Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bacasper]

If it is just all "mistakes and apathy," then why does the government always capitalize on each one of them in order to pass more and more laws strengthening itself?

[mises]

A while back some dude tried to kill a Saudi bigwig with a bomb that was hidden in the assassins anus. What happens to airport security if that happens on a US flight?

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/abdulmutallab-underwear-bomb-not-first-saudi-anal-bomb-was-2552655.html

Will my 96 year old grandma be forced to play ball too?

[mateomiguel]

[bacasper]

Obama continues cover-up of airplane bomb plot

Posted: 2010/01/10
From: Mathaba

The statement by President Obama Thursday about the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit is a continuation of a government-wide cover-up, aided and abetted by the media, of the assistance of US intelligence and security agencies for the would-be bomber to bypass passport checks at Amsterdam airport.

Obama repeated the meaningless phrase that has become the mantra of such cover-ups since the attacks of September 11, 2001��failure to connect the dots��and gave explicit assurances that no officer of any intelligence agency will suffer any consequences for what is arguably the greatest security failure since 9/11, Patrick Martin notes at wsws.org.
The president�s remarks continue the pattern established since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried and failed to ignite a plastic explosive sown into his underwear on Flight 253.

Since the incident, there has been no coherent or credible explanation of how it was possible for Abdulmutallab to board despite the mass of information available to US security agencies, including the visit by his father to the US embassy in Nigeria more than a month before the flight.

Worse, there has been no tracing of the "sharp-dressed Indian" who assisted Abdulmutallab to board the plane without a passport, nor of the person who approved it, nor of the man who suspiciously recorded the terrorist on video before and during the incident. The video from the airport has not been made public, which would show the assistance offered the Nigerian, who was likely recruited in Britain, and not Yemen as was claimed.

Obama declared �no one individual and no single agency was at fault,� which amounts to a blanket assertion of immunity for all those involved. It is also deliberately deceptive, suggesting interagency coordination was the problem in preventing action from being taken.

The executive summary of the administration review of the incident, released in a declassified form at the time of Obama�s statement, contradicts this implication, however. The summary reveals that both the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center, separately and independently, had all the information necessary to identify Abdulmutallab, Martin notes.

The �connecting the dots� metaphor suggests a mass of information in which each piece of data, taken separately, is not incriminating, and that only someone in possession of all the information can detect a sinister pattern embedded in it. In this case, however, each major piece of data was an alarm bell. To ignore these alarms, as both the CIA and the NCTC did, suggests conscious, willful inaction, not mere incompetence.

The incident is being used to gather support for the renewal of the expiring U.S. "PATRIOT Act" as well as for the installation of invasive full-body scanners.

full article at link

[bacasper]

Israeli firm blasted for letting would-be plane bomber slip through

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

The Israeli firm ICTS International, and two of its subsidiaries are at the crux of an international investigation in recent days, as experts try to pinpoint the reasons for the security failure that enabled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest flight 253 and attempt to set alight explosives hidden in his underwear.

A Haaretz investigation has learned that the security officers and their supervisor should have suspected the passenger, even without having early intelligence available to them.

At this time, ICTS and the Dutch security firm G4S are hurling recriminations at each other, as are the authorities at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Federal Aviation Authority and U.S. intelligence officials.

The failure was a twin flop: An intelligence failure, which President Obama has already stated, in the poor handling of information that arrived at the State Department and probably also the CIA from both the father of the would-be bomber and the British security service; and a failure within the security system, including that of ICTS.
...

This system is based on a computerized algorithm, and is fed passenger information from the airline company. The system was offered to the Israel Airports Authority and the Shin Bet in the past, but rejected. According to the company's Web site, most of the large airlines in the United States use the system.

However - in real time - the system of ICTS failed. Even if U.S. intelligence failed and the name of the Nigerian passenger was not pinpointed as a suspect for the airline, he should have stirred the suspicion of the security officers. His age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased at the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry on) and many other signs should have been sufficient to alert the security officers and warrant further examination of the suspect.

However, the security supervisor representing I-SEC and PI allowed him to get on the flight.

full article at link