Fate is turning me into Crooked Timber’s airline correspondent. One moment I’m calling for the right to use my mobile phone in flight; the next I’m forced to contemplate having no carry on luggage on my flight. I presume that will be one of the consequences of the terror plot apparently uncovered in Britain, which, if there is anything to it (which, despite initial cynicism, there may well be), strongly suggests that however much is spent on pre-screening carry on baggage, there is no way to stop terrorists collectively carrying on enough ingredients to make a bomb in flight.
I am generally a hawk on terrorism, not least as a consequence of being in NY on 9/11. I hope I will be able to congratulate the British police on good work in this instance – and that they keep up that good work. But I wish I felt more confident that this is the case.
Of course, pre-emptive action is better than cleaning up afterwards, and proving that pre-emption actually was needed is inevitably difficult. But British politicians and the police, in particular, do seem sometimes to react in an especially heavy handed way when they pre-empt. (The killing of the Brazilian electrician last summer being the most glaring example.) If they have been tracking the current plot for some time, surely they could have phased in changes in check-in and pre-screening earlier, in ways that avoided the massive disruption to flights we have seen today. I find myself wondering if today’s disruption is deliberate, to send a message – though to whom, and what it is, I’m not sure.
There is surely also a need for some genuinely independent scrutiny of the police and government action with regard to alleged terrorist plots, especially given how few of the plot-arrest headlines actually seem to result in trials. That would make me more confident that something is going on here that is more than political grandstanding and career protection.
But the bigger point today, of course, is that rumours of terrorist plots, and actual plots, are going to remain a fact of life, the authorities have a huge and difficult responsibility that I do ot envy them, and we have only started to see how living with that fact is going to effect how we all go about our daily business. Dammit.
{ 49 comments }
Steve LaBonne 08.10.06 at 7:33 am
I realize this is utopian, but perhaps in an ideal universe both the authorities and the public might consider making a rational assessment of the actual level of risk from terrorist attacks.
nick s 08.10.06 at 7:39 am
Presumably, John Reid knew about this when he gave his speech last night:
The days of compulsory pre-flight sedation may well be ahead.
Steve LaBonne 08.10.06 at 7:45 am
If war is the health of the state, the War on Terra is the glowing health of the state.
Paul Gottlieb 08.10.06 at 7:58 am
Not only do the British security forces tend to preempt in an incredibly bloody and arbitrary fashion, but, as in the case of the murdered Brazilian, the authorities tend to tell a whole lot of lies afterwards. A case of leadership from the top, I guess.
Maria 08.10.06 at 8:10 am
Well, this saves me writing a piece on the heavily orchestrated nature of the aftermath of the terrorist plot. It is explicitly the outcome of several months’ work, and none of the coverage indicated that the security and police forces believe a terrorist action is expected today. In fact, the manner in which the announcements were timed – along with, as Nick S says, Reid’s speech yesterday – makes me very dubious as to how urgent this response is. I’m very happy that the coordinated work of law enforcement and intelligence agencies has likely averted a disaster. But I’m an awful lot less convinced that today’s reaction in Heathrow is a proportionate response (given the 20 odd people that have already been arrested).
The staggered nature of the press releases, the dovetailing of it all with Reid’s speech yesterday that anyone who disagrees with him on anti-terrorism measures ‘just doesn’t get it’, and Reid’s and Alexander’s scripted performance to camera this morning – it smacks of a long-prepared plan running smoothly for everyone except those working at and travelling through UK airports.
BBC’s own Home Office correspondent ran through the timings of the various announcements and commented that it seemed very ‘orchestrated’. News coverage in the meantime focuses on the Stoic Brit, calmly taking several hours of possibly pointless delays in his/her stride. How much does this ‘security theatre’ actually have to do with the presumably completed intelligence operation?
Uncle Kvetch 08.10.06 at 8:18 am
Intelligence operations? Months of surveillance? What a bunch of wimps you Brits are. This is exactly the approach to Tayrr that Dick Cheney rightly smirked at during the ’04 election.
If this plot had been discovered here in the good ol’ US of A, we would have known how to take care of it: bomb LAX, JFK and O’Hare to rubble, then arrest any survivors and ship their asses off to Gitmo for the duration. It’s the only way.
I especially liked Chertoff’s contribution this morning: I have no evidence on which to base this, but it sure sounds like al-Qaeda: booga booga booga! Everybody under the bed!
Planeshift 08.10.06 at 8:26 am
New Labour’s response to 9-11 was that it was a good day to bury bad news. So I’m running a competition – hunt the bad news. (that is bad from the point of view of the government)
Its got to be there somewhere….
Alex R 08.10.06 at 8:40 am
If this had all started in the US, I personally would have looked first at the impending US midterm elections as a likely precipitating factor for a security crackdown, raising of threat level, etc.
But since this is coming from the UK, that couldn’t possibly be a factor. (Dons tinfoil hat.) Could it?
chris y 08.10.06 at 8:49 am
The bad news? That Rooseveldt’s four freedoms are now to be regarded as a contingent historical anomaly. It was in plain text in Reid’s speech yesterday. It was a good time to release it because today’s efforts more or less guarantee that anybody who wants to discuss it looks like an irrelevant whiner.
KCinDC 08.10.06 at 8:58 am
Planeshift, the US government is no doubt having the same idea. NPR this morning sounds as bad as the cable news channels, taking 1 or 2 minutes of content (since very little information has been released at this stage) and stretching it out and repeating endlessly to provide continuous coverage, excluding any other stories.
CKR 08.10.06 at 9:06 am
No shoes, no belt buckles, no carryon.
Next we’ll be having all-nude flights.
Oh wait, there are those nasty body orifices…
Ajax 08.10.06 at 9:31 am
Well, it began to seem possible that this August could pass without an industrial dispute at British Airways, and therefore no massive queues at Heathrow. Lamenting the loss of a great British summer tradition, the security services wasted no time in helping BA out . . . .
aaron 08.10.06 at 9:53 am
In the long-run, maybe this will make travelling faster. Once the kinks are worked out, boarding, unboarding, and screening should be much simpler.
Maybe that was the goal of the terrorists all along. That and bringing freedom to muslim countries.
It’s all coming together.
Nick 08.10.06 at 10:04 am
Planeshift #7: re bad news: you may wish to consider this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4779321.stm
I understand that withdrawal of troops in response to prolonged & intense fighting is generally known as ‘a defeat’.
Rob St. Amant 08.10.06 at 10:06 am
I wonder how many bottles of duty-free liquor went into the trash in Heathrow? Perhaps the maintenance staff, at least, had a nice windfall.
KCinDC 08.10.06 at 10:40 am
Aaron, you’re forgetting the huge increase in the number of people waiting for checked baggage. There’s no way it’s going to be a speedup for a lot of people.
Sebastian Holsclaw 08.10.06 at 10:59 am
“But I’m an awful lot less convinced that today’s reaction in Heathrow is a proportionate response (given the 20 odd people that have already been arrested).”
I think the idea is that if they didn’t catch everyone, one or more of the people they didn’t catch in the sweep may try to act immediately after it becomes obvious that his compatriots have been captured.
magistra 08.10.06 at 11:02 am
I missed the new restrictions by a whisker – arrived back at Gatwick from the US on an overnight flight early this morning (Thu 10th): with a three year old in tow. If I had to contemplate making a plane trip with a small child without toys, books, crayons and other entertainments, I’m not sure how I would manage. Can’t they at least redefine finger puppets as an essential item?
Andy 08.10.06 at 11:07 am
I can’t believe the massive over reaction to this. Why cancel flights (as most airlines and airports seem to be doing)? Surely if there is one thing we Brits are good at it is cuing stoically, so keep the airplanes flying and just make us cue for a couple of hours longer to get through the extra security checks. Cancelling flights is just mindless panic which makes me ashamed.
I also have to admit that my first reaction to all this was that it had been the News of the World’s fake sheikh selling a tube of toothpaste purporting to be explosives to a polish builder who actually wanted to use it for some illicit demolition work…….
To try and end on a positive, I’d imagine it is a very good day indeed if you are a breeder of sniffer dogs.
Doormat 08.10.06 at 11:11 am
Re 17 (Sebastian): I’ve thought about this a bit– this assumes that there are terrorists still at large, with ready-to-go bombs, and presumably with air tickets, or at least the willingness to buy a ticket immediately. But this means that such a person(s) could cause immense damage at, say, Heathrow by simply joining the check-in queue and then detontating their device when surrounded by 1000s of people. I don’t know, but if there was a real threat, the most sensible thing to me seems to be to shut the airports outright, rather than make them sitting targets for a suicide bomber…
Andrew Edwards 08.10.06 at 11:23 am
I can never tell whether “the terrorists were planning an attack” means:
(a) A bunch of adolescents had a harebrained scheme to make themselves feel big, but they were never going to do it, and even if they did it wouldn’t work.
or
(b) Some criminal mastermind had an actually functioning plan in place that was going to be executed and was going to work.
I’m fairly convinced that the government has, on more than one occasion, presented (a) as though it were (b), and it’s certainly in their interests to do so. So I never feel confident.
Sebastian Holsclaw 08.10.06 at 11:33 am
“But this means that such a person(s) could cause immense damage at, say, Heathrow by simply joining the check-in queue and then detontating their device when surrounded by 1000s of people. I don’t know, but if there was a real threat, the most sensible thing to me seems to be to shut the airports outright, rather than make them sitting targets for a suicide bomber…”
Well sure, and they could also blow up a supermarket or subway. We could shut down all places people come together and be safer. But, and this isn’t abusing the silly phrase, the terrorists would have won by having us shut down the things that make our societies function.
I’m actually encouraged that such terrorists seem to still be focusing on planes. It seems to me that there are lots of other places they could attack that would be just as deadly.
Steve LaBonne 08.10.06 at 11:44 am
From the study I linked in #1:
The terrorists win not by any of their actual attacks but by causing unjustified panic whereby we tie ourselves in knots. And our “responsible” public officials waltz right into this trap and indeed spend much energy fanning the flames, often to the accompaniment of crass political benefit for themselves. The psychology of the whole think I find quite reminiscent of witch-hunting.
Steve LaBonne 08.10.06 at 11:45 am
“thing” not “think”- I should do a better job of using the preview function that CT is kind enough to provide…
Jason Kuznicki 08.10.06 at 12:10 pm
Well, yes. But there are those who would take the Cato report in rather the opposite direction, and try to ensure that the government will protect us from peanuts and from the bad habit of standing outside in lightning.
But they wouldn’t ban deer, because deer are fuzzy and cuddly and natural and stuff.
As to “naked air,” I believe Tom Friedman already suggested that idea. I much prefer “infidel air:” an airliner that requires you to blaspheme against God/Allah, Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, and all other major religious figures before you set foot on the plane.
But then, if a religion can think its way around “thou shalt not murder,” I suppose it can think its way around blasphemy in the nude, too.
Doormat 08.10.06 at 12:14 pm
Sebastian, Sorry, I should have made myself clearer. I think the current chaos at Heathrow etc. is pointless: there fairly obviously *isn’t* an *specific* intelligence, and as you say, anywhere could be a target. All that’s happening is massive inconvenience, huge amounts of lost money etc. “If we change the way we behave, then the terrorists have won…” etc. the government keeps saying…
Sebastian Holsclaw 08.10.06 at 12:23 pm
“Sebastian, Sorry, I should have made myself clearer. I think the current chaos at Heathrow etc. is pointless: there fairly obviously isn’t an specific intelligence, and as you say, anywhere could be a target.”
So far as I can tell, that isn’t true. This particular group of 21 or more people was specifically planning to blow up planes.
And the more that I think about it, I’m not sure that the threat against people in airports is as strong as against planes in flight. You don’t have to do massive amounts of damage to cripple a plane in flight across the Atlantic–probably killing everyone on board as it crashes. That kind of explosion might only kill ten or fifteen people in an airport.
Doormat 08.10.06 at 12:46 pm
Yeah, you have a point: it seems like the plan way to make the explosives on board, from two or more liquids which, on their own, would be much easier to get through security. Not classic suicide bomber stuff.
This said, it still seems to me to be a huge over-reaction. The news keeps saying there was no specific threat: the police didn’t use armed support, for example, so they clearly weren’t that worried. This doesn’t seem consistent with the idea of unknown accomplices being ready to go *today*. A more measured response, like increased check-in secruity, and being very suspecious of people turning up without pre-booked tikets etc. would seem more reasonable. Anyway, this is getting Off Topic, so I’ll shut up now.
KCinDC 08.10.06 at 12:51 pm
Steve, I agree about keeping things in proportion, but technological advances make it possible for small groups of wackos to kill more and more people, so the numbers likely won’t stay that way forever.
astrongmaybe 08.10.06 at 1:05 pm
Ryanair and the other cut-price European carriers already charge for checked baggage (5 euros a bag, I think). Given that probably a majority of people flying with them only have carry-on, they’re in for an enormous windfall.
Steve LaBonne 08.10.06 at 1:11 pm
kcindc, please read the CATO report for some cogent responses to that often-heard worry. Also, I find it quite implausible that these highly disruptive Keystone Cops responses to threats, or “threats”, put that evil day off significantly if at all. To me it all looks like the classic dumbass security mentality with which I am all too familiar since I have to work with cops all the time in my job.
abb1 08.10.06 at 1:22 pm
In any case, using airplanes for civilian travels in the times like these is totally unjustifiable waste. These airplanes could’ve been easily converted and used to drop bombs on Islamic fascists or transport soldiers to the middle east and their bodies back home. And you people have the audacity to complain about your inconvenience. Disgusting.
Dan Simon 08.10.06 at 2:08 pm
But I’m an awful lot less convinced that today’s reaction in Heathrow is a proportionate response (given the 20 odd people that have already been arrested).
You’re right–a proportionate response would have been to search 20 people. What are they doing searching everybody?
Then again, if the plot had succeeded, thousands would have died. Why, then, have they only arrested 20? Sounds wildly disproportionate to me.
I guess this “proportionate response” stuff is trickier than it looks. Maybe we should just ditch it in favor of some other criterion, such as, say, “what’s necessary to get the job done”. (Or, if you’re a libertarian-free-market type, “what’s cost-effective”.) That way, if we disagreed as to the appropriateness of a particular response, the arguments would be pragmatic, rather than esthetic.
Ginger Yellow 08.10.06 at 2:33 pm
“Yeah, you have a point: it seems like the plan way to make the explosives on board, from two or more liquids which, on their own, would be much easier to get through security. Not classic suicide bomber stuff.”
It’s more that the two liquids (or one liquid and a solid) explode when combined. They’re either completely separate or separated a temporary barrier that the detonator gets rid of.
On the plus side, without any hand luggage, air travel won’t burn as much fuel.
Aaron Bogart 08.10.06 at 3:34 pm
What have we done? I am so confused; will I ever be able to read a book on a trans-atlantic flight again? Stop talking about this surrealistically and tell the children of whoever you know to tell their parents to stop voting for idiots. I’m an American, but I don’t think I ever want to return tot he States. Help me.
Rob 08.10.06 at 3:59 pm
I haven’t read the Cato report, so for all I know it may have something to say about this, but it strikes me that one reason more Americans have been killed by peanuts and so on than by terrorism may well be that their government does try – maybe not very efficiently, perhaps – to stop terrorists killing them, whereas I imagine it’s not particularly concerned about the peanut threat.
harry b 08.10.06 at 5:56 pm
planeshift — Jo Moore did lose her job in the end. And the memo took 6 weeks to surface. I promise that if there’s bad news buried, it’ll come out in the end.
Zarquon 08.10.06 at 6:02 pm
Look what happened to the president who was described as ‘soft on peanuts’.
nick s 08.10.06 at 6:36 pm
their government does try – maybe not very efficiently, perhaps – to stop terrorists killing them, whereas I imagine it’s not particularly concerned about the peanut threat.
Try taking a peanut butter sandwich into an American school. The War On Peanuts has been waged for many years now.
engels 08.10.06 at 6:38 pm
I imagine it’s not particularly concerned about the peanut threat
Somebody is taking it very seriously indeed, as everything I buy now carries the warning “may contain nuts”.
engels 08.10.06 at 6:39 pm
Or maybe not seriously at all, since the near ubiquity of these warnings makes them almost meaningless.
astrongmaybe 08.10.06 at 7:14 pm
Taking, for the moment, this plot at face value, it is very striking how reactive the various security agencies seem to be on terror techniques. Plotters come up with a shoe bomb, and so we all have to take off our shoes to be checked. They think of liquid explosives, and suddenly we can’t carry liquids on board. Don’t MI5, the CIA and the rest do anything to try to creatively imagine and head off possible threats before they actually occur? They would probably say “you don’t know the things we do behind the scenes…” but what we see in public doesn’t lend much confidence. All the imagination and R&D, so to speak, seems to happen on the terrorist side.
Backword Dave 08.10.06 at 7:18 pm
#41. There isn’t one on Parliament, though, when there should be. ;)
Backword Dave 08.10.06 at 7:32 pm
#22 ‘I’m actually encouraged that such terrorists seem to still be focusing on planes. It seems to me that there are lots of other places they could attack that would be just as deadly.’
That’s one reason that I’m suspicious of this story. Surely smart terrorists (may be an oxymoron, but in enough cases, not) would move targets round. If they have these near-undetectable explosives why not attack a prominent individual or the Stock Market or Canary Wharf? Isn’t the point of terrorism (from the terrorists perspective) to blow something up without getting caught?
Israel by its location must have a fair amount of air traffic. It’s surrounded and infiltrated by terrorists and suicide bombers. To my knowledge none has succeeded in blowing up a plane. Does anyone know what they do? because it seems to work.
OK there’s a sort of answer to that here.
engels 08.10.06 at 7:45 pm
#43 Maybe because some of those nuts are now quite unpalatable, having been chewed up and spat out by a chimp.
engels 08.10.06 at 10:27 pm
If they have these near-undetectable explosives why not attack … the Stock Market or Canary Wharf?
Although as a mere leftist I can’t claim Sebastian’s military expertise, I think he’s right on this point: presumably one of the reasons terrorists blow up planes is that you only need a little bomb to bring down a plane, which wouldn’t cause as much harm somewhere else.
Ray 08.11.06 at 4:00 am
At the same time, there are many much easier ways of killing lots of people, and of costing lots of money, that just wouldn’t be as spectacular.
glenn 08.11.06 at 5:54 am
One thing I really don’t understand – aside from ackowledging the sheer audacity of the plot – is why the terrorists (or hope-to-be terrorists) still stick to the same script? I mean, airports are among the most heavily policed places. Why not go to a mall? A train? A Theatre? It’d be alot easier, and presumably, even more, uh, terrorful (or is it just plain terrible?).
glenn 08.11.06 at 5:58 am
And the Diet Coke and Mentos threat is neutralized as well.
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