This exercise in not owning or carrying much will be great for the American psyche.

Plus it will save fuel if people are encouraged to empty bladders before boarding and quit guzzling liquids and food during flights. Transporting contents of bladders of zillions of people on airplanes, plus all their soft drinks, equals serious carbon footprint, in aggregate. A little self-discipline will be a good thing.

What I'm looking forward to is a ban on full personal concealment garments.

Once I was standing at the top of the hill in Golden Gate Park gazing at the bridge on a day when there happened to be a bomb threat against it. As we were returning to our car, out stepped a person in a niqab from a car in the parking lot. The irony of the situation unnerved me slightly and I began to speak excitedly to my husband, about why someone in a niqab might be visiting the highest observation viewpoint over the bridge on that particular day. We glanced in the direction of their car, and saw the driver looking intently at us, then immediately afterwards they both got back in the car and drove away at high speed...

It's widely speculated that Bin Laden got out of Tora bora and into Waziristan wearing a burka. Seriously, all a terrorist needs to do is infiltrate Mexico, get across the border, (no prob), and then conceal him/herself in a niqab to move around with complete freedom. It's crazy that we are too PC to have outlawed the practice on our shores by now. The old man was just overseas on business and saw three niqab'd figures following in line behind their husband at the airport. What is that, other than accepted modern-day enslavement?

Will someone please reign in the FAA and TSA? Obama, maybe next year?

The people of our great nation seem all too willing these days to trade their freedoms for security - in a rushed manner and without any meaningful public debate.

What's next? Is the TSA going to ban Tiger Woods from entertaining more than three mistresses at a time on his private jet? Will all air travelers be required to undergo strip searches and MRIs before boarding planes? Will we outlaw all commercial airline flights so that terrorists can't hijack the planes?

In the most recent case, passengers and flight attendants took care of business -- more or less proving that no further security was needed on that flight.

The clown who tried it is lucky that somebody on board didn't do him serious bodily harm. He deserved it.

It's also interesting that the passengers doused the flames with bottled water -- which you're not allowed to bring through security with you.

Speaking of Go Nude Airlines I expect they will make a killing in on-board sales of disposable cushion covers.

Requiring all passengers to stay belted in their seats for the last hour should eliminate the problem of passengers interfering with the hijacker/bomber as seems to have happened yesterday.

Once past security, one can fill empty bottles with Bull Run or purchase same.

HOW did this guy get a visa to come to the USA, since he seems to have been banned in GB and was on a terrorist watch list???
The over reaction of the goverment is just amazing. Not having a blanket the last hour of a flight is not going to stop a suicide bomber from blowing up the flight prior to the final hour of no blankets.
The problem isn't the blankets, it is the screening of visa applicants before they ever buy a plane ticket.

Portland Native,

He got a Student VISA due to the gargantuan, misguided notion that getting "Muslims over here and educating them in Western society will moderate them."

Lets forget that his father is one of the head bankers in Nigeria and he was living in a flat worth 2 million pounds, while studying medical engineering in London.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wealthy-quiet-unassuming-the-christmas-day-bomb-suspect-1851090.html

Instead, lets just continue with this White Shame denial that blames poverty as the root cause of terrorism. Lets not mention that Osama Bin Laden hails from a wealthy Saudi family. Lets just mention that those who suicide bomb are impoverished, brainwashed po' folk who would not do so if they lived among us.

It is true that Spain, France and the UK currently have Muslims living in their countries like "colored" folk were living in the US prior to desegregation. This segregation along with the expectation of White Europeans that they just go back to North Africa because the rebuilding after World War 2 is over, has them economically isolated with upward mobility nonexistent.

It is true that 99.9999% of US born Muslims have not been a participant in a terrorist attack against the US or Europe. However, it is those European born and Middle Eastern born ones that due to ideology and outright racism in Europe, more often than not board airplanes with malicious intent and the means to achieve it.

/end sad sarcastic truth.

RyanLeo -

CNN has repored repeatedly that the guy has a multi entry tourist visa issued by he consular section of the US Embassy in London.

That is decidedly not a student visa.

Nothing in the link you provided identifies the type of visa.

If the TSA/FAA is really serious about security, they should stop all this b.s. window dressing stuff (seriously removing my shoes all the time because of one nutcase) and learn from the Israelis and El Al which has not had any terrorist attempts in over 3 decades.

Here's a little story on all of this that is kind of interesting:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/23/what_israeli_security_could_teach_us/

So much for trusting a system devised and supervised by inept
politicians and bureaucrats who just don't seem to get it. One of the passengers on that flight does get it: ''We're not so blase, not so willing to accept that we're safe and we can let someone do our security for us. We're not going to sit there and wait for somebody else to do it because if you wait, it might be too late.'' Be aware. Be very aware.

I agree with Portland Native, its more than a blanket, lights on, stay in your seat issue. We need enforcement of our security check in procedures and "terrorist watch lists".

With my hip replacement I am always pat searched even between my legs, interrogated, and have to turn down my pants top exposing my upper underwear-where the media is reporting where this guy had his explosives attached. I am tired of our government being political correct. I am searched more than a "terrorist watch" person and maybe even more than a known terrorist.

They also have to toss out this whole notion we can't profile. Letting a terrorist walk through because they look like a middle eastern muslim because that is "profiling" is stupid. Meanwhile granny has been pulled off to the side for extra scrutiny because her "number" had randomly come up.

Here goes another one today.

I had knee replacement surgery a year ago and now every time I fly I go through the same rigamarol that "lw" mentioned. Sometimes I have to wait over 15 minutes to get a female TSA person to physically go over my entire body. The last time I flew an elderly Chinese lady was "pulled over" also and she was terrified. She asked me "What did we do?" I showed her the scar on my knee and asked her if she had had surgery. She nodded her head and I explained that was why we were pulled out of line. I remained with her until they had checked her out as she was visibly scared. The TSA folks need to PROFILE and pay attention to security lists. Geez Louise.

No getting up to use the bathroom, nothing on your lap, nothing out of your carry-on bag for the final hour of the flight? That's going to make travelling with children even more fun than it already is!

And what's that rude senator going to say to the flight attendants this time???

Here's what I don't get: What is someone going to do an hour before a plane lands that they couldn't do, say, an hour and a half before a plane lands? I'm really curious what the rationale is here.

Another Nigerian on the aircraft locked himself in the john for an inordinate amount of time. Note to Homeland Security: Check
out the on-board septic tank for contraband.

And now it appears the guy's Dad, social pillar of northern Nigeria, retired major national bank prez, hauled in to our embassy to warn us like, two months ago. "We think our son is a jihadi, we are very worried, take note please". Some state department bozo today was quoted as saying there was "insufficient derogatory information" to place him on a no-fly list. Well, how about a strip search list? I was strip searched traveling by train through the French-German border just for having a Pakistani visa in my passport, like, twenty years ago. I have a clear memory of throwing my last garment, a sock, so that it would land at my guard's feet.

What is so, so, incredible, is that the American government mind is so far removed from plain common sense. Couldn't we simply pass a law saying- if you are strip-searched by the TSA, even if it's for having polka dots on your nose, you have no right to sue, period. And start profiling. Young dude from a place where sharia law is popular, described as a potential jihadi by his credible FATHER, well, poses a risk and needs to be paid attention to.

How about all those military medical people in Virginia huddling together every month about "what to do about" the obviously crazy psychiatrist in their midst. One was quoted as saying "would you want him in your foxhole?" while arguing against, um, deploying a CRAZY ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST psychiatrist to Afghanistan. Over a dozen people dead over that numbskull decision.

Pam: It is very simple. Today a TSA official said that they will be changing the rules so that it will not be predictable what to expect. A logical, rational policy would be highly predictable.

So, expect new rules to be more like the cunning plans proffered by Edmund Blackadder's sidekick, Baldrick.

Wibble.

Nonny Mouse,

Yes, thanks for the point.

Do you know how the 9/11 hijackers gained entry into Europe? Student Visas in Germany and the US.

Source: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/03/12/inv.flight.school.visas/

So you are not really debunking my whole post with a couple of snarky sentences. You are just proving that there are more than 1 checkpoints in the system and 1 of them failed.

This Muslim terrorist may have had a US tourist visa, but he got past the first security checkpoint (Europe) due to the misguided notion of "bring em over and educate them" will moderate them.

Student Visas no matter the country of origin need to be looked at seriously when it comes to Muslim males. 9/11 and now this inept doofus. When are European and US universities going to seriously review student VISAs when it comes to Muslim males?

I hate to beat a dead bush, but we are in a true cultural and ideological war here with Fundamentalist Islam.

9/11, Richard Reid in 2002, the Madrid Train Bombings on March 11, 2004, the London Train Bombings on July 7, 2005, Mohammed Rez Taheri-rezar at UNC Chapel Hill in 2006, the Beslan school crisis, the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinians, Abu Sayaff in the Philippines, the Fort Hood slaughterer, the June 10 2009 US Holocaust Memorial Museum Shooting, and the failed shoe bomber Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

A year in the 2000s has not gone by without a Fundamentalist Muslim attempting a terrorist attack against the West.

Low intensity, and we can keep it even lower if not non-existent if we would start profiling.

Otherwise, European and US student VISAS provide a more open entry than the US/Mexican border.

I agree completely with Ryan about the need to start profiling these potential terrorists. It's way past time for the ACLU to be told they have no business attempting to hijack the nation's security
for political correctness. Unfortunately,with a half muslim in the White House and a left-leaning Congress, it's doubtful anything will change a lot until there is a better political balance in Washington.

RyanLeo -

myopic focus on student visas is silly.

The Nigerian's tourist visa was issued at the U.S. Embassy in London in June, 2008, and expires in Jjune, 2010. He has traveled into the US twice before on that visa without any apparent incident, effectively building up what looks like a reasonable "legend".

The real hot buttons here are issues other than the type of visa:

1, Ticket bought for cash at KLM in Accra, Ghana, a week before flight from Lagos, Nigeria;

2. Round trip ticket for two week tourist trip to Detroit, Michigan, in winter, bought by a resident of an equatorial region of Africa.

3. NO luggage checked for a two week trip, only a small carry on.

Those three items together should have been ringing bells and sounding sirens at Northwest / Delta's security department at Schipol during the 4 hour layover between the Lagos - Amsterdam and Amsterdam - Detroit legs.

Add to that his history in London as President of the Islamic Club at his college in London, and the complaints by his father to the US Embassy in Lagos over the last 4 months about radicalization of the son, and there are some real questions about how the US government agencies handle, aggregate and disseminate information to the No Fly lists.

I have seen one reference o him having been recently been banned from the UK by the Brits. It would be interesting to
know "Why?", and was the underlying data which resulted in the ban shared by the Brits with US agencies? If so, what happened to that data?

I am curious as heck as to what mosque he frequented while resident in London. So many Londonistan mosques are notorious as recruiting grounds. I suspect that his choice of mosque, and his activities and associations there, contributed to his banning from the UK.

Years ago, Athens airport was a great joke in terms of passenger and luggage checks, and provided an easy entry point into the airline "system" for Al Fatah and other terrorists. Here, a guy who is wealthy in both absolute, and with reference to his own country, fabulously wealthy - terms, is the son of a former cabnate minister, is going through primary airport security in Lagos, the capitol of his home country, in notoriously corrupt Nigeria, and folks are wondering why his devices weren't picked up by security in Lagos?

The interface / interplay between the
US government agencies and the airline security departments is critical, and it isn't working.

If you want o focus on "student visas" as the touchstone for your anti terrorist program, you go ahead. I'm sure such a simplistic approach will give you -- as well as the terrorists - great comfort. Such an approach will certainly allow terrorists easy access to the US.

The Al Queda folks are smart, well funded and personally courageous. They learn and adapt.

We aren't going to beat them by focusing on one small detail.

And it is not snarky to point that out.

It is good to see your detail work, nonny mouse. Another posted comment corrects it some and adds some more.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200912260001#676460
It is not an explanation of the grand global conspiracy but is only the collection of document facts which goes to say that in each and every terror incident there has been some agents acting under Israel aegis who, in advance, knew or assisted a dazed or ditzy schnook doing it, seemingly, according to aftermath reports. And every time the schnook is portrayed in some way as somehow a part of Islam activism, which is odd since there was no 'Islam activism' provocations for several centuries until and after Zionist/Likud militarist attacks invaded Palestine, (with US and UK complicity supplying the warplanes and armor and guns), to declare the area they occupied to be 'Israel' in 1948.

Reporting such facts is often 'shushed up' for being anti-Semitic which is supposed to mean anti-Jewish but that blurs the distinction that shows Israeli Zionists and Israeli Jews are different. The same way American KKK and American Catholics are different, (the early KKK hid inside 'Democratic' Catholic congregations for a cover of respectability), and the same way American militia patriot-types and American Southern-Baptist evangelists are different, (the militaristic bigots operate inside acceptable 'Republican' fundamentalist conservatism blocs such as McCarthyites or John Birchers).

Saying KKK and militia patriots are unlawful autocratic murderers is not saying anti-Catholic and anti-Southern Baptist, (or anti-Democrat, anti-Republican, anti-America) insults. And saying the Zionists are unlawful autocratic murderers is not saying anti-Jewish or anti-Israel insults, despite the Zionists falsely claiming such information is anti-Semitic and meaning to suppress all accusations of fact documented in their murderous activities.

Engineer searches and you can find that Zionism and its mission statement was invented in the 1600s by the earliest bankers and money-lending concerns in Europe which adopted the family name Rothschild, (lit. 'red shield' or 'sign' which hung over the door to identify the place as a 'bank'), and stipulated in founding Will that descendants who married outside the Rothschild family (instead of marrying cousins or other blood relatives inside the family) would be disinherited thereafter and get no share of compounding-interest wealth, and boldly stated that Zionism and Rothschild descent was to govern the world. (Around 1800, Rothschild bank lending financed Napoleon and held as collateral his promise to deliver Jerusalem land to Zionist control; around 1900 the promissory payment was demanded as due, through the diplomacy precepts to establish the 1920 League of Nations , and out of that issued the Mandated Territories, then Palestine, then the 1948 Zionist military insurrection for land claim on Jerusalem and 'vicinity.') You can look it up. (See also UK and US -- that would be FDR at the time, 1935 £20 million 'purchase' from Saudi king -- Ibn Saud, an entitlement 'deed' for a 'homeland' property where European emigrant Jews, Zionists, whoever wanted to go, could go and dwell.) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._John_Philby&action=edit§ion=3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Philby

So another terrifying taunt at US air travel, by another reportedly radical Muslim, (out of Africa, where US troops might go in next to eradicate all Islamic fanaticalism), with some amount of Israeli Zionist assistance to get the charged perpetrator on the plane. Namely, the CTIS corporation based in Israel which has the contract to provide security control at the airport.

Another Mouse -

Don't involve me in your loopiness. You are a fruitcake in my humble opinion.

Nonny Mouse,

You are absolutely correct that in my comments here, I am tunnel vision focusing on "student VISAS" at the cost of the whole range of options to preclude entry into the US. You are absolutely right.

However, student VISAs have been given a pass by the elitists who run US and European universities. I have worked in admissions as a work study student and admissions officers tend to have a collective "gaga" over some potential Palestinian student who wants to continue his education over here.

This "educate them to moderate them" world view on potential terrorists is baffling. Will it take one of PSU's foreign students from the Middle East to commit an act of terrorism for them to realize that their admissions process can be exploited for terrorist means?

What I am arguing for is for academia to wise up and start discriminating for the sake of lives. So what is Muhammed is denied because of his political views? I would rather play it safe than sorry and deny individuals than have a system that allows for 1 bad apple out of 100 to come over and wage war on American civilians.

Make no mistake, my attitude towards Muslims is one of high suspicion. In previous comments, I have detailed their acts of war against the West and our allies.

Would we have accepted avowed Nazis and Japanese into US universities during World War 2?

Most of us do not think we are engaged in war. We are. The only reason why our likelihood of dying from terrorism is lower than lightning is a matter of asymmetrical means and the hard work of counter-intelligence and police forces across the world.

No longer are we at war with a nation. We are at war with a fundamentalist ideology rooted in a perverse view of Islam. Individuals carry out this war leading to a frigid war that resembles a nonstop CSI investigation opposed to the tanks, troop formations, and on.

I know where I stand and I have no shame in saying Western values are a quadrillion times more modern and advanced than Muslim values because we believe in basic human rights guaranteed through government for everyone regardless of race, gender, age, and sexual orientation.

If you think embracing Islam is needed, then consider how they treat free speech, the role of women in society, and homosexuality.

Ryan,

while it is very easy to agree with you about Islam, consider that there are strong signs that a movement of moderate and liberal Islamists is gaining force and you have only to look at Iran to understand this.

My family visited Turkey this summer, and we visited a place where some Alevi Muslim students were massacred by fundamentalists some years ago. Alevi muslims are the equivalent of the Woodstock hippies of the Islamic world. They are so liberal that the "dark muslims" (a common phrase used in Turkey referring to fundamentalists) refuse to acknowledge that Alevis are even Muslims. Every year on the anniversary of the massacre, tens of thousands of Turks of all sects make a pilgrimage to hold a huge vigil to protest the barbarism that took place. Fully 20% of Turks are of the liberal Alevi sect.

There is a book, No God but God, on the subject of the civil war/schism happening within the Islamic world between conservatives and progressives that you may find interesting. The author argues that 9/11 was merely a sideshow of the building climax of that huge conflict.

The problem isn't ideas in the religion, the problem is the stupidity in the religious. The less that believers learn beyond the basic teachings of their particular sect and epistemology, the more they get ingrained in the stupor of the fundamentals.

The less that restrictive authority allows a child-person's growth venturing out into the world, other cultures, changing knowledge, then the more the grownup is ingrown, stunted and retarded developing, and termed 'fundamentalist.'

A fundamentalist Catholic is as stupified as a fundamentalist Muslim is as stupified as a fundamentalist Jew is as stupified as a fundamentalist Baptist .... Or insert any other named group of believers who adhere always to authorized teachings by a primitive singular Deity. (Notice Buddhists revere (not 'worship') ancestors who lived and died through the generations which begot the dignified individual person living today; Buddhists have no Deity.)
Any cogent War on Fundamentalist Fanatics better target F.F.Christians firebombing women's health clinics or defiling the intelligence of representative government in congressional proceedings; and target F.F.Zionists instigating massacre and murder in Gaza, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and farther; and target F.F.Islamists enslaving women, trafficking humans, decapitating protesters of (Saudi) monarchy; and target Fundamentalist Fanatics fear-feeding your own neighborhoods and subverting news media and trolling defacement of informational blogs, who do not let go of King Combustion, who revel in Petroleum Power military industry, who push the dope of 20th Century stupor. Fanatical fundamentalists worship different idols but the same restrictive way, by order of authorities: Do not cross-pollinate ideas and labors and do not evolve.

War on F.F. can not succeed by bullets, bombs, brutally killing the bastards. Success in knowledge and understanding is reached by steps of information. New experiences are information, beyond whatever old setting a person's habits are constricted in - travel is broadening, said the three wise men Magi sheiks, (Hindus perhaps).

Adaptability to change, and the information in change is vital, and that's why information retardation (20th Century talk of nationalism and enemies, World War, Cold War, and body-count score) in newspapers and media sponsored by automotive business and car dealers ... why, information retardation is killing us, the human race. 'Nationalism' fundamentalism - believers in a particular nation as the Only One on Earth, is perhaps the stupidest fanaticism going on today ... we need more people to visit other 'nations' and to experience other countries and we do not need a nationalistic authority restricting No-Fly Lists and fuming fear about unknown peoples and untraveled places and prohibited experiences.

It is most difficult for those who hold Authority as truth,
instead of Truth as authority.

On topic, we are all born in this animal barn called Earth, which has no truthful Entry/Exit 'door' sealed or not.

So, no Buddhists have killed indiscriminately? In mass or individually? Man's Nature is not determined by God, that is why most beliefs' God(s) provided for Failure.

Gaye Harris,

Point taken and well read. As I pointed out in earlier posts, my suspicion is regarding European and other foreign born Muslim males. I stated earlier, that 99.999% of American Muslims just like 99.999% of White Americans who belong to militias have not employed terrorism against the United States.

An interesting point a critic of my point of view would bring up is this:

If the majority of White Americans were not out protesting for Civil Rights during the 190s, then does that mean the majority of White Americans were complicit in segregation and racism?

The answer to that and the majority of Muslims world wide is, no, of course they are not complicit. Yet, it is an interesting question to ponder.

What has me suspicious are foreign born Muslim males aged 18 to 40. If you take a look at all incidents of terrorism with Islam involved during the 2000s, then that category of men is in every single incident.

This may not be politically correct to point out, but the facts stand for themselves.