You Have to Feel Sorry For Spokespersons

Transportation Security Administration assistant secretary Kip Hawley held a news conference this morning at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC. His mission was to give the latest poop on carry-on regulations. Poor thing. He had to say things like: “While this novel type of liquid explosives is now an ongoing part of the terrorists’ playbook and must be dealt with, we now know enough to say that a total ban is no longer needed from a security point of view,” When he said you had to buy your bottled water at the airport after you pass through the checkpoint, he had to put up with knowing glances that implied there is a conspiracy to make people pay airport high prices. And he had to field questions like: How can you trust the workers? How do we know they bought their bottled water in the airport? How do we know they didn’t sneak the water in to give it to a terrorist? When he countered by saying workers at stores beyond the checkpoint passed through security and that other maintenance workers were subject to background checks and TSA officers would increase random inspections of airport workers, Hawley had to put up with eyeball rolls and under-the-breath Uh-huhs. It was Hawley’s job to explain that airports don’t have the proper equipment to check for liquid explosives because developing and deploying this equipment at the 753 airport checkpoints would take months, maybe years. He said new equipment was being tested and, “We don’t want to be in the position of, out of the urgent need to do this, we essentially waste the taxpayers’ money...we want to take our time to do it right.” He had to know he’d be quoted. He had to know his quotes might wind up on comedy shows. He had to know people would say it’s a little late in the game to worry about Homeland Security wasting the taxpayer’s money. He had to know that it didn’t take a math major to add two-plus-two and realize that if the need is urgent you can’t take your time. When Hawley said the FBI had done tests that showed that a quart-size bag filled with three-ounce containers would not hold enough explosives to destroy a plane, he had to know people would wonder where the FBI got the state-of-the-art explosives that terrorists use, and why they didn’t just shut the terrorists’ down after they got their explosives? Kip Hawley had to know the response to his news conference would be skepticism or outright laughter because the public doesn’t trust the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security, the FBI or the CIA. The public doesn’t think these agencies know their ass about terrorists or their explosives. The public never did think lipsticks and gels had to be banned in the first place, and allowing them back on the carry-on list doesn’t mean tests have been carried out or that any items have actually been cleared for take-off. There may have been a very real threat on Aug. 10 when the Brits arrested a group of suspected terrorists who were said to be plotting to blow up U.S.-bound flights with liquid explosives. But within a week or two, the terrorists were being called wannabes, and the plot to mix explosive liquids in the plane’s WC while in-flight was being called ludicrous. Whenever the Bush administration needs a diversion, we get a terror alert. Whenever the Bush administration wants to change the subject we hear from or about Osama bin Laden. Are these coincidences? So now the items that were being shit-canned in airports last week are okay to bring on board this week because the FBI has done tests? Boloney! I still have in my mind the video of airport checkpoint officials pouring liquids, one after the other, into trash cans, oblivious of the fact that if they were too dangerous to bring on board, then they might explode when poured, willy-nilly, one on top of the other. That was the FBI’s test. Hawley called the changes a common-sense approach, which will "keep us at a high level of security but make it a little bit easier for passengers." No. The US is, and always has been, at a low-level of security in airports and everywhere else. The White House ploy is to keep us at a high level of fear, but under the level of mob fury. Like a lot of White House strategies, the Keep ‘Em Scared ploy isn’t working. And we’ve gone way beyond the Mad as Hell point. Ken Hawley seems like a nice-enough person. He should get an honest job.