Members of the Congressional GOP have endeavored to blame the Christmas day security lapse on the Detroit bound flight on the Transportation Safety Administration and the Obama administration. As is all too typical, these members of Congress ignore their own culpability, not to mention the incompetence and malfeasance of six years of the Bush/Cheney administration (versus less than a year for Obama). But, truthfulness and integrity are not exactly hallmarks of today's GOP. Ben Smith has a piece at Politico that looks at the GOP's false posturing. Moreover, a Washington Post story confirms that equipment already exists that would pick up the plastic explosives the Nigerian terrorist attempted to utilize. Unfortunately, the Bush/Cheney administration's failed to utilize it and since the change over in administrations, the Congressional Republicans has been blocking funding and personnel approvals. First some highlights from Politico:*
As Republicans seek to put the blame for the widespread perception of ineptness at the Transportation Security Administration on the Obama administration, Democrats are arguing that Republican legislators bear part of the blame and that they're politically vulnerable on the subject.
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Perhaps the largest impediment to change at the agency: South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has a hold on the appointment of a TSA chief, over his concern that the new administration could allow security screeners to unionize.
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Republicans have cast votes against the key TSA funding measure that the 2010 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security contained, which included funding for the TSA, including for explosives detection systems and other aviation security measures. In the June 24 vote in the House, leading Republicans including John Boehner, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan voted against the bill, amid a procedural dispute over the appropriations process, a Democrat points out. A full 108 Republicans voted against the conference version, including Boehner, Hoekstra, Pence, Michelle Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Darrell Issa and Joe Wilson.
The conference bill included more than $4 billion for "screening operations," including $1.1 billion in funding for explosives detection systems, with $778 million for buying and installing the systems.
Today's GOP cares nothing for true security and puts partisanship games ahead of public safety. Added to partisanship the idiocy is Senator DeMint's obsession that any new TSA head NOT be in favor of the unionization of security workers at airports. Personally, I do not see how better paid - and probably more competent - airport personnel is a threat to citizens. As for the existence of equipment that could have revealed the explosives used by the would be Christmas bomber, here are highlights from the Washington Post:
As Republicans seek to put the blame for the widespread perception of ineptness at the Transportation Security Administration on the Obama administration, Democrats are arguing that Republican legislators bear part of the blame and that they're politically vulnerable on the subject.
*
Perhaps the largest impediment to change at the agency: South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has a hold on the appointment of a TSA chief, over his concern that the new administration could allow security screeners to unionize.
*
Republicans have cast votes against the key TSA funding measure that the 2010 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security contained, which included funding for the TSA, including for explosives detection systems and other aviation security measures. In the June 24 vote in the House, leading Republicans including John Boehner, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan voted against the bill, amid a procedural dispute over the appropriations process, a Democrat points out. A full 108 Republicans voted against the conference version, including Boehner, Hoekstra, Pence, Michelle Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Darrell Issa and Joe Wilson.
The conference bill included more than $4 billion for "screening operations," including $1.1 billion in funding for explosives detection systems, with $778 million for buying and installing the systems.
Today's GOP cares nothing for true security and puts partisanship games ahead of public safety. Added to partisanship the idiocy is Senator DeMint's obsession that any new TSA head NOT be in favor of the unionization of security workers at airports. Personally, I do not see how better paid - and probably more competent - airport personnel is a threat to citizens. As for the existence of equipment that could have revealed the explosives used by the would be Christmas bomber, here are highlights from the Washington Post:
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The explosive allegedly used in the failed bombing plot aboard a transatlantic jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day could have been detected by existing screening equipment, and the failure to do so reflects significant weaknesses in aviation security and intelligence, former U.S. government officials and international security experts said.
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The compound that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly brought aboard Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam was PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, the same plastic explosive used almost exactly eight years ago by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, the FBI said. The attack sped the launch of the Transportation Security Administration, which took over and expanded airport security screening.
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But technology and methods that might have detected the explosive have been deployed in airports on a limited basis in the face of concerns about privacy, cost and the potential to slow airport security lines.
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Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst at Georgetown University, called the suspect's ability to smuggle the device on board profoundly disturbing, given that the TSA has spent more than $30 billion on aviation security since 2004, the world's airlines collectively spend an additional $5.9 billion a year, and PETN is well-known as a favored material for terrorist suicide bombers.
The explosive allegedly used in the failed bombing plot aboard a transatlantic jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day could have been detected by existing screening equipment, and the failure to do so reflects significant weaknesses in aviation security and intelligence, former U.S. government officials and international security experts said.
*
The compound that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly brought aboard Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam was PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, the same plastic explosive used almost exactly eight years ago by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, the FBI said. The attack sped the launch of the Transportation Security Administration, which took over and expanded airport security screening.
*
But technology and methods that might have detected the explosive have been deployed in airports on a limited basis in the face of concerns about privacy, cost and the potential to slow airport security lines.
*
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst at Georgetown University, called the suspect's ability to smuggle the device on board profoundly disturbing, given that the TSA has spent more than $30 billion on aviation security since 2004, the world's airlines collectively spend an additional $5.9 billion a year, and PETN is well-known as a favored material for terrorist suicide bombers.
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