How governments can fly in the face of common sense

The desperate immigrants who flocked through the Ellis Island processing turnstiles during the first part of the 20th century could hardly have imagined that a hundred years later the barriers would be as formidable, with tentacles now extending to grasp and shake any potential traveller before they ever set out.

It is a sad reflection of our fragile society that the vast improvements in the safety and reliability of air travel have been undermined by evil agents who have exploited its operational vulnerability and bloodily clipped its wings.

The bungled attempt on Christmas Day to set off explosives aboard a crowded airliner in flight has inflicted a further blow to passenger confidence and institutional composure. Ever since that blackest day in civil aviation history on 11 September 2001, a self-induced ‘climate of fear’ has been imposed on airports.

There was a time when they provided the welcome mat at the first stage of any journey or holiday. Now, as a result both of greed and heavy-handed alarmism, they have been turned into austere holding sheds which, when not foisting duty-free tat into one’s sole remaining cabin bag, present the traveller with the obligatory parade-ground ritual of establishing their humble bone fides.

And it doesn’t end with take-off, because if the proposed ‘American homeland security measures’ are to be adopted, there is the prospect of in-flight tyranny with passengers confined to their seats denied the use of a lavatory.

For some travellers, notably the elderly and timid, flying is a pretty intimidating activity anyway. ‘What are they going to ask me this time? What won’t I be able to do or take with me?’ is only going to increase their anxiety. For those of us basking on our island rock, we have precious little choice but stoically to endure it.

When an outrage occurs, there is the inevitable outcry: ‘Something must be done!’. Knee-jerk politicians predictably respond by ordering a high-profile response in total disregard of the sterling activities being undertaken on an ongoing basis by unsung security agencies whose successes have, by their very nature, to remain secret.

So we are presented with hype, and resources are diverted to save face. The speed with which the UK government tumbled into the anti-terrorist theatre after the scare over Detroit, hastily arranging an international conference, proposing the dispatch of security advisors and military assistance to Yemen and commissioning body scanners for Heathrow, is testament to another fevered punch of the panic button.

All this ‘noise’ will not deter the aggressor, while the sacrificial victims will suffer greater inconvenience and discomfort and may even convince themselves that the pain is a necessary factor in achieving results.

Well, I’m afraid I don’t subscribe to such enforced masochism. There is no question that fighting terrorism with every effective means must be a priority, and nipping any attack in the bud is vital. So deterring any would-be attacker from taking the ultimate risk is an essential weapon in the defence armoury.

But if it is unfocused, it is little more than bluster. The panoply of obstacles have to be shown to be effective and not merely amount to spin and displacement activity. Though they provide a significant contribution, scanners, however intrusive, are never going to pick up every clever terrorist device. So far, disasters have been averted more as a result of incompetence on the part of the miscreants and their kit than by advance detection.

In the case of the malevolent Nigerian bomber, the failure to apprehend him lay in inept processing of information rather than the amassing of it. The US security agencies already knew about him – hence the subsequent attempts by a highly confused state security apparatus to deflect blame and minimise embarrassment. President Obama has, indeed, now given his security organisations a cuff round the ears.

However, the incompetence of managing data is an indictment of a system which will not be improved by simply herding and dehumanising even more hapless decent travellers.

There is, of course, a strong argument that the more complicated and overbearing the defences, the greater the deterrence. That would be true if we were talking about shoring up sea defences, or sweeping away a blanket of leaves. But we are facing radicalised, fanatical sects and highly focused individuals who are prepared to stop at nothing – who are even willing to die in the execution of their crime. They are not short of cunning and inventiveness.

Instead of the ‘hit all’ approach, what’s wrong with ‘passenger profiling’ – the acceptable term for ethnic screening? What more do we have to endure to wean the PC brigade off pussy-footing around spurious ‘human rights’ objections and confront the real identifiable potential villains?

After all, the Christmas Day ‘bomber’ has already admitted that there is a string of others like him being schooled by al-Qaeda – these aren’t Jersey grannies on an excursion to the Chelsea Flower Show or toddlers off to Disneyland!

The global recession and the imposition of stealth taxes in the name of environmental protection have already reduced the number of air travellers. As I say, we have little choice in the matter if we don’t wish to remain corralled on our own little haven.

But if you lived in the United States or even France, would you really be rushing to the international check-in desks when you were surrounded by the wealth and variety of natural assets your country possessed? Small wonder that fewer than one-fifth of Americans hold passports.