Flying Blind

According to Michael Smerconish the U.S. government's airport security policy does not make common sense. If Muhammad Atta and the four of his friends who crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center showed up to board a flight, airline security personnel, even after 9/11, could not pull them out of the boarding line to ask them a single question. Why can't the airlines pull them out? Precisely because they resemble Atta and his terrorist gang. They are young Muslim men of Middle East descent.

Now, under U.S. law, the airlines have the duty to refuse to carry any person or thing that might pose a danger to the safety of a flight. And the Federal Aviation Act gives the plane Captain wide discretion to yank people or cargo off a flight provided only the Captain's exercise of his discretion is not arbitrary or capricious. But the way the law is written is not the way it is enforced under the upside down policy of political correctness imposed by Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.

The DOT claims to apply a "but for" test, meaning that if there are any other factors besides race, religion, sex, age, or national origin that arouse suspicion it is okay for the airlines to send a passenger to secondary screening. But in reality, the DOT sues the airlines even when those additional factors like a one-way ticket paid for in cash or concerns expressed by a Federal Air Marshall directly to the pilot are present. Since 9/11, the DOT has forced Continental, Delta, United, and American airlines to pay millions in fines for the 1 in 10 million passengers who has complained even when that passenger was questioned for suspicious factors other than ethnicity. The way the law is applied, if the airlines do stop someone who resembles the 9/11 terrorists they are guaranteed to get sued no matter what other circumstances are present.

Mineta's political correctness was unearthed by the 9/11 Commission through a single question asked by Commission member John Lehman during Condoleezza Rice's televised testimony: "Were you aware that it was the policy...to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning?"

Not a single network, not a single newspaper picked up on this question. But the attorney and Philly talk-show host Mike Smerconish did.

Flying Blind is an account of Mike's one-man quest to discover how Mineta's DOT was perverting our law and bring the swiss cheese we call airport security to the attention of the public and Congress. We get a fascinating inside look at how the wall of political correctness keeps the government and the media from facing the facts about who the enemy is in the War on Terror. The DOT first lied about their policy then tried to discredit Smerconish as a bigoted kook. CNN dumped the story after calling him for an interview. But a handful of courageous men, Senators Dick Shelby and Arlen Specter, former Secretary of the Navy John Lehmen, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, helped Mike Smerconish bring the issue to a Senate hearing.

Did the 9/11 Commission fix the problem? No, though they did praise the efforts of one airport screener who blocked the 20th hijacker from coming into the United States precisely because he fit the profile of a young Muslim man of Middle East descent.

Has Congress fixed the problem? No, but only they can, by writing a law to make clear it is okay to screen Muslim men of Middle East descent between the ages of 17 and 40 - the description of the perpetrators of every terrorist attrocity inflicted on our nation for the last 20 years.

To put it bluntly, "political correctness" has made a chronic mess of post-9/11 efforts to secure our country from Islamic terrorist attacks on our airlines, on our seaports, on our borders, on our infrastructure, and on our cities. Flying Blind, focuses specifically upon our airports and airlines and how anti-profiling tactics (first developed during the Clinton Administration and perpetuated under the Bush Administration) put 590 million airline passengers at risk every year for the past three years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Flying Blind exposes the absurdities that pass for airline security these days, but even more importantly, offers practical, effect, applicable solutions for fixing the problem of insecure airports, foolish nitpicking while the larger picture is ignored, and the shell game that's been going on (such as federalizing baggage inspector and airport security personnel by simply changing the color of their uniform jackets but providing little or no in service training to better do their jobs) to disguise just how vulnerable we continue to be. Flying Blind is a highly recommended wake up call--especially in this time of a presidential politics charged atmosphere of posturing and disassembling by all sides.

When his 8-year old son was picked out of an airport line for a secondary screening, Michael Smerconish was understandably exercised at the silliness that results from such random systems. Then he heard 9-11 Commissioner John Lehman engage in a line of questioning that he described in this essay,

Listen to Lehman: The press attention is on the wrong commissioners. (Michael Smerconish, April 15, 2004, National Review)

Richard Ben-Veniste and Bob Kerrey received the lion's share of media attention paid to last week's 9/11 Commission hearing with Condoleezza Rice, thanks to their generally intemperate questioning style. But while Ben-Veniste and Kerrey played to the cameras, it was their colleague, John Lehman, who was breaking new ground with the national-security adviser, but few noticed.

Lehman's focus was the transition between the Clinton and Bush administrations. He told Rice that he was "struck by the continuity of the policies rather than the differences," and then he proceeded to ask Rice a series of blunt questions as to what she was told during the transition.

Among Lehman's questions was this: "Were you aware that it was the policy...to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory?"

Rice replied: "No, I have to say that the kind of inside arrangements for the FAA are not really in my...." (Lehman quickly followed up: "Well, these are not so inside.")

Watching the hearings on television with the rest of the nation, I wondered what