How many 4-point problems are there?

How Many Logical Problems Exist in TSA's Approach?

• The comments from the White House seem to reveal serious logical problems in the USA's approach to anti-terrorism. There appears to be two lines of defense offerred by the Administration but they are completely inconsistent with each other -- they can't possibly both be true. First they tells us that the report of the Nigerian bomber just got lost in the shuffle. It wasn't properly communicated. If the father's statement to the CIA in Nigeria "My son has been radicalized" had been put together with intelligence reports coming out of Yemen that "A Nigerian man is being prepared for an attack on USA", then the man would have been stopped in Amsterdam and not allowed to board. The other line of defense (100% opposite of the first one) is that "We did have a discussion about this matter between the various intelligence and anti-terrorism agencies at the anti-terrorism center in Washington, and after very careful deliberation it was decided that the father's statement to the CIA was really just a "missing person" report, so it was inadequate to justify stopping the man in Amsterdam, so we did nothing. Inadequate here means there was no indication that a crime had been committed. There was no indication of wrongdoing by the suspect. Everything he was doing was perfectly legal, so we had no reasonable suspicion. This is a major logical fallacy. Most terrorists do not commit crimes prior to their act of terrorism. If the USA agencies are looking for crimes or wrongdoing to support a reasonable suspicion they will never catch a terrorist. Apparently the only thing we are able to do is put out APB's on known criminals. Anybody that's not a known criminal, and that has not done anything illegal is outside our scope of vision or consideration. The "no wrongdoing people" are invisible to us. Al Qaida always makes sure that it's suicide bombers are "no wrongdoing people" right up till the moment of detonation. Operations are cancelled if a martyr is even pulled over for a traffic stop, a broken tail-light, or a case of jaywalking. So, Al Qaida is sending one kind of person, and we are looking for another. They are sending perfectly clean people and we are looking for dirty people. That is our logical error. The White House can't keep its excuses straight. I seriously doubt there was any management supervision in the anti-terrorism coordination center at the time the critical report came in from the father's CIA conversation in November 2009. Congress should find out who the senior manager was and precisely how much experience that person has in intelligence/anti-terrorism. Don't let the agency escape with the "group opinion" excuse -- "we don't know who decided this, it was some sort of group decision, so nobody is accountable for it". It would be right for the Congress to investigate this incident for about 6 months and resolve all the logical errors and contradictions. It would be right for 100 people to be fired, sprinkled through 20 or so agencies. 100 rolling heads make what's called feedback to the professionals in this field -- "Do better work!" It would be right to change the triggering criteria and the active responses in the field. If they don't know what to do -- somebody has to tell them what to do -- very specifically -- and test them to make sure they understand -- like we do in the Navy to make sure our people know how a ship's weapons systems work. How many logical problems exist in TSA's work? That is my question which I seek to obtain knowledge about, and wish could be answered -- would you answer my question?

• Answer:

  "This is a major logical fallacy. Most terrorists do not commit crimes prior to their act of terrorism." - True, but the logical fallacy is yours. Building a bomb is a crime. The two stories also do not conflict. The CIA did not take the information seriously. It is likely that all of these reports get forwarded on, however so would the CIAs analysis of the report. So then based on that analysis the anti-terriorism center did not see a threat from this person that the CIA decided was just a missing person. By the way, the TSA does not oversee any of that. Blaming those "contradictions" as you see them on the TSA makes about as much sense as blaming the FDA.