Why Abdulmutallab got through security
A Los Angeles-based consultant explains why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got through security in Amsterdam on Christmas morning. HE GOT through because although the system is working, the people are not. This is America's greatest strength and also its most perilous weakness. We are brilliant at systems, processes and technology. But in the pursuit of and reliance on technology, the American mind has become fat, lazy and complacent. Any intelligent human could have prevented a man with explosives strapped to his body from boarding a flight only weeks after the man's father warned US authorities of his son's growing radicalism. All that was required was someone to ask questions and connect dots; 9/11 could have been prevented in the very same way.I have read dozens of articles and blog posts over the last week, which explain why the Israeli security system - acknowledged to be the world leader - 'cannot be implemented' in [choose your airport].
Ben-Gurion Airport is in one of the most targeted countries in the world for acts of terrorism. Yet it has successfully managed to avoid hijacking and bombing attempts, even though security there is usually much quicker than at any US airport of similar size. Perhaps this is because security at Ben-Gurion does not rely only on technology. Security officers there do not mindlessly monitor people taking off shoes and belts as they walk through metal detectors. They are not just looking for bombs. They are looking for stories, connections and intelligence, and they hire and train brilliant people to look for those stories by asking probing questions.
Once, after clearing security there, an officer looked into my eyes and said, "Do you know why I am asking you these questions?" And then she said with compelling sincerity, "I really don't want anything to happen to you."
I believe she was telling the truth. To her, her job was not about checking boxes to make sure that if a plane went down, her own back was covered. Her job was much more meaningful than that. Her job was to care about me and tens of thousands of other travelers that day, and she was passionately committed to it. She was applying her considerable skill, training and intelligence to her job in the most caring way.
The security check was fast, not unpleasant and genuinely reassuring. Only wisdom and intelligence can foil an intelligent enemy. Machines and process alone cannot.
THE NEED for wisdom over and above technology goes beyond security. We will not maintain our global lead in any field with process and technology alone; we will also need much more human brilliance. Process and technology can be copied, brilliance cannot. Even in the field of technology itself, can a nation continue to lead if it relies more on process than on thinking? Dan Senor and Saul Singer's Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle argues that it cannot.
Process and information is about having the best answers, wisdom is about asking the best questions. Instead of educating our children to have the "right" answers, we should educate them to ask the right questions. Law enforcement and airport security personnel should be trained to ask more questions, not just to rudely yell out childish instructions about computers and liquids. The country's intelligence systems need to preempt rather than react.
Israeli security takes too long.
There are too many passengers in Airport x (I actually saw this in reference to Baltimore-Washington International - not one of the United States' busiest airports).
It's too expensive.
We can't find and train enough security guards who are capable of implementing it.
No one 'here' will put up with ethnic profiling.
People will be insulted by all those questions.
Instead, everyone in airports everywhere else in the world outside of Israel wants airport security to work automatically like a machine. Machines don't think. People do. Terrorists are people. People will find a way to beat machines at some point in time. Every time. Think about it.
Either we do what needs to be done or the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's of the world will continue to board our planes with bombs that we can't find until it is too late. Who will live and who will die? I'd rather not have to find out.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:33 PM
2 Comments:
No computer... no machine will ever be able to to make intuitive judgments the way human beings can. We can see things that don't seem readily apparent. While people can be flawed, their ability to know what's going on and to act on what they learn is their greatest asset. All things considered, I'd be much safer with a person than with a machine.
I think one of the most difficult problem we would have if we were to implement this system in North America is the type of people we would have to hire. Would we exclude Muslims just because we are not sure about their allegiance? Does Israel have rules limiting who can be part of the airport security organization?
These are very difficult issues to solve and although it seems simple enough to take the Israeli system and scale it up to the North American scale, I think that it is not simply a matter of money, there are very deep societal differences which need to be overcome.
I am not saying it is not doable, I am only pointing out that this would be a very difficult task.
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