International Travel and the Security Illusion

Ah! International travel… The airlines and travel companies like to portray it as something special and exotic for the privileged few so why are we treated like lepers with weeping sores and bad breath?

And security? A multi-billion business where 90% of the money spent appears to be a total waste. Where a supposedly ‘trained’ security officer earning minimum wage confiscates your nail clippers with a 1″ blade but allows you to walk on the plane with your 6″ titanium ballpoint pen which is a far more useful tool to push through the eyes and into the brain of the Captain than a pair of tiny nail clippers.

Unfortunately for most us, traveling to and from Costa Rica involves international travel and after the incident on the 24th December 2009 when a young Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was caught trying to ignite an explosive device on board a plane flight to the USA, life will get more complicated.

While airline security officials quickly announced how they will be making our lives even more miserable on flights in the future, including “pat-down” checks for all passengers and a hand luggage check at the gate, what is not being publicized as much is the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had his visa request to study in the UK refused in May 2009…

• What we’re not seeing much of is that: “For the past two years Abdulmutallab has been on a United States watchlist for people known to have extremist links, but he was not prevented from flying to America.”
• Abdulmutallab paid US$2,800 in cash for a one way ticket and checked no baggage?
• U.S. Attorneys Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys who were on the same plane and they saw: An Indian man in a nicely dressed suit around age 50 approached the check in counter with the terrorist and said “This man needs to get on this flight and he has no passport.” Incidentally Kurt and Lori are now living in Costa Rica and are VIP Members of this website.
• Abdulmutallab’s father “… reportedly went to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria to report his concern that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a terrorist. But the information his father provided was not of significant reason to place his son on the “no-fly” list.”

Hmmmm!

This dude is on watch list for two years and his father is so worried about his son that he reports his concerns to the U.S. Embassy saying that he believed his son was a terrorist yet, this “was not of significant reason to place his son on the “no-fly” list.”

And then they let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the plane in Amsterdam to fly to the U.S. without a passport?

Many experts have also been wondering how the same Israeli security company – established in 1982 by former members of the Shin Bet and El Al security – International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) could be so incredibly incompetent?

• ICTS subsidiaries I-SEC and PI were responsible for security screening of passengers at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport which allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on a United States watchlist to board a plane without a passport.
• ICTS handled security at the Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris when “shoe bomber” Richard Reid boarded a US-bound plane on December 22, 2001.
• ICTS also handled security for London’s bus system during the July 7, 2005, suicide bomb attacks plus …
• ICTS shared security duties on September 11, 2001, at Boston’s Logan Airport, where two of the four suicide hijackings originated.

Well thank goodness they are preventing people like Cat Stevens (now named Yusuf Islam) from flying into the U.S. eh? Talking about Cat Stevens…, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) stated in a committee hearing that his wife Catherine had been subjected to questioning at an airport as to whether she was Cat Stevens due to the similarity of their names.

As my daughter used to say years ago: “Like Duh!”

Professor Walter F Murphy is emeritus of Princeton University; he is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the nation and author of the classic Constitutional Democracy. Murphy is also a decorated former marine, and he is not even especially politically liberal. But on March 1 this year, he was denied a boarding pass at Newark, “because I was on the Terrorist Watch list”.

“Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that,” asked the airline employee.

“I explained,” said Murphy, “that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution.”

“That’ll do it,” the man said.

And don’t you sleep better at night knowing that Senator Ted Kennedy was on the no-fly list, that some members of the Federal Air Marshal Service have been denied boarding on flights that they were assigned to protect because their names matched those of persons on the no-fly list?

“In hundreds of undercover tests conducted between November and February, security screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 60 percent of simulated explosive devices, and 30 percent of guns. Overall, screeners failed 48 percent of the time.”

And US Homeland Security? A system that feels it’s necessary to fingerprint and eye scan my 72 year old, 4′ 11′ white haired Scottish mother as she stops in Miami for a connecting flight (for two hours) on her way to Costa Rica while an estimated one million plus illegal immigrants walk across the Mexican border into the US each year!

WTF!

In fact, “border agents from Arizona and Texas have anonymously reported recent encounters with dozens of Arab men, who have made their way across the 2,000-mile Mexican border.”

Does this make any sense?

“When you fly within the United States, your carry-on bags are X-rayed and inspected, but not necessarily the bags you check.” And did you know that “the airlines fought against mandatory inspections of checked baggage“?

And when they are xrayed? “First, none cover the broad range of explosives. Second, they are very slow, not 500 bags per hour but one bag per 15 minutes.” So we know that even the bags being xrayed are not examined thoroughly.

Returning from Scotland to Costa Rica in August 2007, my family missed one of our flights because of “enhanced security measures” and an enthusiastic but clearly brainless security officer who felt it necessary to lecture me because my tube of toothpaste which he saw on the xray machine was not in a clear plastic bag.

This forced us to stay in a local and quite disgusting hotel overnight, losing a full day and with meals and other expenses which added another $500 to our trip. The fact that my lady standing 18 inches away from me also had a tube of toothpaste in her carry on bag (without the critical, clear plastic bag) was missed completely.

Now don’t you feel much safer?

Written by Scott Oliver, author of 1: How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa, 2: Costa Rica’s Guide To Making Money Offshore and 3. ¿Cómo Comprar Bienes Raíces en Costa Rica, Sin Perder Su Camisa?

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Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.