I'll accept that. . .but you do understand how I meant "fascist" There is a very fine philosophical line I guess, maybe even an economic one, but in most practices they were the same. . .that's what I meant.
I still think people are missing the point with these screenings. . .they do nothing to make us more secure. A would be terrorist will simply find another mechanism for carrying out what they want. We are 10 steps behind. We are being reactive instead of proactive. I think it's a farce and most likely about selling body scanners than providing real security.
Somebody help me out here. For some reason. . .I read it somewhere I think. . .not all cargo is screened. Is that correct? Because if that is the case. . then what is the point of patting down people and using scanners?
I agree.
Bomb plot shows gaps in screening of air cargo
Plan to boost security is years behind schedule
By Thomas Frank, Alan Levin and Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON The Transportation Security Administration boasts that every piece of cargo carried on domestic passenger flights is screened for bombs before being put in the belly of an airliner.
However, when it comes to ensuring the security of cargo packages on foreign flights heading to the United States, the TSA makes no such proclamations. Despite federal law requiring all cargo on U.S.-bound passenger flights to be screened as of August, authorities still aren't close to meeting the requirement.
A reminder of that gap in airline security and of the daunting challenge officials face in closing it came last week, when terrorists in Yemen linked to al-Qaeda slipped bombs into cargo packages addressed to synagogues in Chicago.
The discovery of the explosives in cargo shipments at airports in northern England and Dubai reflected how the complexities in shipping cargo by air can leave passengers on commercial airliners vulnerable to such security breaches: By the time the explosives were detected, both shipments had made part of their journey from Yemen on passenger jets.
That's why investigators are trying to determine whether the Yemen plot was about sending explosives to the USA, blowing up cargo jets, or even trying to attack passenger jets that happened to pick up the packages from Yemen.
For U.S. officials, improving cargo security is a key part of reducing such threats. TSA acting Administrator Gale Rossides told lawmakers in March that it could be "a couple more years" before all inbound cargo is screened for bombs.
In June, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was more pessimistic about TSA's plan to screen all inbound cargo, saying the TSA "has not yet determined when or how it will eventually meet the deadline."
And two weeks ago, Douglas Brittin, the TSA's head of cargo security, told a group of cargo shippers that it would take until August 2013 to ensure that all international air cargo is screened, according to a slide presentation obtained by USA TODAY and confirmed by the TSA. Worse still, the method used to screen cargo in the USA cannot be set up in other countries, the slide presentation says.
"Al-Qaeda continues to probe for weaknesses, and unfortunately continues to find them," says former Homeland Security inspector general Clark Ervin, now head of security studies at the Aspen Institute, a think tank. "We always seem to be one step behind al-Qaeda."
For years, a few security analysts have warned about a plot similar to what authorities uncovered Friday. The highly destructive bombs were sent from FedEx and United Parcel Service offices in Yemen, hidden inside boxes carrying computer printers and addressed to synagogues in Chicago.
The plot marks the first known attempt by terrorists to use air-cargo packages to apparently target the USA and could reflect a shift by al-Qaeda away from having terrorists board U.S.-bound airplanes with explosives hidden on their bodies.
The attempted bombing of an international flight landing in Detroit last Christmas led countries around the world to tighten passenger screening. Police allege the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, slipped explosives through security at the Amsterdam airport by hiding them in his underwear.
"Cargo planes are now very attractive (to terrorists) because they are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as passenger planes," says Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who is Congress' leading advocate for securing air cargo.
The aviation security law enacted two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks barely mentions cargo; it mandated big changes in screening passengers and their luggage. Cargo attacks were considered unlikely and less dangerous.
Markey acknowledges that destroying a passenger jet is "much worse" than terrorists blowing up a cargo plane carrying crewmembers and merchandise. But if al-Qaeda succeeded in attacking a cargo plane, "the impact on our country would be devastating psychologically and economically," Markey says.
"Without question," many people would refrain from flying, he adds.
A cargo bomb also could blow up a plane on the ground, says Capt. Lee Collins, a UPS pilot and secretary of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, a labor group. Under current security regulations, it would be possible to place various types of terror weapons on a cargo jet, from radioactive bombs to biological weapons, Collins says.
"What we saw on Friday would have really slowed our economy down," he says.
Air cargo is a confusing and far-flung enterprise that reaches from small-craft makers and farmers in tiny countries to the biggest passenger and cargo airlines in the world.
Security efforts to date largely have bypassed cargo planes, such as those operated by FedEx and UPS, and focused instead on passenger planes, which routinely carry cargo in the same area that holds passengers' luggage. Cargo includes electronics, auto parts, medical supplies, fresh produce anything that needs to be transported quickly.
The TSA says cargo planes flying to the USA must meet agency security standards that restrict access to a cargo airlines facility and require training and vetting of airline workers.
Markey fought in 2005 to have cargo planes subject to tougher security requirements, but couldn't get enough votes and gave up, focusing his efforts instead on securing cargo on passenger planes.
"There was a very successful lobbying effort made by the cargo industry to exclude cargo planes" from new security requirements, Markey says. "I decided I would come back another day to do battle for screening cargo planes."
Friday likely marked the renewal of that effort.
"Al-Qaeda has warned us," Markey says. "And now we have a responsibility to put additional screening protections in place."
More than 80% of the cargo flown in and into the USA is carried on cargo-only airlines led by FedEx and UPS, but also including airlines such as Bolivia-based AeroSur, China Cargo Airlines and Nolinor Aviation of Canada.
Passenger planes flying in and into the USA carried 7.3 billion pounds of cargo in 2008, the GAO said in June. Nearly half of that cargo is loaded on planes in foreign countries, mostly friendly industrial nations such as the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany. Those countries usually screen cargo.
Cargo also is flown directly to the USA from Afghanistan, Angola, Egypt, India, Jordan, Libya, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, according to the Department of Transportation. Yemen has no direct flights to the USA.
In the Yemen bombing plot, passenger jets carried the packages containing explosives out of that country to airports where FedEx and UPS picked them up.
"Cargo security is much different from passenger security," says Steve Lott of the International Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines. "Suitcases really touch only one set of hands the person who packs the bag at home. But there's a lot of opportunity for tampering with a cargo package as it goes from the factory to an airport."
Lott says that for passenger airlines, "there is right now a lot of scrutiny on cargo security. When we look at the cargo-only carriers, we see some companies that certainly go above and beyond government standards, thanks to technology. But there are potentially global differences when it comes to government standards on cargo security."
In a June report, the GAO said getting uniform standards worldwide "may be challenging because these efforts are voluntary and some foreign countries do not share the United States' concerns regarding air cargo security threats and risks."
The volume of air cargo worldwide is so huge that the TSA and security analysts say it would be impossible to screen every package at an airport, as airlines now do with checked luggage.
When Congress passed a 2007 law ordering cargo to be screened on passenger planes, the TSA decided it would have screening done by the private sector.
To date, the TSA has authorized 1,200 companies to do their own cargo screening with TSA oversight. The screeners include manufacturers who scan cargo at their plants and freight "consolidators" who collect cargo from dozens of manufacturers and screen it at their warehouses before driving the shipments to an airport.
Domestic passenger planes are secure, says Brandon Fried, executive director of the Air Forwarders Association, a trade group of cargo companies. "Every piece of cargo on a domestic passenger plane is being screened, period," Fried says.
Many countries also screen cargo on passenger planes, he says.
Even so, the TSA cannot order foreign countries to adopt its screening standards.
The Homeland Security Department protects against cargo bombs on international flights using a computerized tracking system that looks for suspicious packages based on information showing where it came from, and who took it to an airport. The department requires overseas airlines passenger and cargo planes to submit a cargo manifest four hours before landing in the USA. Information about cargo from Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean must be received when the planes take off en route to the USA.
Homeland Security says this method enables it to screen all "high-risk cargo" on inbound planes.
Ervin, the former Homeland Security inspector general, says the incident last week raises questions about the department's ability to spot high-risk cargo, because the bombs were sent from a terror-prone country to Jewish houses of worship here.
"You would think these packages would have attracted scrutiny," Ervin says.
If targeting such shipments for screening works, al-Qaeda may simply change its strategy, he says. "Al-Qaeda is not stupid. If it's clear we're going to focus on things coming from Yemen, they'll start sending bombs from Yemen and won't address them to a synagogue."
The Obama administration acknowledges the problem with cargo screening.
"What we need to do is to take a look at these procedures that are in place (at) the different airports out there," White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Sunday on ABC's This Week. "We need to be able to detect these packages, whether they be on a cargo flight or whether they be on a passenger flight."
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20101101/1acargo01_cv.art.htm
- but I took a few moments to think about it and a person who would post something that vile needs pity - not anger - and a whole lot of prayers..
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