Quote:
Originally Posted by Hodgepodge
What exactly weren't the Logan Airport employees doing right on 9/11?
- Profiling was not policy (still isn't)
- Box cutters and knives were allowed on board back then
- The terrorists were all carrying valid ID, tickets, etc.
I am curious what the nincompoops at Logan were doing wrong. I say nincompoops because I flew in and out of Logan for 6 months (June 2001 to November 2001) and was actually planning to fly from Logan to LAX on 9/11. Thank God I didn't.
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Oh my. Your a lucky one friend. 
They were negligent.
(3/26/04) Even though the government failed to make scattered intelligence known to the general public, the airlines had enough historical data regarding hijacking to make 9/11 preventable, without government intervention.
The airline industry and airports are for profit commercial enterprises. They are in the business of transporting consumers for profit. They should be held accountable and financially responsible for the security of their enterprise.
Prior to 9/11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was a regulatory agency that set minimum standards for the air travel industry. They were not responsible for providing security for airports and the airlines.
There was absolutely no regulation that prevented the airports and airlines from exceeding the minimum-security standards set forth by the FAA. Airport screening processes prior to 9/11 were the responsibility of the leading carrier at each hub, and not the responsibility of the FAA.
The fact that the screening processes failed is a reflection of the airport’s inadequate security processes. Those processes were the responsibility of the airports and not the federal government.
The FAA did notify the airlines to be on heightened alert prior to 9/11. Yet the airports and airlines should have always operated at high alert. Why would a commercial airline operate at any other alert level? They are always responsible for the safety of their passengers.
The federal government does not own the airports or the airplanes, nor would it serve the public interest if it did. This private industry should remain accountable to the consumer.
At the end of the day, secured cockpit doors would have prevented 9/11. Securing the cockpit doors includes mechanical and human security. Again, there was nothing preventing the airline industry from enhancing its onboard security programs. The FAA set minimum standards. The airlines could have taken it upon themselves to exceed the minimum requirements.
Beyond secure cockpit doors, there was nothing that prevented the airlines from hiring their own onboard security personnel. If four terrorists, armed only with box cutters, had to penetrate four highly proficient security persons, there is a reasonable degree of certainty that they would have failed. Make no mistake about it. If cowards like Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari would have attempted to penetrate effective security personnel, their plot would have been thwarted.
Since 9/11, the FAA role in air travel security has been transferred to the Transportation Security Administration, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security. The screening processes at airports are now a function of the federal government, as well as onboard security (Air Marshals). The airline industry does not compensate the federal government for these services. The financial burden has been shifted to the taxpayer instead of the consumer. The cost will be astronomical.
The federal government is simply too cumbersome because the American people keep asking it to carry a load that it was never meant to carry. 9/11 was a great American tragedy. It was an act of war. But the instrument of war was commercial airports and aircraft. Can we blindly believe that it was the government’s fault entirely that American and United Airlines did virtually nothing to protect their customers and their assets?
If we expect the government to be fully responsible for our safety at all times, then we must be willing to surrender certain freedoms necessary for the government to protect us. Millions of Americans have jumped on the anti-Patriot Act bandwagon, yet many of these same people want to blame the government for 9/11. If we are going to expect the government to keep us safe, if we insist upon exhaustively attacking present and previous administrations for their presumed failures, then we have to accept that the government will defend itself from us by creating acts and procedures such as the Patriot Act. We cannot have it both ways.
Yet the burden has been shifted. The airlines have shifted their liability onto the federal government, and the American people are going to pay a price, both in freedom and in cash. On 9/11, if flights 11, 77, 93, 175 had onboard security personnel and secured cockpit doors, the tragic events of that fateful day would have been prevented. The airline industry is culpable.
Freelance writer / author, Ed Haas
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