A would-be terrorist just managed to nearly bring down an airliner despite what was known about him at the various intelligence and other agencies. The pieces of information were not put together or the risk made known to those who are in a position to do anything about it. This is an old story. It was blamed for the 9/11 attack on our twin towers and so the new bureaucracy was created, Dept. of Homland Security (DHS), as the fix. That has not worked and in fact it may be doing more harm than good. Combining FEMA into the DHS was certainly a contributing factor to Katrina. Now we have this near catastrophy.
A factor here that one does not hear about on the news or from bloviators is that the people in the intelligence agencies get their personal political power from secrecy and from witholding information. That extends beyond the individuals to the agencies. How many intelligence agencies do we have? I am not sure but I recall hearing something like 20. Why? In my opinion more for polical power than for national security.
I suspect that our President understands these facts - lets hope he can fix the system. One step that will ultimately be needed and will be difficult to get through congress is a solid national identification system that is tied to passports and that incorporate radio frequency identification (RFI) chips in them similar to what the Europeans are now doing. This will allow tracking of people electronically when necessary. Similarly the visas to enter the US should be electronic as well, which should enable better management and ability to tract visitors while here and reduce overstays. Real security however will come from proper collection and analysis of intelligence data and from reduction of the global condiditions that drive young people into terrorism.
