Prof. Juan Cole writes that he considers the threat of PETN bombs real, scanners necessary.

[leveymg]

http://www.juancole.com/2010/11/looking-for-petn-scanning-grandma-at-the-airport-and-the-future-of-air-travel.html.

I don't think either Professor Cole or I are "invested" in the use of scanners or pat downs, but we have both concluded that their use is necessary because there are no other effective means to detect significant amounts of PETN hidden under people's clothes. We both have big concerns, in addition, with how the issue can be exploited and politically misused by those who want to take away what remains of our liberties if, G-d forbid, there is another mass casualty terrorist incident involving a U.S. airliner.

There is no DU position on this topic, other than many people are upset in general about the post-9/11 loss of freedoms, and the "don't touch my junk" incident has triggered a resurgence of those frustrations. It is a mistake, however, to assume that that this is an "Us Versus Them", DU versus the TSA, progressive vs. conservative issue. We all, people of good will, want to avoid more death and destruction. See, http://www.juancole.com/2010/11/looking-for-petn-scanning-grandma-at-the-airport-and-the-future-of-air-travel.html

Looking for PETN, Scanning Grandma at the Airport, and the Future of Air Travel
Posted on November 22, 2010 by Juan
59Share

In all the furor about the new TSA scanners and pat-downs at airports, what surprises me is that there is very little discussion of what exactly the inspectors are now looking for and why they are shifting tactics.

The old scanners and procedures designed to discover metal (guns, knives, bombs with timers or detonators) are helpless before a relatively low-tech alternative kind of explosive that is favored by al-Qaeda and similar groups.

The inspectors are looking for forms of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which is from the same family of explosives as nitroglycerin and which is used to make plastic explosives such as Semtex.

Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, used PETN, as did Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the crotch bomber, last year this time over Detroit. PETN was in the HP cartridges sent by a Yemeni terrorist in cargo planes recently. And, a suicide bomber put some up his anus and used it in an attempt to assassinate the son of the Saudi minister of the interior (which does counter-terrorism). Yes, he was the first ass bomber, and he missed his target, though he no longer cares about that, what with being dead and all.

The problem with PETN is that it cannot be detected by sniffing dogs or by ordinary scanners. But if you had a pouch of it on your person, the new scanners could see the pouch, and likewise a thorough pat-down would lead to its discovery.

The TSA guys are trying to look more systematically for PETN. That is why they have adopted these more intrusive methods. And, there has been chatter among the terrorist groups abroad about launching attacks on American airliners with this relatively undetectable explosive.

None of us likes the result, which is a significant invasion of privacy.

But if al-Qaeda and its sympathizers could manage to blow up only a few airliners with PETN, they could have a significant negative effect on the economy and could very possibly drive some American airlines into bankruptcy. Al-Qaeda is about using small numbers of men and low-tech techniques to paralyze a whole civilization, which was the point of the September 11 attacks

Since the Bush administration hyped the ‘war on terror’ trope half to death, many in the American public no longer want to hear about this danger. But it is part of my business in life to deliver the horrific news that the threat is real. . . . MORE

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. That article would not have been published between January 2001 and January 2009

It is incredible what people will ACTUALLY put up with in exchange for a political outcome.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I just keep thinking to myself, "what's the practical alternative"?

What do we do instead? I don't know.

[LisaL]

3. What if the pouch is in a carry-on bag?

Is TSA inspecting every pouch in the carry-on bags?
Since airlines make people pay for cargo bags, lots of people bring all kind of stuff onto the plane.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. They get X rayed, don't they?

All carry-on luggage has been X rayed for decades in international travel, anyway. You know, to spot guns and so on.

[LisaL]

9. And what is going to show up on X-rays? A pouch?

Does TSA check every pouch in the carry-on baggage?

[leveymg]

12. If there is a pouch or container with material more than 3 ozs., that's what they're trained to do.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. If you had a pouch of it in a body cavity, neither the scanners nor the pat down would find it.

The TSA however will tell us that for the good of air travel we'll need to go along with the next stupid geegaw pitched to solve this problem.

[LisaL]

5. I wouldn't be surprised if TSA waits a bit then introduces cavity

searches, despite what Pistol has said now.

[leveymg]

6. The amount of explosives that can be hidden in body cavities is limited.

Probably not enough to crash a commercial airliner. So, the risk is inherently minimized.

[frylock]

10. how much can be hidden in the waistband of a pair of underpants?

[leveymg]

11. Apparently, more than can be secreted in one's body cavities.

The human body also is pretty effective at suppressing explosive effects.

However, someone could detonate a condom full of explosives extracted in the lavatory. It's questionable as to whether that limited amount would bring down a commercial jet.

There are no absolutely effective measures, short of an internal X-ray, a physical cavity search or a sonogram. But, this seems to be a reasonable compromise.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. With several orifices available, is there enough room to pack an amount that will cause terror?

All it would take is an explosion that causes panic and injuries.

[frylock]

8. But if al-Qaeda and its sympathizers could manage to blow up only a few strip malls with PETN

why aren't they doing that? why focus blowing up airliners with all this enhanced "security" present? moreover, what's professor cole's expertise in the field of security?

[Catherina]

14. He misses the mark on this one. Paul Craig Robert nailed it here

I thoroughly disagree that this is about protection. This is all about conditioning.

Will taxi passengers be next? In those Muslim lands whose citizens the US government has been slaughtering for years, favorite weapons for retaliating against the Americans are car and truck bombs. How long before Pistole announces that the TSA Gestapo is setting up roadblocks on city streets, highways and interstates to check cars for bombs? That 15-minute trip to the grocery store then becomes an all-day affair.


Indeed, it has already begun. Last September agents from Homeland Security, TSA, and the US Department of Transportation, assisted by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, conducted a counter-terrorism operation on busy Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, Georgia. Designated VIPER (Visible Inter-mobile Prevention and Response), the operation required all trucks to stop to be screened for bombs. Federal agents used dogs, screening devices, and a large drive-through bomb detection machine. Imagine what the delays did to delivery schedules and truckers' bottom lines.


There are also news reports of federal trucks equipped with backscatter X-ray devices that secretly scan cars and pedestrians.


With such expensive counter-terrorism activities, both in terms of the hard-pressed taxpayers' money and civil liberties, one would think that bombs were going off all over America. But, of course, they aren't. There has not been a successful terrorist act since 9/11, and thousands of independent experts doubt the government's explanation of that event.

...

If Americans were more thoughtful and less gullible, they might wonder why all the emphasis on transportation when there are so many soft targets. Shopping centers, for example. If there were enough terrorists in America to justify the existence of Homeland Security, bombs would be going off round the clock in shopping malls in every state. The effect would be far more terrifying than blowing up an airliner.

Indeed, if terrorists want to attack air travelers, they never need to board an airplane. All they need to do is to join the throngs of passengers waiting to go through the TSA scanners and set off their bombs. The TSA has conveniently assembled the targets.

The final proof that there are no terrorists is that not a single neoconservative or government official responsible for the Bush regime's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Obama regime's slaughters of Pakistanis, Yemenis, and Somalians has been assassinated. None of these Americans who are responsible for lies, deceptions, and invasions that have destroyed the lives of countless numbers of Muslims have any security protection. If Muslims were capable of pulling off 9/11, they are certainly capable of assassinating Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Libby, Condi Rice, Kristol, Bolton, Goldberg, and scores of others during the same hour of the same day.

...


http://www.opednews.com/articles/TSA-GESTAPO-EMPIRE-by-paul-craig-roberts-101123-893.html