Legal Commentary

Incompetence Is Not A Civil Liberties Issue

By Big Tent Democrat

NYTimes:

When a prominent Nigerian banker and former government official phoned the American Embassy in Abuja in October with a warning that his son had developed radical views, had disappeared and might have traveled to Yemen, embassy officials did not revoke the young man’s visa to enter the United States, which was good until June 2010.

When a father calls to warn about his son, that seems to me to be cause for an investigation of the son. To incompetent bureaucrats, it leads to a chance to punch hippies:

The episode has renewed a debate that has quietly continued since the 2001 attacks over the proper balance between security and privacy. The government has spent the last several years cutting the size of the watch list, after repeated criticism that too many people were being questioned at border crossings or checkpoints. Now it may be asked to expand it again. “You are second-guessed one day and criticized on another,” said one Transportation Security Administration official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

What horsesh*t. I do not believe anyone reasonable would object to the investigation of a person whose FATHER tipped off the authorities. Of course, the investigation may have led to nothing. But to blame the incompetence of the TSA and the people who oversee it - people like Senator Joe Lieberman -- on the DFHs is the Village way.

The other stunning piece of incompetence of course was how the suspect got the explosive material on the plane despite the fact that is is well known for use by terrorists and easy to detect:

The explosive device used by the would-be Detroit bomber contained a widely available – and easily detected – chemical explosive that has a long history of terrorist use, according to government officials and explosive experts.

[. . .] Airport "puffer" machines – the devices that blow air onto a passenger to collect and analyze residues – would probably have detected the powder, as would bomb-sniffing dogs or a hands-on search using a swab. Hidden in Abdulmutallab's clothing, the explosive might have also been detected by the full-body imaging scanners now making their way into airports. But Abdulmutallab did not go through full-body imaging machines in Nigeria or Amsterdam [. . .] Both airports have body scanners [. . .]

So, let's review the record - the relevant government authorities were presented with a basis for investigating the suspected terrorist and did virtually nothing. The suspected terrorist carried explosive material that should have been detected by existing technology but it wasn't.

And all that is the hippies' fault. Not Janet Napolitano or the TSA or Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman or President Obama. Got it.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 28, 2009 (boomark / email).