Security questions after Christmas bomb attempt

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A 23-year-old Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly attempted to detonate explosives aboard Northwest flight 253, flying from Amsterdam to Detroit, on Christmas Day. Authorities credit quick action by passengers and crew and a faulty detonator with preventing what could have been a tragedy aboard the plane.

Travelers can expect to see a host of new restrictions on airline flights, and lines at security checkpoints getting longer.

Micheline Maynard, who is covering the story for “The New York Times,” says security for international flights is going to get tougher. “You’re going to undergo two sets of checks … you’ll undergo a bag search and a physical search at the security check-in. And people were telling us yesterday that, right outside the gate at places like Heathrow and Paris and Narita, they’re setting up these new check points where your carry-on will be thoroughly searched … and then there’ll be a pat-down.”

Many people were surprised to learn that the father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had reportedly approached the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, with concerns that his son was becoming radicalized. That has raised questions of why the young man wasn’t subjected to greater scrutiny before boarding the plane to Detroit.

“When he presented himself to fly, he was on a TIDE list,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at a press conference. “What a TIDE list simply says is his name had come up somewhere, somehow. But the No-Fly, Selectee list require that there be specific … derogatory information, and that was not available throughout the law enforcement community.”

TIDE stands for the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment. Paul Pillar, the director of graduate studies at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies, says moving Abdulmutallab from that list to a No-Fly list would have required more than the single tip from Abdulmutallab’s father.

“When you have something like a single parental tip, it’s what we call ‘single threaded information,’ said Pillar. “Once you have cooperation, more than one thing, that’s basically what causes you to sit up and take notice, and leads to further analysis and further investigation, which might put you eventually on the … No-Fly list.”

While some are saying the incident is an example of a broken security system; others, like White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, say it showed that the system was working as it should.

Pillar thinks it’s neither broken, nor is it working as it should. “Systems like this get tweaked all the time. Surely the Obama administration is going to tweak this system, which was set up during the previous administration. There are inherent limits in terms of what you can do. The main limit being the sheer volume of information, the reason you have half a million entries on that TIDE list. So there will be tweaks, but I would not describe it as broken.”

“The law enforcement community is doing their job,” Pillar added. “And all these reports are a reminder that we’re always subject to threat or danger from individuals who become radicalized on their own. It’s not just a matter of defeating one group.”

“The Takeaway” is a national morning news program, delivering the news and analysis you need to catch up, start your day, and prepare for what’s ahead. The show is a co-production of WNYC and PRI, in editorial collaboration with the BBC, The New York Times Radio, and WGBH.

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