So it seems that this time the bad men in caves were bad men in apartment flats. What they had in mind was completely awful, and I won't comment on it here because I can't imagine anyone arguing the point that the plot was completely awful.
But the investigation that led to the arrests is interesting and worthy of discussion; so is the response of the air-travel industry to the revelation of the plot. First, the investigation.
I have written before (here and here, among other entries) about what I believe to be gross violations of civil liberties that have been committed in the name of the never-ending War on Terror. But at least from what we know now, none of the tactics that are so offensive--warrant-free wiretaps, torture of prisoners, detention without trial or representation, etc.--had anything to do with the investigation that revealed this latest plot. The Time article mentions that U.S. signals intelligence (the fancy name for wiretapping) was involved in the investigation but doesn't specify whether the communications being intercepted were international or domestic; and in any event, it seems beyond belief that a warrant for wiretapping of these communications would have been denied by a FISA court. (Since the investigation was underway for months, it's also difficult to argue that the "slowness" of the FISA courts would have been an issue--while the last stage of the investigation apparently happened very fast indeed, the initial stages when wiretapping would have been set up seem to have allowed plenty of time to follow the legalities.) There is also no indication whatsoever that detained prisoners from any of our worldwide conflicts provided information relating to this plot; rather, the key tip seems to have come from a member of the British Muslim community, and then good old-fashioned police/intelligence work put one of our people, under deep cover, into their operation.
In other words, the old stand-bys, the legal means of investigation that have worked for years, seem to have come through again. If anything, this latest plot argues that the things we've been lax on--like improving inter-agency communications so that the CIA and FBI aren't working at odds, or improving international cooperation between the western intelligence services--are exactly what produced results this time. And the whole argument about fighting terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here is severely weakened as we see the continued rise of "homegrown" terrorists like those involved in both the London subway bombing and this latest plot. These were terrorists who don't have to come here because they're already here, they were born here--moreover, their perception of our hatred of Islam, as represented by the conflict in Iraq, was almost certainly part of what inflamed them in the first place.
And now, after revelation of the plot, we are predictably freaking out again. But as this interesting Salon article, written by a commercial pilot named Patrick Smith, points out, this information about liquid explosives isn't new at all. Security experts have known about it for at least twelve years, and it's safe to assume that the reason they didn't make an issue out of it was because they realized how disruptive it would be to travelers. As we saw yesterday. But Smith goes on to make the larger point: "What we need to get through our terror-addled heads is this: It has been, and it will always be, relatively easy to smuggle a potentially deadly weapon onto an aircraft." The man's a pilot; I have to take his word on this.
There is no such thing as perfect security, either in an airplane or on a bus or in a public square. We can only do what we can, as well as we can, but with the knowledge that every once in a while, something is going to slip through. "Acceptable risk" is a bit cold, but it describes the situation we all live in. And it has nothing to do with terrorism, at heart--sometimes planes suffer simple mechanical failures, too, and fall out of the sky. Sometimes a switching mistake happens and one train crashes into another. Sometimes there's something on the road that makes your tire blow out, and next thing you know you're upside down in a creek. Life is risk. Most of the time we know this, but when you add in the looming specter of terrorism, we go all goofy and pretend that if only we sacrifice this, this, this and this, and then this and this as well, we will finally achieve Perfect Safety.
Can't happen. Won't ever happen. And it may seem trivial that you shouldn't ever wear a belt to the airport anymore because it sets off the metal detectors and then you have to get wanded; but we've already accepted a whole series of little compromises, and now we're about to be asked to accept a whole new series of little compromises, and then a couple more years will pass and there'll be some new plot and yet another series of little compromises. Pretty soon we're all putting thousands of miles on our cars because no one wants the hassle of flying anymore, and one of the great conveniences of the last century will be effectively wiped out. All in pursuit of the unattainable goal of Perfect Safety.
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