Monday Morning Crisis Quarterback

The reports are still sketchy, and the details keep changing, but as of this moment it appears that a Nigerian national on board Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit either set off or tried to set off a small explosive or incendiary device shortly before the plane landed around noon today.  He claims to have been acting on instructions from Al-Qaeda, and the White House has labeled this an attempted terrorist attack.  Reports differ on whether he actually got the thing lighted, but everyone seems to agree that two or three fellow passengers noticed what he was doing and one of them jumped on him.

At moments like this, we are conditioned to panic.  The idea that we should be extremely worried whenever a terrorist plot is uncovered, especially if it becomes operational in any way, has been pushed upon us from any number of sources over the last 8 years.  We are earnestly asked to be aware of our surroundings and report anything suspicious, and told that we may be facing additional security measures.  We are told that the terror alert level is going up, or not (as in today's incident).  Be afraid, be very afraid.

There are any number of things wrong with this picture.  Let's begin with the terror alert level.  What exactly changes when we go, say, from yellow to orange, or from orange to red?  What are we supposed to do differently?  What purpose is served by telling us that it is staying steady, or going up?  Is the fact that it's not going up supposed to mean that nothing has changed?  How does that jibe with the fact that we are told that security may be tightened at the airport? 

Add to this the fact that at least several news outlets reported that the terror alert level was being raised to orange, despite the fact that it has been at orange for airline travel for quite some time.  I wonder if I'm missing something here -- some nuance about the terror alert level that makes this actually a change.  But even if I am, that only reinforces the notion that the use of this scale is not helpful, at least as it's happening now.

More broadly, however, this incident begs the question:  Why, exactly, are we supposed to be afraid?  There are people out there, most relevantly to this event people associated with Al-Qaeda, who want to hurt Americans.  They are inclined to use air travel to do so.  This isn't news.  The only thing that changed today was that we may have actually seen someone try (or have caught someone who is completely unrelated to Al-Qaeda, but is trying to boost his own importance).

The ways we prevent terrorist attacks are multi-layered.  In this instance, the suspect was, by some reports, on the government No Fly list but was allowed to board a plane to the US anyway -- layer #1 failed.  He then managed to get something that burns or explodes and something to light it with onto a plane -- layer #2 failed.  He then tried to detonate it and both caused himself serious burns without seriously injuring anyone else and was immediately detected and subdued by his fellow passengers -- layer #3 succeeded.  What we learned today is that even if the bad guys manage to get on a plane with something they shouldn't have, we are capable of stopping them before they cause a real problem.  We don't need to be told to pay attention to our surroundings -- this incident proves that we already are.

You'll excuse me if I don't join in the panic today.  It seems to me that the new information we have from flight 253 tells us we're safer than we might have thought.