Making air travel safer
August 15, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
Last week’s thwarted terrorist attacks brought forth a surge of ideas that won’t do much to make us safer despite their tremendous costs.
“After every major terrorist incident, there are voices in Congress that want to go on a spending binge, regardless of whether more spending will actually make us safer,” Heritage homeland security expert James Carafano writes. Congress should “resist the temptation to throw money at the problem,” he explained. Proposals to scan 100 percent of all baggage on airplanes for explosives are not only costly and ineffective, but they would distract from efforts to target other, more likely threats.
Carafano suggested that one step to make air travel safer would be to turn over airport screening to the private sector. Experience both at home and abroad demonstrates that private security firms do a better job than bureaucratic government agencies like the Transportation Security Administration. This change, Carafano says, “would allow TSA to focus more on its real task of keeping bad people and bad things off airplanes”
But it’s also worth remembering that this plot to destroy ten aircraft in midair was not foiled by airport screeners. It was instead uncovered by a months-long investigation involving covert surveillance and infiltration. “The investigation and arrests demonstrated that the U.S. needs tools like the Patriot Act and the National Security Agency’s intercept programs,” Carafano insists, “and that these measures can be applied without undermining civil liberties.”
We cannot afford complacency
Many liberals are unwilling to accept even these common-sense steps. Liberals in Congress earlier this year cheered that they had “killed the Patriot Act,” and others argue that terrorism either cannot happen in America or that it’s somehow the fault of the Bush administration if it does.
These are dangerous beliefs, Heritage’s Peter Brookes writes. “Complacency about terrorism is deadly. We’re still squarely in the terrorists’ cross-hairs. Hopes and wishes that terrorism is something that happens overseas, or was limited to the horrors of 9/11, are clearly unfounded.”
Brookes draws four main lessons from the recently-thwarted terrorist attacks:
- Al Qaeda is now more than a single terrorist group. “It is now a global terrorist movement.”
- “Our first line of defense is good, actionable intelligence… The foiling of this plot clearly shows the importance - and wisdom - behind well-crafted intelligence programs like the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program and the tracking of terrorist-related international financial transactions, among others.”
- “International intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation is a force multiplier in fighting terrorism.”
- “Al Qaeda and its acolytes continue to evolve their operational techniques, including becoming increasingly sophisticated in their evil handiwork.”
The Reagan tax revolution
Twenty-five years and two days ago, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Economic Recovery Tax Act, which slashed personal and corporate income tax rates. With hard work and investment no longer penalized, the economy boomed. The rest, as they say, is history.
Heritage’s Dan Mitchell explained to The Wall Street Journal (link for subscribers only) that it’s not only American leaders that were inspired to lower taxes. After the Reagan tax cuts, tax rates fell around the world:
Daniel Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation finds that the average personal income tax rate in the industrialized world is now 43%, versus 67% in 1980. The average top corporate tax rate has fallen to 29% from 48%. This decline in global tax rates has been the economic counterpart to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most of Eastern Europe has adopted flat tax rates of 25% or lower, and the Russians now have a flat income tax of 13%. In Old Europe, Ireland's corporate and personal income tax rate cuts have helped generate the swiftest economic growth in the EU.
We shop for school supplies. Why not schools?
“The back-to-school season testifies to the power of the free market and consumer choice, but it also highlights a major shortcoming,” Heritage education expert Dan Lips writes. “When it comes to the most important thing to determine a child’s academic success this year-his or her school-most parents have little or no choice at all.”
Lips notes that America spends $500 billion each year on public education. Now imagine if this money were in the hands of parents who could choose where their children attend school. Parents could choose the schools that are truly best for their children, instead of sending them year after year to failing “free” public schools.
A new focus on South Asia
South Asia is an increasingly important place in the world. Just take the events of the past few weeks: British police believe there are Pakistani ties to the terrorist plot foiled last week in London; terrorists detonated bombs on commuter trains in Mumbai; and America signed a deal with India on nuclear power.
So The Heritage Foundation is pleased to announce the addition to its research staff of Lisa Curtis as the Senior Research Fellow for South Asia. Curtis, who has extensive experience with South Asia through both the CIA and the State Department, will examine America’s economic, security, and political relationships with India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
In other news
- Israeli troops have begun their withdrawal from Lebanon under a cease-fire that went into effect yesterday. Hezbollah terrorists did skirmish with Israeli soldiers, though the fighting did not escalate.
- The Department of Homeland Security has loosened restrictions on what passengers may carry onto flights. The new rules were imposed immediately after last Thursday’s foiling of a terrorist plot to destroy ten aircraft in midair.
- An internal DHS report leaked to the media suggests that x-raying air travelers’ shoes will not identify hidden explosives. Perhaps airport security would be improved if screeners focused on real, identifiable threats.
- Cuban despot Fidel Castro, apparently recovering from his recent surgery, marked his 80th birthday on Sunday with a visit from Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. The Cuban people marked 47 years under Castro’s Communist tyranny in January.
- In a related anniversary, August 19 is the 15th anniversary of the 1991 coup attempt that brought about the demise of the Soviet Union.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Wednesday, August 16 at 11:00am, The Heritage Foundation will host an event with The Federalist Society on the punishment of businesses for the crimes of their employees.
- On Thursday, August 17 at noon, Shmuel Bar, Director of Studies at Israel’s Institute for Policy and Strategy, will discuss the close ties between politics and religion in the Muslim world.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
