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The Christmas Day Bomber was an 18-24 unaccompanied male without baggage who purchased a ticket, in cash, to Detroit, without wearing any kind of winter clothin

The Christmas Day Bomber was an 18-24 unaccompanied male without baggage who purchased a ticket, in cash, to Detroit, without wearing any kind of winter clothing. I don't know how many more "obvious red flags" you can raise, and yet he still managed to get onto a plane with explosives. You can't discount any obvious signals on the presumption that the real threats are too smart to send them.

lsc 16y ago
Aside from the 'buying tickets in cash' that sounds like me. A couple changes of underwear in the laptop bag and I'm good to go. quite often I get somewhere and end up needing to buy a jacket or something.
- achompas 16y ago
  A couple changes of underwear in the laptop bag and I'm good to go Right, you're carrying something. It seems like the Christmas Day bomber wasn't carrying anything (aside from his bomb).
  - corin_ 16y ago
    Admitedly I've never done it on a long haul flight like Europe to America, but I have done that on 1-3 hour flights around Europe, just flying out for a meeting with nothing but a wallet, passport and phone.
jdietrich 16y ago
Not only did we miss all those "obvious red flags", but we missed the much bigger ones. His own father had reported him to the CIA. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was banned from entering the UK. British intelligence had informed the US authorities that an Umar Farouk had consorted with a known extremist and that he was intent on jihad. The fact that he didn't have a warm coat is absolutely irrelevant. We had high-quality intelligence against him but failed to act upon it in any way. We need to worry less about whether someone looks shifty at an airport and worry more about keeping tabs on people who we have strong intelligence on. It is also worth stating that his attack failed and he was unable to damage anything other than his own groin.
- mrtron 16y ago
  That should be the most enraging part about the 'airline security'. The recent cargo bomb was missed despite multiple tips about that specific item as well!
mcantelon 16y ago
US intelligence knew he was an Al Quaeda operative, yet allowed him to fly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_awareness_of_US_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_a... Terrorist attacks increase the funding of the intel and security institutions, so they have a vested interest in them occurring (and a state willing to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq to advance its objectives likely has little problem sacrificing the odd planeload of its own citizens to maintain public support for its ambitions).
MartinCron 16y ago
The one time I (30-ish unaccompanied male) bought a ticket at the airport on the day of flight and flew without checked bags, I actually did get some extra scrutiny. So, the red flags are noticed at least sometimes.

lsc 16y ago

Aside from the 'buying tickets in cash' that sounds like me. A couple changes of underwear in the laptop bag and I'm good to go. quite often I get somewhere and end up needing to buy a jacket or something.

achompas 16y ago
A couple changes of underwear in the laptop bag and I'm good to go Right, you're carrying something. It seems like the Christmas Day bomber wasn't carrying anything (aside from his bomb).
- corin_ 16y ago
  Admitedly I've never done it on a long haul flight like Europe to America, but I have done that on 1-3 hour flights around Europe, just flying out for a meeting with nothing but a wallet, passport and phone.

jdietrich 16y ago

Not only did we miss all those "obvious red flags", but we missed the much bigger ones. His own father had reported him to the CIA. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was banned from entering the UK. British intelligence had informed the US authorities that an Umar Farouk had consorted with a known extremist and that he was intent on jihad. The fact that he didn't have a warm coat is absolutely irrelevant. We had high-quality intelligence against him but failed to act upon it in any way. We need to worry less about whether someone looks shifty at an airport and worry more about keeping tabs on people who we have strong intelligence on. It is also worth stating that his attack failed and he was unable to damage anything other than his own groin.

mrtron 16y ago
That should be the most enraging part about the 'airline security'. The recent cargo bomb was missed despite multiple tips about that specific item as well!

mcantelon 16y ago

US intelligence knew he was an Al Quaeda operative, yet allowed him to fly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_awareness_of_US_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_a... Terrorist attacks increase the funding of the intel and security institutions, so they have a vested interest in them occurring (and a state willing to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq to advance its objectives likely has little problem sacrificing the odd planeload of its own citizens to maintain public support for its ambitions).

MartinCron 16y ago

The one time I (30-ish unaccompanied male) bought a ticket at the airport on the day of flight and flew without checked bags, I actually did get some extra scrutiny. So, the red flags are noticed at least sometimes.