A more sophisticated form of underwear bomb has been developed, but the CIA has thwarted an attempt to deploy it to blow up a US based plane.
The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009. [it has] a more refined detonation system…
… the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector.
But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.
The bomber, who was with an al_Qaida affiliate based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target when the FBI wen in and grabbed the underwear. It is not clear if the would-be bomber was wearing, or otherwise near, the underwear at the time it was seized, but that would have been a hella wedgie.
NPR and other outlets are reporting this.
The current disposition of the bomber him or her self is not being reported at the moment.
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I’m not surprised that the bomb would be undetectable.
Unlike the old metal detecting scanners, the new scanners would not detect any metal parts if the potential bomber hid them in places where the backscatter don’t shine.
Also, if the reports of 80gm of explosive in the previous underwear bombing attempt are credible, the potential bomber could put that much in a 100ml bottle in the free-pass freedom ziplock and then assemble it with a blasting cap suppository after the check.
TSA is a continuing monument to our loss of the war on terrorism. If we spent its 6B$ annual budget and 2,000,000 person-hours per day on first aid training for school-age children, we’d have saved far more lives than TSA has any hope of saving.
…rant-rant-rant. Sorry.
Yeah, but it is shovel ready. Imagine the effects on the economy if all the TSA workers were laid off tomorrow!
Ya you’d have tens of thousands of high school dropouts back on the streets 🙁
My other shovel-ready project for the TSA employees would be to have them don reflective vests and repaint the highway signs and lines. Maybe that way they could make a measurable improvement in the 40,000 people per year that die while driving. It would be at least as effective as what they pretend they can do. Dammit, if TSA did everything it promises absolutely perfectly, the best result they could possibly hope for is to push the 1-in-a-billion terrorists off of the plane and into the crowded checkpoint lines.
Oh, they make me mad: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/the-tsa-screws-up-again-makes-mother-fill-up-empty-bottles-of-breast-milk/
…rant Rant RANT *RANT* Time for a walk or a beer.