Newsweek is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security last fall was exploring the threat posed to air travelers by bombs secreted aboard planes in underclothing and hidden in body cavities. Haven’t security personnel always been on the watch for underpants and body-cavity bombs? Seems an obvious suicide-bomber technique.
No. They don’t seem to be on the watch for that, do they? I know my underwear has never been checked, nor my cavities.
The point of the Newsweek piece is that security personnel monitoring travelers coming to the States from places where al-Qaeda has a known presence probably should have been checking underpants.
According to Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent, the Homeland Security report was drawn up after “an account of a rectal device came to the attention of the administration about two months ago, soon after the administration received reports of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s attempt on a Saudi prince’s life using such a device.”
Ackerman says it’s just another “fragmentary piece of intelligence that looks relevant to the failed plot in hindsight.”
Clearly, we need a new czar! Someone who can design a proper security computer network that reads uploaded documents and puts the right link to the right report under the right noses at the right time. The HAL 2010 underpants czar!
