City and Department Response to the Thwarted Terrorist Plot

Responding to the thwarted terrorist plot on flights from the United Kingdom to the United States, the City of Los Angeles heightened its alert and increased security at LAX and the Port of Los Angeles.  Extra security measures have been implemented in accordance with the United States Department of Homeland Security raising the national threat level for the aviation sector to HIGH (Orange).

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa  joined by Chief William J. Bratton; Steve Bidwell, Assistant Director in Charge at the FBI; Larry Fetters, Federal Security Director with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA); and city officials, announced that there is no specific credible threat to the airport, City, or region.

It was announced that five airlines operate 20 flights from the United Kingdom to the United States.  City officials are asking people departing from LAX to allow more time and comply with all screening measures.  Travelers on domestic flights are advised to arrive two to three hours before their flight departure.  Passengers on international flights should allow three to four hours for the screening process.

Items prohibited beyond security checkpoints include liquid and gels such as:
Beverages
Perfume and cologne containers
Shampoo
Sun tan lotion
Creams
Toothpaste
Hair gels
Other items of similar consistency

Additionally, all shoes will be removed for the screening process.  For a complete list of items prohibited beyond security checkpoints and aboard aircraft, please visit TSA.gov.

With the safety of the public and LAX workers in mind, all local city agencies, including LAPD, Airport Police, and Fire Department, will work together implementing extra security measures that may go unnoticed by the public.  Chief Bratton credited the newly opened Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center for the multiplicity of notifications that alerted city, state, and federal agencies of the arrests made by Scotland Yard.

“Are we prepared? Were we prepared? The answer is yes,” said Chief Bratton.

Comments

[Samantha Sang]

We might have to think of other forms of safer travel. Like a hot air balloon ! ? Safety in exchange for luxurious comfort.

[Rusty Richards]

You refer to the "thwarted terrorist plot." It is an **alleged** terrorist plot. It has not yet been proven the plot actually existed. That's not to say there **wasn't** a plot, but there's not yet conclusive proof it **actually was** a plot, either.

[Jim Reed]

Get real!!!! If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Be thankful that some one with a sharp eye and a brain saw the signs of this REAL terrorist plan and moved quickly and effectively. I only hope that all agencies have the fortitude to move quickly where the threat is real.

[LEO]

Chief Bratton has got to be kidding me. He's prepared? Prepared for what?

LAPD can't even handle a normal call-load of radio calls on a Monday afternoon.

One semi-major incident and the whole city practically shuts down.

C'mon Chief, if you don't have enough Officers to handle basic 911 calls, how do you expect to handle a major terrorist event?

LA is in for a rude awakening, let's hope it never happens though.

**Hint to the Press Lurkers**

Ask the squints at Media Relations for a breakdown of 911 calls that are handled/dispatched to outside divisions.

An example would be, a 911 call occurs in Wilshire Division, but gets dispatched to a West LA radio-car and doesn't get answered for at least an hr.

That's LAPD's dirty little secret.

Lets see if they post this one.

[Jack T.]

Jim Reed, your thinking would be great for a 19th century lynch mob, but it doesn't work in the 21st century. No one has been convicted of anything in regards to what happened yesterday. Knee-jerk reactions and public spectacles may be politically popular but they're foolhardy solutions.

Too many "threats" in recent years have turned out to be nothing more than political hype -- the nonexistent WMDs in Iraq, for example. A plot does not become a proven fact simply because some official stands up in front of a microphone at a press conference and says there was a threat.

As for agencies having "the fortitude to move quickly where the threat is real," the agencies in question have done nothing of the sort. Liquid explosive threats have been a reality for at least two decades but there's no detection equipment at airports. Had the US not wasted so much money in Iraq, that money could've been used to install effective explosive detection devices in airports after 9/11. The equipment they have today is circa 1970s, at best, and usually nothing more than sniffing dogs, which are notoriously inaccurate.

Sadly, you've been fooled into thinking officials have "moved quickly," when they've moved slower than snails. And while we're all reading and writing here, some 97 percent of cargo containers still come into American ports completely unchecked.

There's a lot of handwaving and showboating about protecting America and Americans against terrorism, but it's mostly a facade. Officials think that by inconveniencing the public, they'll fool the public into thinking something is really being done.

[Charles King]

Mr. Reed, with all due respect, you're completely clueless. You accept everything you're spoon-fed and don't ask any questions. It's exactly this sort of blindly jingoistic cheerleading that perpetuates the sorry state of anti-terrorism efforts in this country. You boldly claim effective plans are in place; the exact opposite is true. (Your behavior thus suggests you actually don't know anything about anti-terrorism and are simply parroting back what you hear on talk shows.)

The reality of the situation is that anti-terror officials in the US don't have sharp eyes and aren't using their brains. They're reactive, small-thinking individuals. Anti-terror efforts in this country are still based on a 1960s model, from an era when a few misguided people hijacked planes to Cuba. The system then focused on luggage, not the travelers. The United States still uses this ridiculously outdated model. Even after 9/11, when we should've been focusing on the traveler and not the luggage, the US still refuses to see the forest for the trees.

Most of the suspects in the British plot didn't even have passports nor did they have airline tickets. British officials didn't want to arrest them this past week, but the US pressured them to do so. Simply put: the US jumped the gun. Then it compounded the problem by bringing the US domestic air system to its knees in the pointless and ludicrous search for liquids. Countless thousands of travelers were exposed to possible terrorist attacks at airports in the hours-long lines for screenings. No additional screening was performed on passengers, only on luggage. Big mistake.

This begs the question of whether the US reacted simply for political gain. The liquid searches created a big public spectacle but did nothing to stop terrorism. If anything, it helped terrorists, because it underscored how backwards-thinking anti-terrorism efforts are in the United States. This deceives the complacent and dull-witted into thinking something is being done when the exact opposite is true.

A number of high-profile anti-terrorism efforts since 9/11 have failed badly, including "Secure Flight," the passenger-screening model, which is an unmitigated disaster. The "Registered Traveler" program has also been a disaster. Countless billions have been squandered on these two programs. Why? As taxpayers and citizens, we should be demanding answers, not standing up and cheering when we're subjected to pointless four-hour waits at the airport.

Rather than blindly cheerleading a failed system, Americans should demand answers from their officials. We are still extremely vulnerable to terrorist attacks because security officials are running in circles. Officials aren't moving quickly nor effectively. They don't have fortitude and they can't recognize when a threat is real. They don't have sharp eyes nor are they acting with any kind of brains.

A Pakistani national is subject to the same screening process as an American citizen with no arrest record at American airports. Therein lies the failure of the system. Until the system focuses on the individual, and stops treating all passengers with the same process, the ineptitude will continue.

It's been nearly a year since Katrina, which served as a wakeup call about how unprepared federal officials still are for serious threats in this country after 9/11. Unfortunately, after that wakeup call, most people went back to sleep. The public reaction to events of this past week only underscores the sorry state of affairs.

[Quinn]

Less then four hours after news of the liquid scare hit the airwaves, the Republican National Committee sent a mass fund-raising email which used the incident to paint their party as "tough on terrorism." So I think that pretty much answers the question about whether this scare was politically motivated. With the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks coming up, which will only bring increased press and public attention to the fact that Osama is still alive and at large, the RNS is desperate to reverse its ratings slide. I expect we'll see a few more of these well orchestrated terror scares before the November election as the Republican party tries to perpetuate the fiction it's tough on terrorism and to distract the public from its catastrophic failures in Iraq.

[J Q Public]

This sounds like the groundwork being laid for more "Homeland Security Dollars" being chased after to fill the empty gaps in LAPD's hiring. It's unfortunate that the level of waste and redundancy in our City government is so severe that we do not a sufficient level of police officers to protect our streets.

There is more than enough money in the City budget to put all the police we need on the streets. Why doesn't the City Council tap the $350million per year slush fund that DWP has?

[Dave]

>Why doesn't the City Council tap
>the $350million per year slush
>fund that DWP has?

The DWP is raising its rates, too, so there will be even more money slushing into the city coffers. Add to that the new trash tax the city council snuck in the back door, and there will be countless hundreds of millions more for the city to waste. After all, the DWP is done wasting money on their new Taj Mahal headquarters and squandering money on Fleishman-Hillard, they need some new ratepayer money to waste.

Most homeowners don't realize yet that they'll be seeing $100-plus increases in their DWP bills. Whether the sleeping masses will awake and be able to do anything ex post facto remains to be seen.

Our illustrious mayor is clearly a renter's politician. He's happy to shaft homeowners, who are now a voting minority in the city, to pay for his ambitious programs as he begins his quest to run for governor in 2010. Mayor Antonio plans to shaft homeowners once again this November with a new property parcel tax to pay for cheap rental housing. The bill will be paid for entirely by homeowners.

Mayor Antonio outright lied that the trash tax will pay for 1,000 new police officers -- it actually will only pay for 300 -- so stay tuned for more contortions of the truth, deft political spin, and other sleights-of-microphone.