Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Scanners Make Profiling Unnecessary?

On boarding an airplane, all a passenger wants to know is that there is no bomb on boaard, either in baggage or concealed on another passenger. Mental detectors and thorough luggage searching has made a gun in the aircraft cabin a practically zero probability. That had been the main concern until the fear of a bomb became an emerging reality. Bomb fear replaced hijacking fear. The placing or carrying on of a bomb became a form of terrorist activity of organized Islamic fundamentalists who declared war on Israel and the West.
The Lockerbie crash by a luggage bomb changed international policy for package and luggage security. The exposure of Al Qaeda actions to blow up multiple transatlantic flights together with the famous shoe bomber, Richard Reid, tightened airport security around the world by more thorough scrutiny of each passenger and a new limit on the amount of "liquids" allowed. The emergence of Islamic martyrs willing to die for the cause, heightens the extent to which security efforts need to be improved to attain an absolute level of security. The 23 year-old Nigerian Christmas bomber, Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, represents the resourcefulness of the enemy in researching the chemistry of bomb technology, and the status of security in the air, particularly on international flights entering the United States.
Fortunately, countering the threat is the develoopment of whole body scanners. Whole-body scanners use different systems, but there are two main competing technologies: Backscatter x-ray and millimeter-wave. Both of these use radiation that penetrates clothing. Backscatter technology (Z Backscatter X-ray system) can detect objects that regular X-ray scanners and metal detectors can't pick up very well, like ceramic knives, drugs and liquid explosives. They produce a near life-like image, which is causing all the uproar over privacy, charging prurient intent on the part of the TSA and engaging the ACLU. The images can be blurred by computer altering techniques, but the more distortion, the less the value; for example detecting an explosive tapped to the body. The other concern has nothing to do with privacy, but with the amount of radiation absorbed by the backscatter technology. Without going into details, the fact is that it would take 5000 scans a year to reach the limit of safety.
The alternate system is the millimeter-wave or MMW system. This system, pioneered by the defense and security firm Qintiq, uses millimeter wave (MMW) technology that was first developed to enable helicpoter pilots to see through the smoke of a battlefield. The system uses a cylindrical holographic imaging technology to conduct a 360-degree whole-body scan in 1.5 seconds. It bounces low-powered, non-ionizing millimeter waves off a person, penetrating clothing and reflecting off the body. Reflected signals are collected by the arry/transceiver and sent to a high-speed image processing computer, which forms a high-resolution three-dimensional image of the body and any hidden objects. The system provides a safe, fast and effrective alternative to metal detectors, X-ray machines and pat-down searches at security checkpoints.
As a member of the traveling public, I say get whatever scanner as fast as possible into every airport in the world. I do not want to depend upon the "dot connectors" or the sixteen intelligence agencies in the federal government, however hard working and well intentioned they may be in sorting out their "no fly llist". I will not exempt Congress either as they have not yet implemented the necessary recommendations of the 911 Commissioin. Let's get to the next level of security as quickly and efficiently as possible.
But does this mean we should do away with profiling? The answer is no! The enemy will continue to try to subvert the system. We must use whatever means we can to attempt ot identify the enemhy, the unstable or otherwise suspicious security risk in the travelers' space. As for the traveler who does not wish to participaate in the new security option, take the boaat--or train--or drive to your destination with your ACLU lawyer.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

When Are Banks Going To Make Cars?

It is obvious that General Motors is not only a failed car maker, but also a failed bank. TARP money to the tune of $3.8B was released this week to "stabilize" GMAC Financial Services as it attempts to recover from heavy loses. [GMAC has already received $12.5B]. The original purpose of GMAC was to finance its customers who buy cars and trucks from General Motors Corporation. Recognize that the practice of funding car loans is in direct competition with banks, including your local community bank. To make matters worse, GMAC was in trouble, not just because of its financial practices, but because they compounded their greed by playing in the sub prime mortgage casino. Where were the regulators or were there any? As the poet Ogden Nash once observed in an applicable quip, "In the land of mules, there are no rules".
All this got me thinking. If car makers can create their own banks, why can't banks create their own cars? Why not pool their resources and produce cars to beat the gang of three in Detroit that still doesn't get the message and are returning to their "brand names", perpetuating our dependency on oil. A consortium of major and even regional banks could build a hydrogen car along with the system of refueling. They could even name the models after the sponsoring banks, like the Morgan or the Citi or the Wells Fargo--gosh they even have a stage coach logo in the mix--how prophetic.
So how is the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy made? The gigantic oil lobby isn't going to sit about without a war on change. The answer is federal legislation that would add one penny of tax per gallon per month to the price of gasoline. People would make book in Vegas as to which would come first--the conversion from oil dependency or the payment of the national debt.
And don't forget the most important consequence of such a simple plan; no more oil money to fund the Islamic extremists currently backed by our frenemies in the Middle-East [frenemies are friends who sell us oil but are enemies who who fund Al Qaeda Islamic Fundamentalists]. If successful, the banks might then think of setting up shop to make GE light bulbs and expensive X-Ray scanners and so possibly even cut the cost of health care.
But wait just one Washington, DC minute! Weren't the banks into trying a new business when we got into this financial mess? They decided that the best business to try was the casino business using high leverage in the mortgage securitization and the multi-variant derivatives markets, and that is the very reason that they needed TARP money as well. It is high time to return the Glass-Steagall Act*, prevent banks from going into the casino business which should be left to Las Vegas and surviving high leverage players like Goldman Sachs.Recall please, that it was leverage that did in Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. So to prevent leverage in the car business, add a provision that prevent, corporations from owning their own banks.
Car makers that can't make money by making cars should not be in banking. Banks that can't survive by their core business of lending should not make cars or light bulbs and certainly not casinos.
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*Glass-Steagall Act [The Banking Act of 1933, repealed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1999].