Terrorists Get Five Weeks Head Start

It turns out that Nathaniel Heatwole, aka the kid who planted the box
cutters/bleach/faux-plastique on the Southwest flights, actually hid
the stuff five weeks before it was found:

Federal authorities charged a North Carolina college
student with a felony Monday after he admitted planting box cutters and
other items aboard Southwest Airlines jetliners that apparently were
not found for more than a month.

This is bad. Very bad. But even worse is this:

Remarkably, Heatwole sent an e-mail to the Transportation
Security Administration on September 15 with a subject line reading,
"Information Regarding 6 Recent Security Breaches."
The e-mail, which carried Heatwole's name and telephone number,
detailed how the writer smuggled box cutters, blades, a knife, bleach,
and "a simulated plastic explosive" onto planes at Raleigh-Durham
International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Despite Heatwole's acknowledgement in the e-mail that his actions were
illegal, TSA representatives apparently never bothered to investigate
his claim.

Excuse me? They never bothered to investigate? Great. But the most
flagrant detail in this whole sordid affair is the fact that Heatwole
apparently stashed six bags full of contraband. The question then is what happened to the other four bags?? Were they ever found? I almost hope not, because the alternative, i.e. that they were found and disregarded
is too scary for words.
I think this kid is great. He's done a service by pointing out that the
illusion of safety is actually the most dangerous threat around. No
number of minimum-wage slaves in front of airport scanners will make
this go away. We need to address the root of the problem, namely why
people would want to fly civilian aircraft into our buildings in the
first place. That's the problem here. Anything else is bullshit.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 20, 2003 at 05:35 PM | Permalink