It was refreshing to hear a head of state openly criticise the security services in regard to the airplane bomb attempt. Would a head of state in this country be equally frank when some major issues arise.
What other option does he have? He has not managed to get a single of his major plans into actions be it public option healthcare, closing of Guantanamo Bay or gays in the military.
The only way for him to show how different and serious he is by criticizing others and to ensure that he gets as far away from the responsibility as possible. I’m actually expecting that he soon says “this system was introduced by my predecessor, I promise you that we will get this fixed as a priority within 12 month” and naturally nothing happens then.
His instructions to the Secretary of Homeland security and then to the TSA were a joke, as usual the administration swung into crazy action which mostly made no sense. But at least he can now say “we have taken immediate actions and are reviewing the situation”.
To take away blankets at exactly 90 minutes before landing and to take offline the flying maps is a joke. If a terrorist wants to know when they are about to land he just needs to wait from the moment the blankets are taking away until he feels the pressure change and hears the gear coming out.
I suspected long that the administration wants to change the visa rules (i.e. make it more single entry and higher fees) and believe me that is exactly what is going to happen. The Visa rules will be tightened and it will get more expensive and also ESTA will now be introduced for Visa holders too.
I have no idea why everybody is behaving as if the terrorist thread is so big. The odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade, there is a very good article about that [broken link removed].
I'd be looking closer to home rather than to the security services. If you took away most of the politically inspired crap that passes for security and actually let the pros do whats necessary we'd actually be safer rather than than putting up with the theater that is airport security.
I agree with galleyslave. Life is risky itself, we might want to stop doing political stunts including airport security theater and leave this to the professionals.