Back at it!

I'm back! After getting myself caught up in the stress and craziness of the holidays, I'm finally back at work and ready to blog again. HA! Funny how that works.

While I was wound up in the holiday, I didn't find the time to watch the news. Endless holiday movies? Yes. News? No. So it was via Twitter (of course!) that I found out about the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253. Now I admit that every time something like this happens, I have a moment of thinking about what I would do in such a situation. Would I jump up and tackle a would be terrorist or would I hunker down in my seat and protectively hover over my kid? Would I suddenly start praying or whip out my cell phone and try to call my loved ones? I like to think I know what I would do (most likely hunker down and protectively hover over the kid) but who knows what would really happen when adrenaline kicks in and you're in the moment. Anything could happen.

Anyway, Secretary Napolitano was on the airwaves touting how much safer we are now that they have tightened security on flights. They have taken away all pillows and blankets, refused passengers the right to use personal items and the right to get out of their seats all during the last hour of the flight. Wow. Really? So this is going to stop a would be terrorist? All this means is that any idiot with the same idea would just do his "job" either earlier in the flight or directly from the comfort of his own seat (rather than using the restroom to assemble his means). Gee, I feel safer already.

Remember the shoe bomber? That was eight years ago. EIGHT! For eight years we have been taking our shoes off at airport security and guess what? Another bomber got on a plane with explosives in his UNDERWEAR! How about we starting using our heads and think about NEW ways that terrorists might carry explosives on a flight rather than trying to cover our ass after it's already been exposed. I mean, how stupid do we look to these people? A bunch of scraggly terrorists that live in caves can outsmart one of the greatest nations in the world.

And of course everyone is finger pointing. Congress is demanding answers. Who let this person on a flight? Why didn't security catch him? Well, first of all, he went through screening in Amsterdam. We cannot control their security procedures. If they failed, they failed. Unfortunately, we paid the price for it, but what can you do? We can't legislate how they maintain their airport security. Secondly, as Napolitano herself said, without any "credible" evidence, this person cannot be classified as a security risk. Yes, it's easy to see how he was tied to terrorists AFTER the fact, but without evidence, how could we tie him to anyone beforehand? And if we did investigate every little nugget that came into the National Counterterrorism Center people would be bitching about all the money and resources we were wasting on false leads.

Look, I'm all for keeping a watchful eye on people. I grew up in NY with a slightly paranoid mother. I know to watch my back and to not go into New York City with any jewelry on (thanks, mom). But I also don't think that everyone that is different is a terrorist. And I refuse to live my life in fear that every foreigner I run into is going to want to kill me. I think half of the airport and airline security procedures are BS. Taking away my pillow is not going to stop a terrorist from blowing up a plane. I'm sure the government has to do something to try to calm the fear, but I honestly believe that our best defense in the air is ourselves. We've proven that time and again. I'm not saying we shouldn't have any security measures, but I think we should take a step back and re-evaluate what we're doing.