The New Republic

I thought you had your own blog for a reason.

- acria multa

December 27, 2009 at 2:51am

TNR - please let's have someone credible with something of value to say instead of Marty.

- WandreyCer

December 27, 2009 at 8:28am

Marty- Ever heard of a Denial of Service attack? It's something we would have a lot of if anyone could walk into an office of the US government and unilaterally put someone else on a no fly list. As it stands, we know that some unspecified "authorities" were given some unspecified information with unspecified evidence to back it up ... and that Abdulmutallab was put on a person of interest list. Maybe there's a scandal there. Maybe not. I'm guessing probably not. There are hundreds of thousands -- millions, really -- potential threats out there. Intelligence and security officers are not clairvoyant; they cannot precisely and accurately identity which are the real ones 100% of the time. Sometimes someone will slip through. You know what the answer is? Deal with it. You, Andrew Sullivan (somewhat surprisingly), and most of America need to grow some freakin' balls and realize that we can't freak out over every little terror attempt. We accept a level of deaths on the highway that is much, much higher than anything Abdulmutallab could have accomplished in his wildest dreams. No one expects the police to identify and catch every drunk driver, every carjacker, every road rager before they strike. It might be theoretically possible to tighten our security and prevent another 5% of terror attacks. But it would involve restructuring our entire society. It's not going to happen, thank God. But still people are going to whine about how we have to do something so now I'll have to hold my bladder full of piss for the last hour of flight. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, Marty. Now get your ass back to The Spine.

- ratnerstar

December 27, 2009 at 10:46am

acria multa "I thought you had your own blog for a reason." Marty is the boss, here. He can post where he will. You and Wandrous don't have to read him or to subscribe to his magazine. It would be cheaper not to subscribe than to take blood pressure medicine, don't you think?

- jacksondyer

December 27, 2009 at 11:56am

It is true that government agencies get tens of thousands of tips about dangerous people every year. Hard to keep track of them all. Government can do so much without taking away more of out liberties. It's up to us to be vigilant also. I am grateful that passangers on the plane acted as heroically as they did. This is what makes me feel a lot safer when I travel.

- jacksondyer

December 27, 2009 at 12:00pm

I await the call-to-jihad-against-the-jihadists headlines on TNR's other blogs, e.g. "If only Bibi had acceded to Obama's demand to dismantle the IDF we'd have single payer" appearing at the Treatment. Unfortunately, late-onset delusional disorder is typically a degenerative condition.

- I Majorajam

December 27, 2009 at 12:12pm

Where is Richard Clark? He's written for TNR, I'd like to hear from him again. He's good with nitty gritty, non-ideological, tedious stuff that isn't titilating or simple minded enough for creeps like Marty. Clearly databases need to be integrated more effectively, at minimum. But as someone who used to work in the tech field in DC, I can tell you that mere humans develop and integrate these things - lots of brilliant humans and dunce humans as well, just no mind reading millionares unfortunately. I'm know that there are many dedicated people who work overtime to do this work (while government bashing talkshow fatties call them lazy, but I digress). Let's hear an update in laymans terms on how this work is being done. We're talking about a multi-year, zillion dollar, multi-firm, international effort that must include police systems, transportation systems, training, new equipment and diplomacy across a range of languages, business and government sectors. Oh, and everyone is broke which helps.

- WandreyCer

December 27, 2009 at 12:37pm

wandrey- There is no technological solution to this problem. If someone tells you there is, he is trying to sell you (or, more likely, your government) something. This is not to say that our computer systems cannot be improved. They can be, and they should be. But no computer will ever be able to solve the fundamental problem, which is that there are millions of potential terrorists but only a handful of actual terrorists. So while we focus on increasing the signal to noise ratio, we should be cognizant of the fact that noise cannot ever be completely eliminated. As a society, we have to choose between two evils: large numbers of false positives or small numbers of false negatives. Some people (Marty Peretz) want to go the route of false positives. They are shortsighted. We've gone down that road some already, and the results are general inconvenience, reduced civil liberties, obstacles to commerce, and (most importantly, in my opinion) a feeling in the world that the US is too much trouble. One of our nation's greatest assets is our ability to attract smart, talented, ambitious, educated, etc. people from all over the world. We want to retain that advantage. Moreover, although we might be able to reduce the number of false negatives by introducing draconian new policies, there will always be some. Seriously people, at some point you're just going to have to accept that eventually a terrorist will slip through the system and blow up a plane. I don't know how else to tell you this. America. Will. Suffer. Another. Terrorist. Attack. There is nothing you or I or the government can do to stop it. Similarly, there is nothing we can do to stop the fact that America will suffer another flu epidemic, which will likely kill orders of magnitude more people than can fit on a 747. So we need to prioritize our concerns. Number one: weapons of mass destruction, primarily nuclear material. That's the biggie. Seriously, if you told me Abdulmutallab got through security because all the best agents were off tracking down enriched uranium, I would applaud.

- ratnerstar

December 27, 2009 at 1:48pm

Bravo ratty. We all have to accept that getting on a plane is a calculated risk at this point in American history and probably always will be. I think this knee jerk impulse to find blame and opportunistically create division among Americans is much more destructive than a bum set of databases. I agree on the uranium, that's something to concentrate on (Obama and Lugar were on this back in the day as I recall). I feel embarrassed for us sometimes, especially when I think of incidents like the Queen refusing to leave London when actual bombs were reigning down on her home. But we're learning, we're evolving as a people. We're just not as Pavolivian anymore to fearmongers. My initial reaction to this incident was (insert rapper accent and hand gestures): "OK Motherfuck***, Nigeria it is. We'll reign down some Predator hell on yo asses and if you aint home, we'll kill your Mama and your babies instead." That I'm a 45 year old white social worker/upper west side Mom doesn't seem to be relevant in the slightest. Why not use rapper idiom? I'm angry and disgusted at who I should be angry with. I simply trust the military and our police to do their best to address this, to prioritize as you say. I think Obama not mentioning it so far will have the predicatable actors saying predicatable things, but I have always found this approach to be cunning, effective. Let's let the Iranians fighting for freedom own the news cycle - they deserve it so much more than Al Queda criminals.

- WandreyCer

December 27, 2009 at 4:27pm

Indeed, the incident was a partial victory for the Jihadists even though the explosive did not detonate. The disruption, overreaction and fingerpointing is exactly what the terrorsts want to see. In stoking that reaction, Peretz is unwittingly complicit with the terrorists even while he exploits the incident as an opportunity to take a swipe at Islam.

- dhurtado

December 27, 2009 at 9:03pm