Here we go again, an alleged terrorist plot against planes. We have been there before – far too often. There was 9/11 of course, and the 2002 ‘shoebomber’, and the 2006 liquid plot, and the 2009 ‘underwear bomber’, and the 2010 printer cartridge plot – clearly there is a trend here. As a result of all this we are subject to more and more security and more and more hassle at airports. Flying is becoming a chore. Not that I am advocating shirking safety, but that old footage of air travel in the 1950s and 1960s when cabins were spacious and passengers were served lobster thermidor is looking increasingly like a mythical past.
Now, according to the US, there is credible intelligence pointing to the use of large electronic devices by terrorists to smuggle something on board that poses a threat to the aircraft. Details are sketchy: does it have something to do with lithium ion batteries? Have the terrorists figured out yet another way to defeat security protocols? Whatever the threat, it is now impossible to bring laptops and tablets on to planes leaving from ten cities in the Middle East and North Africa. The UK has followed the US lead and Canada is looking at doing so as well.
So, what does this all mean? Even in the absence of much detail, we can draw a few tentative conclusions.
Unlike the generic Trump ban on immigration from 7 (now 6) Muslim countries, which I and many others have criticised as doing absolutely nothing to keep us safe (quite the opposite actually), this one may have some merit. Based on my experience in intelligence, the piece(s) of information which led the US to take this step could have come from SIGINT (intercept) or HUMINT (a human source): it is hard to tell which based on what we know from open sources. The intelligence processed and analysed likely gave a strong indication that some terrorist group – most likely Islamist extremist – has figured out yet another way to get explosives on a plane without having current technology or human scanners detecting it. Hence the ban on bringing these things into the cabin. Strangely, these same electronic devices can be placed in checked baggage which goes into the aircraft hold. Would such devices not still pose a threat? From what I have heard, there are mechanisms in place to identify explosives in checked luggage that somehow differ from the technology used on carry on bags (so why not apply the former to the latter?).
In other words, the threat is specific and credible, quite unlike the useless immigration ban. Questions remain, however. How accurate is the intelligence? How long will the ban remain in place (some airports are already pushing back)? Why name just ten airports? If I were a terrorist I would just move on to a city not named on this list.
All of this points to the perennial cat and mouse game between terrorists and security intelligence/law enforcement not dissimilar to that between criminals and police. Terrorists are continually seeking ways to bypass or subvert security measures and this is especially true for airliners, an obviously favourite target going back to the days of Palestinian hijackers (remember the “take this plane to Cuba” days?). The good guys are trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and that is not always easy.
A curiosity is why Canada has yet, as of the time of writing, to sign up to the ban. The government says it is still considering its move. This is strange since, as a member of the “5 eyes” Anglo intelligence club, Canada has access to a lot of intelligence from its allies. The basis for the US move was most probably shared in toto with Canadian agencies. Canada is right to corroborate this information from its own sources (the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction/ties to Al Qaeda fiasco taught us that) and I am sure it is doing just that. The delay is odd though, and may point to some doubt as to the veracity of the information (this is of course pure speculation on my part as I have no access to the intelligence). I also read that the warning was based on analysis of previously collected data: maybe the analysis itself is in question.
In any event, this news is another sign of how terrorists want to target aircraft. We have increased security in that sector a great deal since 9/11, but we have to remain vigilant. We also must acknowledge that no system is foolproof, that good technology is defeated by tenacious human effort and that another attack is inevitable. Even were that to happen, air travel is still one of the safest modes of transportation out there and it would be unfortunate, not to mention unsafe, were people to abandon planes for cars (as happened after 9/11, resulting in a measureable increase in road fatalities).
The terrorists want us to change our life patterns out of fear. We cannot give them that satisfaction.
