Monday, November 10, 2003

Just reading the news about the Supreme Court accepting the case of the Guantanamo prisoners...in my opinion, any and all prisoners should be under the auspices of the same laws as any US citizen. Further, we should not be sacrificing freedom for security. I know its a scary prospect to not make it as hard as possible for the bastards to maim or kill us, but I think its more important to protect the values that make this country a target. Otherwise, as Denzel Washington points out in The Seige, the terrorists have already won.

Monday, November 03, 2003

Column to be published November 6:
Heard of Nathaniel Heatwole?
I hadn't either, until he was arrested a few weeks ago after he blew the horn on himself, telling federal authorities he had hidden box cutters, bleach, and matches on two commercial aircraft. No big deal, right? Well, that depends. The majority of us know what a hassle it is to travel by plane these days. Heatwole exposed how useless all that hassle might be.
Consider first that the airports involved are Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Airport. These are not your small backwater airports, but major airports that service millions of people. If security is the concern, we should expect that the larger airports should be more secure than the others,. Yet it appears that this is not the case.
Second, while bleach might not be a big deal, matches potentially are, and box cutters are certainly of grave concern. Box cutters were used by the 9/11 terrorists in their hijacking. That box cutters got through not once, but twice at major airports shows a severe deficiency in the integrity of our security systems.
Third, the smuggled items remained undetected for a month, and might have gone undetected longer had Heatwole not alerted authorities of his actions. All of this is very unsettling. The strategy implemented by the federal government involves the employment of thousands of security personnel with the intent of preventing any dangerous materials or potential weapons from finding their way on-board a plane, yet it is clear the system needs improvement. Heatwole is not the only person to successfully get a knife or other dangerous object through security; ABC News correspondents have also gotten similar materials onto a plane. At the same time, the government is training 5,000 new air marshals to keep us safe in the air. I would say this is unnecessary redundancy, but such a statement assumes the security checkpoints are working every time. As it stands, they clearly don't.
What is of concern is that if a terrorist gets a knife through, he could potentially be the only one on the plane with a weapon, since such common items as pocketknives aren't allowed. In this post-9/11 era, it is doubtful any group of passengers would sit idly by while a terrorist made a repeat attack, but they might be hard-pressed to fight back if they were at the mercy of a knife-wielding madman and had nothing but a plastic fork. Air marshals are the obvious solution, but what then is the purpose of such extensive security on the ground, which eats up millions in funding and requires travelers to arrive hours before their flight and submit to rigorous searches? Such redundancy arguably doesn't improve security at all, and certainly doesn't alleviate the frustrations of the traveling public.
For example: As a member of Rice's Cross Country team, I travel quite often, and on a recent trip I forgot about the Leatherman Micra I carry on my keyring. The Micra has, among other things, a small penknife. I had on previous occasions been forced to mail it to myself. Knowing that if I got caught I could simply do this again, I tucked it into my bag. The Micra, with its knife, got through. This was at Bush Intercontinental Airport. On the way back, the knife was found at the much smaller Fayetteville, Arkansas airport. I was forced to endure a search through my entire carry-on bag and a rigorous screening with a metal detector wand. I understand the need for security, and that a penknife hidden in a small side pocket makes me suspicious, but would I really be a danger to anyone if an air marshal, armed with a pistol, was on the plane?
In short, the federal government should drop its charges against Heatwole, and we should all thank him for showing where our security is lacking. Further, if we continue to decide that security is a greater concern than freedom, we should at least do ourselves the favor of making that security effective by ensuring standards are met at all airports. Even better would be putting an air marshal on every flight. They would be much more effective than any security check and would allow us to relax security a little- saving ourselves a lot of unnecessary frustration come Thanksgiving and Christmas.