In Wake Of Review, More Details On Watch Lists Alphabet Soup

“You have to understand that you need information that is specific and credible if you are going to actually bar someone from air travel,” Ms. Napolitano said on CNN. “He was on a general list, which over half a million people — everybody had access to it. But there was not the kind of credible information, in the sense derogatory information, that would move him up the list.”

???

His father reported him to the US Govt as radicalized by extremist propaganda and he recently traveled to Yemen. Are the warnings of a father about his son and visits to Yemen not credible? Is the No Fly list by invitation only?

Who governs the list of who can board a flight to the US? Also, who controls the security guidelines for what can be brought on board a plane bound for the US? First, Richard Reid tried to blow up his shoe, resulting in people having to remove their shoes to get on planes. Now this fellow allegedly had explosives sewn into his underwear, so you can see where I'm going next. My point is not to be flippant, but to ask what is reasonable, in the way of searches. What if someone had put this explosive in a baseball cap, or I once had a down jacket with a collar that would have been the ideal place to secret explosives, what about that? Where do you draw the line?

You're correct. The War on Terror is as absurd as the War on Drugs. You cn't wipe out insanity with an army, nor even with effective police action - and this is a job for International police forces working in harmony - and with smartly.

I would differ with you on the solution being the end of arrogance on the part of victims. That won't put an end to the sick fantasies of religious lunatics. Never has - never will. It didn't stop the Christian Crusades against Muslims (and Jews), and it won't stop the current extremist Muslim Crusades against the rest of the World (they murder Hindus and Buddhists with similar finesse).
I believe that most people, no matter their religious affiliation (or non-affiiation) just want their own family to be safe, don't contemplate murder and don't resemble "arrogant pigs."

"Obama has orders a review" ?? Sure, just like the review that Congress did on ACORN or the Review that Rep. Franks did on "Fanny and Freddy".
President Obama ordered bombing of terrorist camps (schools) in the area that the airliner bomber are coming from. No report on how many woman and children killed in these attackes. Our President is doing just what a Nobel Peace Prize winner would be expected to do. No booths on the ground just body parts.

“We’ve known for a long time that this is possible,” said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and ABC News consultant, “and that we really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems.”

Clarke said full body scans were needed, “but they’re expensive and they’re intrusive. They invade people’s privacy.”

Al Qaeda, said Clarke, is aware of this vulnerability in the U.S. airport security system. “They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles’ heel in our airport security system and this is the second time they’ve tried it.”

Both times failed or psychological warfare?

One needs to consider the possibility that this wackjob believed he would be martyred, and believed that Yemeni Al Qaeda had supplied him with the materials. But his handlers KNEW that the materials provided were insufficient to do the job, and that he would sing like a bird when in custody. The timing for this is just too pat, coming just days after the State Department DENIED military involvement in Yemen, then reversed itself when the facts could no longer be denied.

A cursury internet search reveals that he boarded in Nigeria, WITH a passport, and went through standard security protocols in Nigeria. It is in Amsterdamn that things seems to get a bit hinky. In Nigeria he has a passport, and in amsterdam he doesn't??? Huh? Interesting that the media is reporting the the White House is "blaming" the security at the Nigerian airport, when it is actually Amsterdam that seems to have been the spot where security protocols were circumvented. That is, of course, if one is to believe the eyewitness accounts of this attorney/passenger that one would think has no motive to lier.

While we cogitate about watch lists, screening procedures, TSDB and TIDE, here's another four-letter combination to consider:
VISA.

After one of Nigeria's biggest bankers sings to the American Embassy about his whack-job son, why is it impossible to pull his visa?

Forget about no-fly lists - without a visa he no fly.

Paging Secretary Clinton...

Let's hope that Obama's intelligence will find a better means of sorting these characters out. I have confidence in his abilities.

Obama is meeting all responsibilities. You wouldn't hear much about the avoidance from the other side on this issue. Getting rid of the Bush administration hiding behind these events is not easy. You know they planned them and they will not speak on their own behalf. They are getting called out all over the place and don't have much to say.

The administration should spend the money they're proposing for Afghanistan on dealing with this sort of security problem.