US officials have criticized the security procedures at airports in many countries of the world. The public opinion took these criticisms seriously and accepted them because they came from the most advanced country in terms of security measures, whether at airports or other facilities and border crossings.
‘The carpenter’s door is broken’ is an Egyptian proverb that connotes irony. A normal carpenter would use his tools to repair and maintain the door of his house. But when we are talking about a famous carpenter, it is even more ironic. The ‘American carpenter’ is supposed to be a model, especially for us in the Arab world as we are usually impressed with anything American or foreign.
We woke up yesterday and we found that the American carpenter’s door is broken and that he cannot keep the airports safe. American newspapers reported that secret police officers did some tests and found that the scanners in the inspection gates failed to detect banned weapons and explosives 95% of the time. The inspector of the department of the internal security said in his report that airport staff failed 67 tests over 70 tests conducted in 70 airports.
The failure rate is high and embarrassing. We can imagine that 67 passengers out of 70 passed the inspection gates carrying illegal weapons. Unfortunately, this test happened in tens of American airports not in notorious third world countries airports known for corruption and bad management.
The scanning machines in the US airports which had the tests could not detect 97% of replica explosives and weapons. They also failed to detect a replica bomb an agent was carrying on his back even though he was inspected. Only three airports succeeded in these tests.
Due to results, the security manager charged with reviewing airports procedures was discharged. Nonetheless, these tests connote transparency, professionalism, integrity and care for the public interest. All these are positive flexibility and self-assessment indicators in order to reach the best performance. They also indicate the fact of being unsatisfied with how things are. This is typical of countries looking for progress and development. We all make mistakes but the only difference between the failed and developed countries are remedies and their mechanisms.
Some people, especially in the social media, expressed irony towards the failure of security measures in most US airports. This does not mean that these airports are not secure. Many passengers visiting the US, especially Arabs and Muslims, even complain about strict inspection procedures. Failure in internal security tests is related to their increase, in an attempt to exceed the expectations of terrorists and extremists. They are experiments to predict terrorist plans to smuggle weapons through US airport. The weapons used in these tests were not usual weapons like a simple knife, conventional guns or with a well known chemical material. The tests usually deal with the most recent terrorism plans. A US airport officer wrote a statement about his concern with ‘broth cubes’ and whether they were made of beef or from bird-flu–contaminated chicken leftovers.
International terrorism and organized crime became real issues for all the security services, in the time of globalization and technology. Terrorist activities got complicated, geographically interconnected and managed by organizations with huge potential to carry out operation invisibly; exploiting administrative and security gaps. Globalization and technology complicated the security environment and the conflict between countries and these organizations can be easily seen across the globe. The ‘carpenter’, whether American or not, will remain in conflict with the world challenges. Those who want security have to go on a fierce race with the thieves, terrorists and criminals of the era of globalization.
