{"id":655,"date":"2009-12-28T22:25:47","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T02:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=655"},"modified":"2009-12-30T13:56:36","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T17:56:36","slug":"learning-the-right-lessons-from-airline-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/learning-the-right-lessons-from-airline-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning the Right Lessons from Airline Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sent a tweet<\/a> about this topic earlier, but it deserves more than 140 characters.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of ongoing investigations about last week’s terrorist attack on the plane from Amsterdam to Detroit. \u00c2\u00a0It seems safe to say that all the facts are not in. \u00c2\u00a0Still, I think this post is on safe ground – there are some parts of the story that seem pretty solid.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest mistakes that Bush made after 9\/11 was to take the threat of future terrorist action too seriously. \u00c2\u00a0He shut down domestic air travel for days. \u00c2\u00a0That decision had a bigger psychological and economic impact than the actual physical damage of the attack. \u00c2\u00a0Bush ended up inducing more terror in America than bin Laden ever did.<\/p>\n

Are we going to learn from that?<\/p>\n

The first reaction of the Homeland Security department to the latest attack appears to be incredibly restrictive. \u00c2\u00a0Gawker has a compelling recording<\/a> of a JetBlue flight’s enforcement of the new rules. \u00c2\u00a0In order to prevent future terrorist attacks, the government is requiring no pillows, blankets, reading materials, TV, or bathroom breaks for the hour before landing. \u00c2\u00a0(It sounds like some of those restrictions are being relaxed<\/a>, but its not clear how much.)<\/p>\n

Let’s review exactly what we’re protecting against. \u00c2\u00a0Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com<\/a> did an analysis. \u00c2\u00a0Here’s a summary:<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. \u00c2\u00a0There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which terrorist incidents occurred. There have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, 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. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When there’s a lighting storm, the average person finds it prudent to seek shelter. \u00c2\u00a0What if I told you that you were 20 times more safe if you sat quietly with your hands in your lap for the duration of the storm. \u00c2\u00a0Would you do it? \u00c2\u00a0Or would you just read a book and not worry about it?<\/p>\n

The early evidence is that the current terrorist protection system has holes big enough for an explosive-laden truck to drive through. \u00c2\u00a0It appears that the terrorist was on a watch list<\/a> and had been denied a visa by Britain<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Its going to be interesting to see what parts of the system designed to catch this guy failed – I’m sure we’ll hear more about that in the future.<\/p>\n

Still, all of the early questions are whether or not the government is doing enough. \u00c2\u00a0Millimeter ray inspection<\/a> of all passengers? Purchasing more explosives detection<\/a>? Increasing passenger pat downs<\/a>? \u00c2\u00a0I just don’t understand this reaction. \u00c2\u00a0We have a fundamentally safe system – safer than our highways, even safer than our national lightning protection system. \u00c2\u00a0Why are pundits bemoaning our lack of protections in a system that isn’t failing?<\/p>\n

As we learn from this event, I just hope that we learn the right lessons. \u00c2\u00a0Most of us are smart enough to get inside during a thunderstorm. \u00c2\u00a0I worry that our government – and the media – doesn’t know that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sent a tweet about this topic earlier, but it deserves more than 140 characters. There are plenty of ongoing investigations about last week’s terrorist attack on the plane from Amsterdam to Detroit. \u00c2\u00a0It seems safe to say that all the facts are not in. \u00c2\u00a0Still, I think this post is on safe ground – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}