A 2010 Prediction: Virtual Strip Searches For Air Travelers

Thanks to Umar Farouk 'the panty bomber' Abdulmutallab, it's a safe prediction that in 2010 air travelers will find themselves going through what the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) calls "Advanced Imaging Technology" and the American Civil Liberties Union calls a "virtual strip search."

Specifically, we will be going through the Rapiscan Secure 1000 'Single Pose' device. TSA has issued the manufacturer a sole source contract to supply 150 of the devices right away at $167,000 each, and 300 more in 2010. There are 40 Secure 1000 machines currently in use at 19 U.S. airports, mostly for secondary screening and pilot projects.

A total of 490 machines will barely scratch the surface, even if TSA forgets about domestic flights and only tries to screen U.S.-bound travelers departing from overseas airports. There are 58 million air passengers arriving in the U.S. from overseas each year, and about 250 flights on any day. Two body scan devices would be needed to screen the passengers on each typical long-range aircraft since the average throughput time for a body scanner is probably around 30 seconds per person, which means that it would take two and a half hours to screen an Airbus-load of passengers with just a single machine, and that is surely too long for normal airport operations. So, plan on two scanners at each overseas gate that handles U.S.-bound traffic. And if TSA intends to screen domestic U.S. air travelers as well, I can't count high enough to figure out how many scanners we would need for the 600 or so domestic airports that are certified to handle commercial air carriers. Dulles International Airport has 143 gates just by itself.

That's a lot of orders for Rapiscan and its competitors. Here's an interview conducted yesterday on CNBC about the business of whole body scanners:









This backscatter image technology is not new. In fact, it has been in use for certain limited security applications, such as screening prisoners, since the late 1980s. It works well; that is, it reliably produces a skin-level image that will allow an operator to detect the presence of objects concealed under the passenger's clothes. It does not work perfectly; that is, it does not detect objects that are concealed under the skin, or inside body orifices, or out of sight within anatomical nooks and crannies. The 'single pose' machines will scan the front and back of a subject simultaneously, which is a pretty complete scan provided that the subject keeps his arms raised. The second-generation devices will do an even better 360-degree scan since they will be able to get images as subjects are turning. These machines do not get a particularly good view of the crotch area, however, and that's where the bombs are these days. Still, they work better than any other non-intrusive search technology that I'm aware of.

Only privacy objections have kept the things from gaining enough public acceptance to be put into widespread use for passenger screening before now (plus, in the UK, an interesting legal argument that imaging the bodies of passengers under the age of 18 could violate child protection laws). They have so far been limited to secondary screening or voluntary applications. But, it looks like the Christmas bomb attack on Northwest Flight 253 could well be the last straw that breaks the public's opposition to their use.

As much as I detest 'security theater' and the Kabuki dance we already do at airports, I'm ready to surrender and be scanned. Given the choice between a 'virtual strip search' and a manual pat-down, I'll gladly opt for the scan.

NW Airlines Bomb Flap Escalates

Two news stories released tonight have the potential to further heat up the already heated Washington flap over who-knew-what-and-when about Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the would-be Christmas bomber of Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

The first story is from the Washington Times, quoting an anonymous U.S. intelligence official who connects AbdulMutallab with the Muslim imam who was the religious adviser of the perpetrator of last month's Fort Hood massacre. If true, that could enhance the political fallout over the Flight 253 attack.

The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the same Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times.

The intelligence official, who is familiar with the FBI's interrogation of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, said the bombing suspect has boasted of his jihad training during interrogation by the FBI and has said it included final exhortations by Mr. al-Awlak.

The second story comes from the Wall Street Journal, likewise quotes anonymous U.S. government officials, and it blames both the CIA and NSA for either sitting on or failing to correctly interpret intelligence about AbdulMutallab. Our intelligence agencies are notoriously reluctant to share terrorist threat information, but they are more than eager to point the finger at each other when politically threatened themselves.

President Barack Obama said a "catastrophic breach" allowed the alleged Christmas Day bomber to set his attack into motion, as it emerged that multiple U.S. agencies met in mid-November to discuss a warning from the accused bomber's father.

The president said he made his comments because new information pointed to a serious breach of national security. He said a warning made by the suspect's father to U.S. officials in Nigeria "could have and should have" led to the suspect to be banned from flying. "A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable," he said.

He suggested other intelligence failures were also to blame. "There were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together," he said. "It's becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have."

This could spin up into a nasty little scandal.

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Update: CNN has joined the fun with its own story (CIA failed to circulate report about bombing suspect) quoting multiple and contradictory anonymous officials:

AbdulMutallab [the elder one] talked about his son's extremist views with someone from the CIA and a report was prepared, but the report was not circulated outside the agency, a reliable source told CNN's Jeanne Meserve on Tuesday.

Had that information been shared, the 23-year-old Nigerian who is alleged to have bungled an attempt to blow up a jetliner as it was landing in Detroit, Michigan, on Christmas Day might have been denied passage on the Northwest Airlines flight, the source said.

U.S. officials said the father, a former Nigerian banker, expressed his concerns about his son's radicalization during at least one meeting and several calls with officials at the embassy in Nigeria.

The information on AbdulMutallab had been sent to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but it sat there for five weeks and was not disseminated, the source said.

-- snip --

An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the federal government had information that should have been assessed and meshed with other information "that would have allowed us to disrupt the attempted terrorist attack" before the suspect boarded the jet.

"What we have here is a situation in which the failings were individual, organizational, systemic and technological," the official said. "We ended up in a situation where a single point of failure in the system put our security at risk, where human error was compounded by systemic deficiencies in a way that we cannot allow to continue."

But an [anonymous] intelligence official said that the son's name, passport number and possible connection to extremists were indeed disseminated. "I'm not aware of a magic piece of intelligence somehow withheld that would have put AbdulMutallab on the no-fly list," the official said.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly [finally, a named official!] said department staff did what they were supposed to have done by sending a cable to the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington about the matter. Kelly said any decision to have revoked the suspect's visa would have been an interagency decision.

But [an anonymous] U.S. government official said the information in the cable offered nothing specific and was just one of hundreds of such reports that the center evaluates daily.

This is getting good.

New Executive Order Will Expedite Declassification of Records

The White House announced today, as expected, that President Obama has signed a new executive order on classified national security information.

William H. Leary, the senior director of records and access management at the National Security Council, summarized the EO on the White House Blog. Three points jumped out for me:

[The Executive Order] establishes a National Declassification Center at the National Archives to enable agency reviewers to perform collaborative declassification in accordance with priorities developed by the Archivist with input from the general public.

and,

It eliminates an Intelligence Community veto of certain decisions by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel that was introduced in the Bush order.

also,

The Order also significantly modifies the “third agency rule” [TSB note: this is the previously sacrosanct government policy that information from another agency should only be released with that agency's permission] to permit re-dissemination of classified documents by receiving agencies without the approval of the originating agency, except when the originating agency has indicated on the documents that such prior approval is required.

It all sounds very good for the producers and consumers of historical documentation.

From Bombs to Crayons and Back Again

ABC News is reporting that former Gitmo detainees whom we released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 are believed to have been behind the Northwest Airlines Flight #253 bombing attempt (Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines Bomb Plot).

They quote an unidentified U.S. diplomat who is less than impressed with the Saudi's rehab program for former terrorists:

"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.

Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life.

One program gives the former detainees paints and crayons as part of the rehabilitation regimen.

Paints and crayons? That rings a bell. In 2007, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aired a short documentary about the Saudi's art therapy program, featuring Canadian journalist Nancy Durham.



Predictably, art therapy is a Western export to Saudi Arabia. Dr. Awad Alyami, Director of Art Therapy at King Fahad Medical City and the main figure in the PBS story, studied art therapy at Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Alyami learned about this innovative approach while studying in the United States.

Dr. Alyami: It’s not revolutionary a hundred percent because my colleagues in England, Canada, in the states … they’re doing some art in jail, but not with my type of population.

Nancy Durham: Yeah, this is what’s new. I mean these are guys who couldn’t have cared less about art … (garbled).

Dr. Alyami: Yes, Nancy do you think it was easy for me to start the program with them? No, I was scared to death to start with them. Really … because I had that idea that these are uh … criminals. They blow up buildings and stuff.

Indeed. Some of them still do blow stuff up. Nothing worse than an art therapy drop-out.

The sound is weak on the video clip, but you can read a transcript here.

Internal Blogging at State?

Should Madam le Consul return, only this time as an in-house project on the State Department's intranet?

The idea has been proposed at The Sounding Board [the link will work only if you're on a computer connected to the intranet], the State Department's employee suggestion box. No comments have yet been entered for that suggestion, which kind of surprises me.

Is internal blogging fundamentally a bad idea?

My Christmas Eve Tradition

Is to watch The Crossing and cheer for the Continental Army as it brings shock and awe to the Republic's enemies, 1776-style.

The Battle of Trenton fascinates me as an historical turning point - it was that very rare thing, a tactical operation that had a strategic impact - and, also, I find the movie a good corrective for the schmaltzy sentimentality that starts to get out of control at this point in the holiday season. For weeks now every car radio and shopping mall sound system has been keeping up a steady Little-Drummer-Boy-beat of Rudolph the Red Nosed pear tree, chestnuts roasting over run-over Grandmas, and figgy puddings dressed up like Eskimos. By today, I'm more than ready for a bracing reminder of a Christmas that was made of sterner stuff.

Christmas At Arlington National Cemetery