Surprise!

An excerpt from William Arkins' column in the Washington Post:

And the TSA was doing what the TSA always does, fighting the last war.

If liquids are a threat to airline safety and not just a prop in Michael Chertoff's press conference, then why hadn’t Homeland Security and TSA dealt with them months ago, when the intelligence agencies became aware of the British investigation (July 2005)? Why not after 9/11 in the first place? After all, there’s the already thwarted "Bojinka" plot, originally hatched and planned by al-Qaeda in 1995, to blow up airliners simultaneously over the Pacific Ocean.

If the TSA and Homeland Security KNEW that liquids could be used as explosives and they did nothing, particularly if they did nothing so as not to disrupt the British investigation, then indeed little has changed since 9/11. The government has promised us is that it is no longer going to hoard information and investigate endlessly If it comes upon actionable intelligence, the government claims, it is going to use it to protect citizens first.

The flying public should be incensed that a threat known to the security types since at least 1995 has slipped through the cracks. The flying public should be incensed that after five years, the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t solved some the most basic airline security screening tasks and still depends upon panic and over-reaction as the primary means to get the desultory screeners to go beyond their rote routines.