No Fly List

The case of the alleged Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being called a massive intelligence failure. And the evidence thus far does suggest a possible lapse in the government's management of terrorist watch lists. But if so, the blame doesn't lie wholly with government agencies charged with maintaining the lists. Some share of responsibility lies with civil libertarian extremists who have ceaselessly lambasted the entire no-fly system. Maintaining a terrorist watch list is a highly complex task.

So let me get this straight: Some guy is deemed too dangerous to be allowed aboard an airplane, but he can leave the terminal and buy an AK-47? After all, he hasn't actually committed an act of terrorism. We wouldn't want to "infringe" on anyone's 2nd Amendment rights. The National Rifle Assn. might get upset and retaliate against any politician who allowed that. But like most policy issues, this is not all black and white. There is a reasonable argument for letting the fellow arm himself.

Almost 10 years ago this week, I boarded a Northwest Airlines plane in Minneapolis. As I started to my veal-pen seat in steerage, I saw the faces of the preboarded aristocrats in business class. But before I could glare at them with proletarian rage and envy, I heard a loud bang and felt a sharp pain on the top of my head. Everyone looked to see what the sound was; even the two flight attendants milling around the galley broke off their no-doubt-vital conversation. The source of the preflight disturbance?

Monday was just another night at the National Targeting Center in northern Virginia, where federal Customs and Border Protection agents spend hour after grueling hour on the necessary drudgery of comparing names on airline passenger manifests to names on terrorism watch lists. Then, 40 minutes into the 10 p.m. shift, lightening struck. Officer Dan Donahue, on temporary detail from Detroit, noticed the name of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad on a list of passengers seated on an Emirates flight heading to Dubai out of New York's JFK airport.

The federal government's no-fly list has come under intense scrutiny from congressional leaders and President Obama after last week's attempted bombing aboard a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit. The list is intended to keep known or suspected terrorists from boarding airplanes within or headed for the United States. It includes about 3,400 people, roughly 170 of them U.S. residents. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to detonate an explosive on Flight 253 on Christmas Day, was listed on a broader database of about half a million names.

An airline passenger whose identity was apparently stolen by someone on a federal no-fly list was briefly detained before his fingerprints cleared him, the FBI said. The Delta Air Lines flight from Colombia was diverted to Naval Air Station Key West, and the passenger and his luggage were removed from the plane before it continued to its original destination of Atlanta. The passenger was fingerprinted and released, said FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela. The FBI did not release the passenger's

Two Moroccan men were taken off a flight from Paris bound for Washington after officials determined one of the men was on the U.S. no-fly list. Air France Flight 026 was diverted to Bangor on Saturday night, and the two men were detained at a local jail. They were being transported to Massachusetts on Sunday as officials investigated why the passenger was allowed to board the plane in Paris. The second man detained was traveling with the banned passenger.

The government should convert its "no-fly" list of suspected terrorists into a "no-transport" list that applies to cruise ships, Amtrak and other forms of travel, the Sept. 11 commission staff recommended in a previously unreleased report. Distributed to Congress this week, the staff report buttresses the commission's transportation recommendations and provides much greater detail -- including suggested deadlines for such improvements as classes in self-defense for flight attendants.

Seven people, including an Air Force sergeant and a retired minister, sued the government Tuesday, saying that they had been wrongly placed on "no-fly" lists and subjected to humiliating interrogation and intrusive searches at airports. The national class-action suit, filed in Seattle by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks to force the federal Transportation Security Administration to develop an effective grievance system for people mistakenly singled out in anti-terrorism screenings.

So let me get this straight: Some guy is deemed too dangerous to be allowed aboard an airplane, but he can leave the terminal and buy an AK-47? After all, he hasn't actually committed an act of terrorism. We wouldn't want to "infringe" on anyone's 2nd Amendment rights. The National Rifle Assn. might get upset and retaliate against any politician who allowed that. But like most policy issues, this is not all black and white. There is a reasonable argument for letting the fellow arm himself.

The Obama administration will announce Friday a new screening system for flights to the United States under which passengers who fit an intelligence profile of potential terrorists will be searched before boarding their planes, a senior administration official said. The procedures, which have been approved by President Obama, are aimed at preventing another attack like the one attempted by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspected of ties to Al Qaeda who allegedly tried to blow up an airliner Christmas Day with a bomb hidden in his underwear, the official said.

President Obama today accepted responsibility for improving airline security and intelligence gathering as he outlined a series of failures that allowed an alleged bomber to board and try to destroy a jetliner bound for the United States on Christmas. In televised comments, the president released a declassified investigation outlining what went wrong in the incident that ended safely but became a political firestorm. Obama called for more vigilance, recommending changes in airline security as well as better use of a government watch list designed to let authorities know about potential terrorists.

After meeting this afternoon with top security aides, President Obama is scheduled to announce tougher airline security measures in response to a failed attempt to blow up a jetliner bound for the United States. Obama will meet with representatives of 20 agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, the CIA and FBI before unveiling the new steps this afternoon. Airlines have already been ordered to step up searches in the wake of the Christmas Day incident. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who has said he was recruited by Al Qaeda operatives, is in federal custody, charged with trying to destroy the Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam.

Almost 10 years ago this week, I boarded a Northwest Airlines plane in Minneapolis. As I started to my veal-pen seat in steerage, I saw the faces of the preboarded aristocrats in business class. But before I could glare at them with proletarian rage and envy, I heard a loud bang and felt a sharp pain on the top of my head. Everyone looked to see what the sound was; even the two flight attendants milling around the galley broke off their no-doubt-vital conversation. The source of the preflight disturbance?

The federal government's no-fly list has come under intense scrutiny from congressional leaders and President Obama after last week's attempted bombing aboard a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit. The list is intended to keep known or suspected terrorists from boarding airplanes within or headed for the United States. It includes about 3,400 people, roughly 170 of them U.S. residents. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to detonate an explosive on Flight 253 on Christmas Day, was listed on a broader database of about half a million names.

U.S. intelligence agencies had enough "bits and pieces" of information to thwart the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing, a senior administration official said Tuesday, but they failed to properly analyze and share it. Instead, what President Obama called a potentially catastrophic "mix of human and systemic failures" allowed a 23-year-old Nigerian to board a U.S.-bound airliner, allegedly hiding an explosive device that could have killed nearly...

The TSA is tightening its photo ID rules at airport security. Previously, people with expired IDs or who claimed to have lost their IDs were subjected to secondary screening. Then the Transportation Security Administration realized that meant someone on the government's no-fly list -- the list that is supposed to keep our planes safe from terrorists -- could just fly with no ID. Now, people without ID must also answer personal questions from their credit history to ascertain their identity.

In the wake of the botched Christmas Day airliner attack, industry groups, airport workers and others have renewed calls on Congress to confirm President Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration. The confirmation of Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and the top law enforcement official at Los Angeles World Airports, has been pending since September. Trade groups and pilots union leaders say the latest incident heightens concerns that the agency still does not have a permanent leader.