped on this guy and restrained him means nothing.

[Red Arrow]

The first attempt failed.  Any second attempt was thwarted by the passengers.

[guido911]

The first attempt failed.  Any second attempt was thwarted by the passengers.

Or the passengers prevented the first attempt from continuing. It doesn't matter though, because apparently courage is a four letter word to certain lefties on this board.

[patric]

At this moment, there is another airliner on the ground in Detroit being searched because the flight crew radioed in that they have a "verbally abusive" passenger.  CNN is showing video of all the luggage spread out on the tarmac for dogs to sniff, and deciding which bags they may wish to explode with a bomb squad robot.

Crying wolf, or just more TSA theater?

And what constitutes "verbally abusive"?

One recent example:

A federal prosecutor said Thursday that he will seek a retrial of a Tulsa man who is accused of interfering with flight attendants by persistently asking for a beer on an August airline flight.

A U.S. District Court jury failed to reach a verdict Thursday after deliberating nearly a full business day in the case of Joshua Seth Wrobel.
Jury foreman Michael Kotoff of Claremore said the jury was deadlocked 9-3 in favor of convicting Wrobel.

Wrobel, 33, was indicted Sept. 5 on a charge of intimidating flight attendants on an Aug. 19 Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to Tulsa.

The grand jury accused him of refusing to remain in his seat, verbally abusing flight attendants and approaching them "in a threatening manner" while demanding to be served alcohol.
But Wrobel attorney Robert "Skip" Durbin said during his closing argument Wednesday that there was no proof that his client walked up to the flight staff in such a way.

Trial testimony indicated that at one point Wrobel held up a hand and told one of the attendants to "shut up and get out of my face."
However, Durbin said Wrobel never threatened the attendants, did not touch them, did not raise his voice and did not use any profanity in making several requests for a beer.

Although his client perhaps should not have pressed the issue, Durbin said, "asking for a beer repeatedly does not constitute intimidation."
However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick told the jury that Wrobel was "boorish, obnoxious, rude and intimidating" as he insisted from the time he got on the plane that it was his right to be served a beer.

"The last time I checked," Kirkpatrick said, "the Constitution does not guarantee anybody a right to be served a beer on an airplane."  The prosecutor said Wrobel's persistence had an intimidating effect and interfered with the flight attendants' duties.

He said any reasonable person would have been afraid as a "disheveled" Wrobel would not give up his quest for a beer on the sparsely populated, dimly lit nighttime flight.
Durbin said his client's appearance was the product of previously lost luggage and slow service at a restaurant in the Atlanta airport, which he said made Wrobel the last passenger to board the flight.

Kirkpatrick said earlier that Wrobel was questioned by authorities at Tulsa International Airport after the plane arrived, but Wrobel was allowed to go home that day.
FBI agents arrested him Sept. 22 in Tulsa County District Court, where Wrobel was making a court appearance in a drug case.
Durbin said Wrobel has been "wrestling with drug and alcohol problems and has made steps to overcome" them.

Kirkpatrick said in his Tuesday opening statement that the case is "a story of our time -- a story of what things are like in our country now."
Outside the jury's presence, he said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were like "the elephant in the living room" which has led to a heightened state of security in the airline industry.

But U.S. Chief District Judge Sven Erik Holmes did not permit Kirkpatrick to mention the terrorist attacks during his closing arguments. The judge said there was no evidence that any of the flight attendants on Wrobel's plane viewed the situation as a terrorist act or thought Wrobel presented any threat to take over the aircraft.

However, after the verdict was read, the jury foreman said he thinks it is important that the authorities "set a precedent sometime. Make an example out of somebody, and make them pay."

Kotoff said he was one of the nine jurors who advocated a guilty verdict, but he said the three not-guilty holdouts held their ground.

Those who voted for Wrobel's acquittal did not think what happened on the airliner constituted breaking a federal statute, did not believe the flight attendants' version of events and did not think they would have been intimidated under the same circumstances, he said.

Durbin said during his closing argument that Wrobel did not deserve to be branded a felon for what happened on the plane.
After the verdict was read, Kirkpatrick said "it never was an easy case" and that not many like it have been charged in federal courts nationally.

"I'm glad we tried the case," he said, adding that taking it to trial "made the appropriate statement" -- that "we're not going to tolerate this kind of conduct on flights into or out of Tulsa."

In the immediate aftermath of the verdict, Kirkpatrick said he was unsure if he would take the case to trial again.
However, after later being told that the count was 9-3 in favor of guilty, Kirkpatrick said he hoped it would be retried "as soon as possible."

Kirkpatrick said a federal statute calls for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for anyone convicted of the charge. However, sentencing guidelines that appear to apply would yield a sentence approximately in a six- to 12-month range, he said.

Durbin said he was disappointed in the mistrial because he thought the facts warranted an acquittal.
Still, "the government had a duty to prosecute the case," he said.