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Full Body Scan [Radio Show Update and Correction]

By John Batchelor on December 27, 2009 at 2:00 AM in Current Affairs

Editor’s Note: Larry Johnson is featured in this report on John Batchelor’s Saturday programming. Larry will also be on John Batchelor’s show Sunday night at 7:05 p.m. ET. See the end of this post for specifics on how to tune in.

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Burn Ward.  

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Spoke Neal Boudette, WSJ, Detroit Bureau Chief, re the detention and arraignment of the Flight 253 suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutullab. Earlier today, Neal Boudette called at the Ann Arbor hospital where the suspect is being held, in the burn ward. To some surprise, Neal Boudette was able to walk all the way into the ward and to the suspect’s room. He reports the man was lying motionless in a darkened room, his head turned away from the door. No IV, no tent for burns.

At that point, a Federal agent, likely FBI, asked Neal Boudette to leave the area. Later, a Federal judge arrived at the room and an AP and local TV reporters were invited to witness the arraignment. Suspect was charged with Federal crimes.

Suspect was seated at the araignment, with a blanket over his lower body. Not sedated or unable to respond. Judge asked suspect if he understood the proceedings and the suspect answered “Yes.” Judge asked if the suspect had money to hire ann attorney, and the suspect answered he had “no funds.” Suspect was arraigned in the hospital and is expected to remain in hosputal at least another day. 

Airport Security Little Changed So Far. 

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Later Saturday 26, Douglas Laird, retired from Northwest Airline security director, and Larry Johnson, No Quarter, explained that no airport security extant is correct to apprehend what is presumed to be the mode used by the suspect at Amsterdam’s airport, where the suspect passed through three first-rate screenings. What would defeat the mode is a body scan machine, which are not in use. Possibly a full-body pat down, but not necessarily.

The body scan is not practical because of cost per machine (more than $250k each); and the full pat down is not practical because of time, unless you also permit profiling.

In sum, the suspect defeated all the screens between Lagos, Nigeria and wheels down at Detroit airport. Later, Jeff Bliss, BlissIndex.com, reported that there was little change in security at several major California airports, SFO, Oakland, LAX, San Diego. Perhaps the TSA is catching up on the reports.

Jeff Bliss did mention the report that passengers coming from overseas are reporting long lines boarding US bound aircraft.

Do they know that the delays do not solve the threat?  Only a full body scan can solve it, or individual full pat downs.  Nothing else.

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batchelor-sTONIGHT: Tune in to John Batchelor’s syndicated radio show when Larry Johnson joins the weekly experts’ panel. The syndicated shows run every Saturday and Sunday on many stations and via iTunes. Sunday night’s topics:

Sunday 1005P: (705P Pacific Time):  Larry Johnson, No Quarter,  Max Blumenthal, DailyBeast.com, John Avlon, DailyBeast, re healthcare.

Sunday 1020P: (720P Pacific Time): Continued

OF NOTE: John’s show used to be carried by KFI-AM; he has moved to several new stations. That is why you’ll no longer use the KFI live feed but instead employ iTunes.

Follow these three easy steps once you’ve opened iTunes:

  1. Select Radio;

  2. Scroll to and select News Talk Radio; and

  3. Scroll to and select KSFO-AM WABC-AM.

NOTE: You can also try connecting via these talk radio stations: WABC, WMAL, WLS, KSFO, WBAP. However, I have tried KSFO-AM, and it worked perfectly for me, so I encourage its use. TONIGHT, use WABC.

UPDATE: Earlier today, I advised that you connect via KFSO but it’s not airing John live tonight, so do connect through via WABC, which I am listening to right now.

  • tfitzaz

    do you know if we can get a podcast of this program?
    Thanks

  • I’m a Linda too

    Now we learn that the man was on only a “watch list”.  This after the father warned 3 months ago that his sone was radicalized.  This is also after we learn his visa for UK was rejected because of terrorism concerns.  Yet, we still didn’t move him to a no fly list, cancel his visa let alone go further.  And this is after we’ve seen a habit from this new admin where they seem to think things just don’t require the level of security and investigations as we should.  They didn’t stop Hasan when there were investigations and red flags and we have had an extremely carefree WH with regards to security at the WH.  Is this a pattern LJ?

  • Susan

    This guy paid cash for his ticket and also had no checked bags that went along with his name. I also thought that these two things alone would throw up some red flags.

  • Susan

    When I visit my sister in MA, I fly into Hartford CT. It is a small airport. They have these booths that you are instructed to go into after you pass through security. The door closes behind you and some kind of agent is forced into the booth. I believe that it is sniffing you for chemical and explosive materials. I realize that these systems are expensive, but are they not worth the safety of airline passengers.

    I believe that this airport is part of a test program, but I think it is going to become time that we deploy this kind of technology at all airports, both domestic and international.

    Has anyone else been through these booths?

  • Doc99

    Why was Abdulmutallab flying?

    We now know that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (spellings vary; all are phonetically derived from the Arabic) has been on a U.S. government list of persons with known or suspected ties to terrorist organizations for at least the past two years. This apparently has led the oh-so-cerebral Obama administration to engage in a bit of soul-searching:
    President Barack Obama’s aides are pondering how the government is using terror watch lists after the botched airliner attack in Detroit on Christmas Day.
    Obama’s national security and policy advisers are asking questions such as: How is the intelligence community integrating itself? Did the assumptions used to make terror watch list choices lead to the correct decisions? Were the right criteria used to reach conclusions?
    Such internal questions among Obama’s team marked the informal start to what would likely become a formal executive branch inquiry into an attack that failed–not because of the intelligence community but because, it appears, the suspect’s material failed to ignite.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025248.php

  • Boxer Mum 06

    Susan,

    Yes! I went through a similar machine, I think it was in Cincinnati airport. It scared the XXX out of me b/c I wasn’t expecting a loud pop and air burst around me. We too were advised that it was a test airport. Again, small airport. 

    On side note, in 07, we flew from states to Italy via Paris. On both incoming/outgoing flights, we all had to go through security in Paris – the shoe check, etc.. heard early reports that this dude did not have to go through additional security in Amsterdam b/c his flight started in Nigeria and only connected in Amsterdam.. I find this very hard to believe!

    Thank God for Jasper and folks like him! All the security in the world will still leave us some what vulnerable. The only way to really defeat this insane enemy is to take matters in our own hands! 

  • Texas Playwright

    Well done, Mr. Jafry, and fellow passengers/flight attendants who ACTED IMMEDIATELY to stop this terrorist, unlike the cowardly fraud bho who is simply NOT American.

    Bill, George W. and of course, Hillary, would immediately call the Ft. Hood assailant a terrorist and let the American people know we will not tolerate these acts of war. 

  • Jazzman

    We actually know nothing of fact….yet! Even the FBI is not so sure about this guys AQ connections….yet…. So we are still in a wait and see mode….

    As far as a full body scan goes…. right…hold your breath!! I for onr do not believe that this technology is really necessary. I do though believe that the technology we do have is a mis-match group of devises and we need to do what the USSS has done to protect the White House… Set a standard, a tough standard, and then put out a RFP and let the winner take all.

    That does not mean we can 100% prevent an incident from happening, especially with humans operating these types of systems. No matter where or what airport is involved. I agree with Doug Laird and Larry that Schiphol is an excellant aurport and its technology is state-of-the-art, proving that no matter what technology is in place there will always be cracks….

    I do believe we can do better though… 

    And now for the TSA do better plan….. SECURITY THEATER!

  • Jazzman

    We actually know nothing of fact….yet! Even the FBI is not so sure about this guys AQ connections….yet…. So we are still in a wait and see mode….  
     
    As far as a full body scan goes…. right…hold your breath!! I for one do not believe that this technology is really necessary. I do though believe that the technology we do have is a mis-match group of devises and we need to do what the USSS has done to protect the White House… Set a standard, a tough standard, and then put out a RFP and let the winner take all.  
     
    That does not mean we can 100% prevent an incident from happening, especially with humans operating these types of systems. No matter where or what airport is involved. I agree with Doug Laird and Larry that Schiphol is an excellant aurport and its technology is state-of-the-art, proving that no matter what technology is in place there will always be cracks….  
     
    I do believe we can do better though…   
     
    And now for the TSA do better plan….. SECURITY THEATER! 

  • foxyladi14

    thanks..i didn’t know that

  • creeper

    Do we know for certain that the subject cleared security in Amsterdam?  If he had originated in Lagos (or any other city for that matter) and never left the secure area of Amsterdam, his connecting city, he would not have had to go through those three first-rate screenings.

    Janet Napolitano said this morning on ABC that the system worked flawlessly…after the event.  I thought for a moment she was making a joke but she was deadly serious.

    When are people going to wake up to the reality that life itself is inherently dangerous?  No one can keep us “safe”.  What they can do is use the pretension of safety to keep us controlled. 

    Food for thought:  There has been airport security in one form or another since 1979.  How’s that working for us?

  • creeper

    Susan, paying cash for a ticket from Nigeria to anywhere probably wouldn’t raise many alarms.  When I worked for the now-defunct British Caledonia (admittedly a few years ago) we would not accept a credit card for payment of a ticket for a passenger carrying a Nigerian passport because credit card fraud was so rampant among Nigerians.  All travel by Nigerians had to be paid for in cash.

    Also, many passengers prefer to carry on their luggage rather than subject it to the possibility of loss or damage from being checked.  But if he arrived for a flight from Lagos to Amsterdam to Detroit with nothing but a small carry-on you’d think that would’ve raised alarms.  Add that to his name being on a watch list and you should have had a recipe for a full body search.

    So long as we have people like Jasper Schuringa, I wonder if we really need all this security.  The system failed.  Mr. Schuringa did not.

  • I’m a Linda too

    HA!  Uh yeah, really.

  • felizarte

    I would like to know what steps were taken FROM the moment, the alleged terrorist’s father reported his son to the US Embassy in Nigeria.  Robert Gibbs has been repeating that the man was issued a multiple entry visa by the US Embassy in London in 2008–hinting again that it is a Bush adm. matter.  Napolitano insists that everything went according to procedure which still leaves unanswered the question of how the would-be terrorist still got on the plane to the US.  The US system failed in this instance.  Only the courageous and alert passengers saved the day.  This administrations incompetence is just glaring.

  • felizarte

    Soon the issue of costs for the scanning machines will come up and they better not give as a reason, the lack of funds.  I think that security comes first before the expensive healthcare bill or the bailout of banks.

  • d2i

    interesting – a husband and wife were waiting for flight 253 in Amsterdam when they witnessed this jihadist kid with a well dressed man asking the flight attendant if he could board the plane w/o a passport. airline staff whisked both men off to some unknown area. the couple stated that the next time they saw this jihadist kid was leaving the aircraft.

    how in the hell did this jihadist kid travel from Lagos, through Amsterdam and land in the US WITHOUT A PASSPORT?

  • HARP

    The same way Obama did.

  • Bronwyn

    That’s what Greta kept pounding away on last night on her Fox special — that he was such an obvious person for the airline to be concerned about with no luggage, a cash ticket bought at the last moment, etc.

  • d2i

    oh HARP, how soon one forgets.

  • Bronwyn

    Not yet.  I just checked iTunes.

    But do listen to Batchelor tonight — i’m sure he’ll discuss this more.

    His show begins at pm ET.  See his full schedule:

    http://www.johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/

  • Bronwyn

    btw, i find his radio show in a class of its own insofar as he is intellectually far, far above most other radio hosts.  He also gets the very top rung of guests.  Even Larry Johnson appears on his show every week, and Larry isn’t keen on doing most media these days.

  • Bronwyn

    That’d be 9 pm ET.  Use the link.  His hours + his lists of guests are there.

  • Guest

    I fly international several times a year on Delta. They have always checked for passports at least twice before boarding to the US and sometimes 3 times. In addition to numerous added layers of verification (bag checks, then security screenings, then US Customs). I think what was going on here was the lack of a B-2 visa stamp for the passport and not the passport itself.

    http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1265.html

     

  • Cooney

    Just more incompetence from our government who now wants to also run healthcare. 

  • creeper

    (lemme try this again. site ate my first at “save” and auto-refersh gobbled the second)

    Susan, the fact that he paid cash for a ticket from Lagos would not necessarily have raised alarms.  When I worked for the now-defunct British Caledonian (admittedly a few years ago) we would not accept a credit card in payment of a ticket for a passeger traveling under a Nigerian passport into or out of Lagos.  Credit card fraud was so rampant among Nigerians that cash was the only allowable form of payment for such an itinerary.

    But a passenger boarding a Lagos/Amsterdam flight (to say nothing of continuing Amsterdam/Detroit) with only a small carryon should have raised eyebrows.  Add that to the passenger’s name being on a watch list and you have a recipe for a full body search.  

    Safety is an illusion.  Regardless of Janet Napolitano’s terminal case of denial, the system DID fail.  The system will always fail.   

    It is the people who must not fail.  Jasper Schuringa knows that.  So did the passengers on UA53.  Let the rest of us remember.

  • d2i

    This is just too much. Apparently, the reason the Prez wasn’t told about Flight 253 is b/c…wait for it…he was golfing!

    Dec 26 2009, 6:30 pm by Marc Ambinder
    Why The President Went Golfing Today

    In his Farenheit 9/11, filmmaker Michael Moore juxtaposes images and words of a terrorist attack in Israel with President Bush’s first words about the incident, spoken to a press pool on a golf course, with him leaning casually against a tree. Today, as the nation’s law enforcement agencies respond to an attempted terrorist attack on U.S. soil, as the cable news channels and news websites pull in reinforcements to cover the incident from all angles, President Obama has been silent. 

    In fact, he’s been golfing. He received a counterterrorism briefing early this morning, Hawaii time, and moments later, left for the gym.  The president’s vacation activities might have become the subject of a fierce partisan fight — but really, the only carping is coming from the usual suspects on the right.

    There is a reason why Obama hasn’t given a public statement. It’s strategy. 
    http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/why_obamas_golfing.php

  • rose

    So, its all about how much OB is enjoying his vacation and we complained about a few minutes that bush kept reading my pet goat!!!  At least he was doing it with children and seemed to be in shock,OB seems to be in distraction form his golf game. What is with this administrations atitude?  What about the welfare of this country and the world?    what will it take its all at OB ‘s convenience and god forbid we interrupt his party or golfing or any other caricular activity!  people better wake up and soon. strategy my ass

  • HARP

    Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that “the system worked.”

    God help us all    :-P

  • rose

    only because citizens acted to stop the terrorist themselves or we may be reading about the death of many people on this plane. they think they can make any statement and we will swollow it.    they need to remember some of us actually think for ourselves.

  • Docelder

    Maye it’s the old… hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil defense. So he “didn’t know”. Works just fine for BHO ever since he discovered that worked for him in Indonesian kindergarten. He didn’t know. Well, that settles that doesn’t it?

  • Docelder

    If the system is that passengers on the planes take security into their own hands, then yes it is working well so far. Everybody but the  passenger on the plane did nothing. Sounds like this is going to be the trend. Maybe bodyguards will hang out at airports and board flights with people who can afford to buy them round trip tickets, plus a security fee. It’s a brave new world in this age of Obama. Welcome to New Kenya. I wonder if they find that birth certificate what name it wil have on it really? Odinga maybe?

  • Leigh Pleasant

    So, I guess Janet trained the Dutch man who subdued the terrorist, and somehow intervened to assure his bomb wouldn’t detonate?  What a freaking idiot. 

  • d2i

    This is 0′s Katrina! This woman is utterly clueless and is way in over her head. I’m waiting to see a quote from 0 saying “you’re doing a heck of a job Brownie ugh I mean Janie!

    How on earth does she a young dissheveled jihadist board a 330 Airbus with 278 innocents and 11 crew members with 80 grams of PETN sewn into his underwear w/o a passport, a small carry on and a two year old visa to visit the US to attend some religious conference on Christmas Day! WTH is that woman sniffing? Talk about sheer amateurish babble! Yeah, the system worked flawlessly Janie!

    We need more Dutch film producers flying on in-bound planes! I trust

  • stodghie

    bots, do you now have the change you can believe in? i thought not!

  • stodghie

    dear potus obo, how about you start using the term terrorism and terrorists. you see the bad guys don’t give a rip about your pathetic political claptrap! they will go on killing and terrorizing all the while you cost us money and give nada in return.

  • TeakWoodKite

    Oink? or

  • TeakWoodKite

    d2i, link? Who was the “well dressed man?, Is the inference he was a conspirator?

  • Anonymous

    Technology isn’t going to save us.  What we NEED is airport security trained in PROFILING.  Yes, I said profiling. 

    All young male muslims should have a background check done when they buy a ticket. If there’s nothing there, fine. If there is anything concerning there, then they get a more intrusive search when they show up at the airport. 

    The Israeli airport security profiles. They train their people to watch behaviors, and watch individuals of interest. Despite being a prime target, Israeli airlines have not had these incidents.  Because they don’t try to uselessly “screen” everyone – they PROFILE, and don’t apologize for it. 

  • sam

    So full body scan is not in use at Amsterdam?  Well, then I suppose our new “terrorist” must have definitely been carrying his blue KLM flight bag and a copy of the Amsterdam Times with a picture of a big phallus on the cover.

  • arabella trefoil

    What is Obama supposed to say? The guy is black, from Nigeria, and his pants caught on fire. Now, some folks might say “Wait a minute, why didn’t the crew break out the first aid kits to help this man?” But this man didn’t look like George Washington, he looked like me. So naturally the assumption is made that this visitor from Nigeria is a terrorist.

    Let’s reach for common ground here, and admit that cutting a passenger’s pants off is an invasion of privacy. The passengers who assaulted this man should examine thier consciences.  In 2009, history was made when the United States elected a black presisdent. Why close this historic year on a pre-post-racial note? This is a teachable moment.

    Michelle and I have sent a Harry and David’s fruit basket to the Nigerian in the hospital. We hope others will show the same compassion for a foriegn visitor who came to this country looking for a scholarship to Columbia.

  • cici
  • Jazzman

    Ray Kelly? Please Batchelor your making me sick… Ask most members of the service in NYPD about Poppey Kelly….. Whats next?  David Cohen NYPD’s Intelligence Commissioner is the best of the best?

    The fact is we cannot protect the Country 100% of the time and I do not care who is in charge of DHS. We are going to get hit again and its just a matter of time. The rest of all BS …. Bathelor Squabble……

    I sometimes wonder why I even take even a few moments to listen to talk radio any more…. This is nothing more than the dumbing of America and its does not matter right or left…. The days of honor and truth are dead…..

  • TeakWoodKite

    Hey Doc you embeded the link “Know that”. How did you do this?

    “<a href” doesn’t seem to work for me. many Thanks

  • FLFem

    Not only the mentioned red flags, but I heard on the news last night, CBS out of NYC, that the US had sent FOUR, count them, FOUR scanners to Nigeria that are capable of detecting explosives on passengers. They aren’t in use at the airport for some reason no one can figure out. So, the Nigerians, and the airlines, not only let him get on the plane with no passport, they didn’t use the scanners that could have detected that he was carrying explosives on his person.

  • Mike Skramstad

    Any inconveniences that Americans enjoy while traveling is well-deserved, because Americans don’t mind their own business. Americans should also be forced to pay much more for travel, like a 300% tax.  Oh, that’s too much for you to pay, but okay for cigarette smokers to pay 300% taxes?  Before boarding planes all Americans should be X-rayed, not scanned with microwaves, because bombs and dare I say DRUGS, could be inside the body which the scan will miss. Americans from states where marijuana is not legalized should be profiled as dangerous (to our liberties) and be cavity searched as a matter of policy.

    Since Americans like to stick their noses into other people’s lives,  meddling in foreign affairs and prohibiting others from consuming anything they want, it’s time to get into lives of every American until each one has a GPS implant chip and must have my permission to use the toilet.

    http://www.mikeskramstad.com/wp/how-to-buy-pain-medication-in-mexico-hydrocodone-oxycontin-morphine-fentanyl-patches/