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Revelations about the failed bomber on the Delta flight to Detroit indicate that the bomber's father went to the American Embassy in Nigeria and told them that he was concerned with his son's extremist religious views.
Herb Phillipson: Profiling fear left dad’s warning in dead letter file
Published 10:55am Tuesday, December 29, 2009Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the son, aged 23, living in London, and holding a two- year, multiple-entry American visa.
The embassy sent the information to the United States intelligence community’s central repository of information on known or suspected international terrorists.
The information went no further.
The United States government has a list of all holders of U.S. tourist visas.
Everyone must show his passport or visa to enter the United States when you check in at the airport for an international flight.
The bomber, like the rest of us, had to show his U.S. visa to the airline before he was allowed to board the aircraft.
In this information age the submission of a name to a search of a data base is elemental.
Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name, spelled correctly, together with his nationality and age, may be submitted to a computer with a few strokes of a finger.
He could have been interviewed and earmarked with the knowledge provided by his father.
Then, when he flew, security could make sure that he and the rest of the passengers would be safe.
Why, then, was the information so courageously submitted by the boy’s father ignored and left in what seems to appears to be a dead letter file?
“Individual rights,” revulsion against “racial typing” and general revulsion against prejudices and attitudes about a group or individuals have made our bureaucracy a timid and trembling gelatinous mass.
We are unwilling to make the slightest assumption that a father reporting his son might be right.
We are so against profiling and preserving our individual rights that we ignore the greater good of protecting innocent lives.
Thus, to avoid offending anyone, the authorities do not follow through on tips.
In hindsight, we should call every individual who has been fingered and interview him and make sure that the accusation is false.
Nobody wants to be on a “watch list” without his or her knowledge.
Absent contraindications (membership in a radical organization that needs to be watched, for instance) anyone on a watch list should be informed and allowed to defend himself.
The nation may well avoid another bombing of a plane in flight and the loss of hundreds of innocent lives by carefully checking the list of known and suspected terrorists.
If we do not follow every warning without exception because someone is fearful of making waves, shame on us.
Herbert E. Phillipson Jr. is a retired judge who lives in Dowagiac.
