Slovak Police Planted Explosives On Air Travelers

Entropy98 writes "Slovakian Police have planted explosives on 8 unsuspecting air travelers. Seven were stopped by airport security, including one man arrested and held upon arriving at a Dublin airport. Unbelievably, one innocent traveler made it home with 90 grams of explosives, and had his flat surrounded by the police and bomb squad."

Comments

Seriously?

[NonSequor]

What the crap, man?

Re:Seriously?

[komisar]

How about we repeat the exercise daily at randomly chosen airports around the globe?

Screeners who miss the contraband (or allow a passenger to exit through an entry way) would be stripped of badges and ids, fired on the spot and escorted outside the airport.

Passengers originating at or transiting through airports with a poor screening record would be denied entry to the US.

Seriously.

Re:Seriously?

[dbIII]

I really don't userstand why they didn't use harmless bits of plastic the right size made to smell like explosives by rubbing against it or something. I work with people that do work with explosives (seismic surveys) and they set off airport detectors with their boots or other work clothing at times.

Re:Seriously?

[QuantumG]

Yes.. testing of security systems.. madness.

Re:Seriously?

[Mad Merlin]

How about the US just flat out denies all air travel to, from and/or through the US. It'd be far less inconvenient for everyone involved.

Re:Seriously?

[petermgreen]

Using innocent and unsuspecting members of the public to do it though seems like a pretty fucked up thing to be doing and I hope whoevers idea this was gets punished appropriately.

If you are a goverment want to do a test of airport security systems then fine but use someone who has agreed to do it, agree it with the governments of target countries first and give that person ID so that they can prove that they are doing an official test.

Re:Seriously?

[Schemat1c]

How about we realize that we are far more likely to be killed by our car or the food we eat then by terrorists?

How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.. testing of security systems.. madness.

Yes madness. If you're going to test the security system, you do it using government agents operating in plain clothes, you don't just go planting shit on regular passengers.

Re:Seriously?

[Kell Bengal]

How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?

Sadly, time and time again, the population has shown itself more than willing to lie down and meow.

Re:Seriously?

[Darkness404]

That is the stupidest thing I think I have ever heard.

For one, this would make security theater even more pronounced, at least with the way it is now there is a chain of blame meaning that no one person is usually blamed for a certain incident. For another it would make policy even stupider than it already is, its bad enough when you can't take liquids on the plane, whats next? Them searching through your laptop, prying off every key to try to find explosive residue underneath it? Already, human and civil rights are raped when you travel by air, adding more stupid policies aren't going to make us any safer. If someone really wants to blow up a plane they will find some way to if they are reasonably intelligent, unafraid of death, and we aren't velcroed naked to the plane during takeoff.

Plus, in some countries airport security is bad, they don't have as much security theater as the US but somehow they manage to have avoid hijacking and terrorism. The US is about the only country that requires passengers to take off their shoes, has that made us any safer? Have you seen shoe bombings all across Europe, Asia and Australia because of this? No. It is security theater. The US tries to be high and mighty in security theater yet other countries have a lower rate of air incidents and have a "poorer screening record" than the US.

Your policy would effectively deny entry to the US from many, many, many different countries. Effectively a travel ban. This is a bad thing to both the security, foreign policy and economic rights of the US.

There comes a time when you have to look at the US travel screening system and realize it takes away a bunch of human rights, puts us an a 1984-style dystopia where people are afraid to look, talk, act or even think "suspiciously" thinking it will cause alarm and destroys the US economy. No one wants to fly on planes when the TSA wants to treat us all like criminals. No matter how well the airline treats you, your basic rights to not be treated like a criminal are violated by the TSA. Then because no one wants to fly, the airlines lose money, when they lose money they try to squeeze every single penny out of you, when you do that you don't want to fly even more then, and it repeats.

Re:Seriously?

[Darkness404]

We can have a lot of "what if" situations. What if terrorists have a space laser that will vaporize half the earth if we don't bow down to Allah? What if terrorists are in the administration of every school district and are indoctrinating our children? What if terrorists have some stock in Apple and every time you buy an iPhone you are supporting terrorism? What if terrorists use Linux, doesn't that make you a terrorist if you are using it?

Yeah, everyone is scared a terrorist group may have a nuke. And no, there is very little reliable data to show it has a nuke. It is a lot more reasonable to say that Iraq, with a simi-legitimate government, large area, and somewhat rich would have WMDs. Oh wait... when we invaded Iraq... they had no WMDs. If Iraq, a nation with many people couldn't get a WMD (or managed to turn these WMDs into ninjas so the US/UN/etc couldn't find them...) how much more unlikely is it that a terrorist group would both A) have a nuke B) have the ability to safely store the nuke in working condition C) have no leaks regarding the nuke D) take the nuke onto US soil E) detonate the nuke F) have the nuke go off G) have an acceptable kill-rate.

Look, we are a lot more likely to be nuked by our own nuclear weapons than for a terrorist group to nuke us (excluding the governments of Iran, North Korea, etc) on our own soil.

Paranoia only gets us so far, we can say "what if" to a number of things, but in the end, can we -really- back those things up to justify loss of human life, loss of an economy, loss of human rights, etc? I think not. There was a lot more hard evidence for Iraq to have WMDs than for a terrorist group to have nukes.

Re:Seriously?

[raddan]

Not that I agree with the Slovakian police in this particular case, but what they did here was essentially a double-blind trial of the airport detection systems in the field-- which is an important hurdle they should be able to pass if they want to claim that they aren't just expensive junk. There was an article here on Slashdot not too long ago about how the U.S. military was bemoaning the fact that Iraqi security forces were using divining rods to detect hidden explosives. The Iraqis claim that they are effective, and in non-double-blind trials that may even be true. But not for the reason that the Iraqis think.

Making the trial double-blind controls for other variables, like the bomber being detected by security personnel because he's "twitchy". Someone who doesn't know he/she is carrying explosives won't act abnormally because they don't know they're going to bomb anything. If you're making bomb-detecting equipment, you may consider that an important scenario to be able to catch. The Slovakian approach is elegant, if somewhat immoral.

Re:Seriously?

[HeronBlademaster]

Ban religion? Don't be silly; that wouldn't solve anything. Generally speaking, people who commit violent acts in the name of religion are ignoring the teachings of the religion they claim to follow (e.g. the Crusades).

If religion were magically erased from existence, these people would just find some other excuse for violence.

I'm going to refer to the old axiom "correlation does not show causation". It's especially relevant with regard to religions that teach against violence.

Re:Seriously?

[mobby_6kl]

First of all, as has been already mentioned, the terrorists will know that they're carrying a bomb, and that they are going to kill themselves in a few hours.

The second point would be that it's still possible to do a proper experiment. Divide the volunteers into several groups: group 1 will be told they are carrying a bomb, group 2 will be told that they may be carrying it, and group 3 will be told they aren't going to get it. Plant the bomb on some (but not all) of them or their luggage. Observe. Bonus: don't get your citizens shipped off to gitmo.

Re:Seriously?

[CodeBuster]

How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?

I would be more amenable to the "macho" argument if the governments of the world, particularly those in Europe, would put aside their reluctance to admit that we have a problem with militant Islam and start killing the terrorists instead of wasting their time on fruitless diplomatic endeavors that simply embolden terrorists everywhere by demonstrating weakness and impotence.

Re:Seriously?

[gad_zuki!]

>If religion were magically erased from existence, these people would just find some other excuse for violence.

In some cases, yes, but you cannot deny that hate is taught by religion. The hate of others and the specialness of the religious group is taught in almost all religions. Few religions have any tolerance for gays, different religious people, atheists, women who want equality, etc.

Not to mention, a lot of these terrorists are mentally ill bottom feeders who are being used by the religious elites to bomb their targets. Without religion these people would be wandering aimless or better yet, in some kind of institution. Better that than being indoctrinated about how one must kill infidels.

Turns out the power elite use religion for their own goals. Corrupt middle east governments blame their domestic problems on Christian and Jewish foreigners instead of addressing these issues properly. Corrupt Western government use the religion card to cow voters and to appeal to the bigotry of the masses. If there was no religion then they would be forced to be accountable for their governments.

Some of us are still trying to imagine no religion. The idea that it would make no different isnt convincing in the slightest. A secular philosophy that fulfills the needs of these people could change the world.

Re:Seriously?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If the fictional nuke wielding terrorists managed to set one off every four years and kill as many people as died at Hiroshima, they'd kill about as many people as die from motor vehicle accidents in the US in the same time period.

Take the world as it is today, vehicle death-toll included, then picture what the world would be like for the year following a Hiroshima'esque attack with the exact same death toll.

Re:Seriously?

[fractoid]

It is a certainty that any well-funded terrorist group will eventually have access to nuclear-scale weapons, and probably in the next hundred years. We need to fix the social problems that cause terrorism before that happens. In real terms, that involves raising the level of education and the quality of life in all parts of the globe to the point where there are no large groups of people who are still so poor that they have nothing to lose, or so ignorant that they have nothing to believe in beyond what their local preacher tells them.

Iraq didn't have WMDs because it didn't want them. A country is a large, stationary target that can't afford to risk playing dirty. What we should be afraid of are small groups with no allegiance to anything except their crackpot holy war (witness Hezbollah and their use of Lebanese civilians as human shields - they're the military equivalent of a guy who straps a playgroup full of 2-year-olds to himself before going on a shooting rampage, and then blames the police for any harm that comes to them).

Re:Seriously?

[ScrewMaster]

That is the stupidest thing I think I have ever heard.

You must be new to Slashdot. Believe me, that was far from the stupidest thing I've read around here.

Re:Seriously?

[ximenes]

I think it's conceivable that the world's population could have its quality of life raised across the board so that there are not people living in abject poverty who are literally starving to death, although it would be quite difficult and especially problematic to do so without causing the abject poor and working poor to effectively combine (meaning a reduction in quality of life for those presently at the low end of the scale but above the very bottom).

However, raising the quality of life so that literally no one has anything to lose (as you put it) doesn't seem practical. If everyone is a millionaire, then that will be the new poverty as the value of things will adjust accordingly based on their scarcity as already happens.

Put another way, someone will always have more than you in one way or another. More possessions, more political power, more social influence. If you feel that this is unbearable (as in someone who is legally permitted to obtain an abortion) or that you have no power to change this within the system (as with a tyrant suppressing political freedom) then people of a particular disposition will gravitate towards terrorism as a means to achieve their goals. Not to mention those who possess a strong enough dislike for another group of people based on religion, ethnicity, or other factors that their mere existence is offensive to you, which is even more difficult to solve as there is no middle ground.

Re:Seriously?

[Vellmont]

It is a certainty that any well-funded terrorist group will eventually have access to nuclear-scale weapons, and probably in the next hundred years.

WTF? Are you actually SERIOUS? Plutonium isn't exactly available at Wal-Mart. Nuclear weapons are inherently difficult weapons to create, and to even dream of doing to you need to the fissile material, which is even harder to obtain.

How anyone modded this up is beyond me.

Re:Seriously?

[totally bogus dude]

Aren't the "typical" terrorists/extremists, particularly the ones who get into a position to be able to launch an attack on foreign soil, highly educated, and reasonably well off? I don't think the stereotype of "they only do it because they're so ignorant they believe in sky faeries" really holds water. While I agree somewhat that the West should be doing more to make the less fortunate parts of the world hate us left, I don't think this is a problem that can be solved simply by changing conditions.

There will always be people who are willing to use violence to benefit themselves, and there will probably always be ways to profit from violence; whether that's materially or simply the joy of being surrounded by sycophants. And there will probably always be people who simply cannot tolerate the existence of certain other people. I mean, most Western nations are well educated and have national policies of inclusion and anti-xenophobia -- but still there's rampant racism and classism, and no shortage of people who fall for scams and join cults and so on.

Re:Seriously?

[snowgirl]

but not at one time.. Cancer kill thousands of people, but if you kill 20 at one time.. the news will not shut up..

or maybe this logic should be carried on, well your honor, I only killed 1 person, the Flu kills more than that, so why should I serve anytime?

The argument is not that we should ignore terrorism, but rather put it in perspective. A slow trickle of water from a leaky faucet over time will make you lose more money in wasted water than drafting a whole bath and then not using it at all.

It's all about getting PRIORITIES straight.

A better question based off what you proposed is to ask why the government spent more catching me as a murderer of one person, than it did curing the flu.

Re:Seriously?

[HeronBlademaster]

In some cases, yes, but you cannot deny that hate is taught by religion.

I certainly agree that some religions do teach hate, but Christ's teachings (for example) have never supported hate nor violence. (I'm not saying the Catholic Church never supported violence; that's an entirely separate issue.)

Not to mention, a lot of these terrorists are mentally ill bottom feeders who are being used by the religious elites to bomb their targets.

If you replace "elites" with "extremists", then I'd agree with you... But then, extremists have never been an accurate representation of the group they claim to belong to, by definition.

Few religions have any tolerance for gays, different religious people, atheists, women who want equality, etc.

You're conflating the ideas of "tolerance" and "acceptance". A group need not accept $BEHAVIOR among its members in order to tolerate that behavior in others.

Few religions advocate violence against those who hold different beliefs.

Re:Seriously?

[williamhb]

If the fictional nuke wielding terrorists managed to set one off every four years and kill as many people as died at Hiroshima, they'd kill about as many people as die from motor vehicle accidents in the US in the same time period.

Deaths through medical error are the equivalent of a fully laden 747 crashing every week (see the human factors in healthcare literature), but that is not considered a reason to be more lax with aeroplane maintenance...

Re:Seriously?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I would be more amenable to the "macho" argument

So, in your mind, being less worried about dying in a terrorist attack than you are worried about the 10000x more likely death in a car accident is being "macho?"

if the governments of the world, particularly those in Europe, would put aside their reluctance to admit that we have a problem with militant Islam and start killing the terrorists

Oh, whatever you do, don't throw me in the briar patch!

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's some perspective for you,

In the US less then 3000 people have been killed by terrorism in the last 10 years. More then 40,000 people are killed each year in motor vehicle accidents.

How many car accidents leave nuclear fallout and potentially render large areas verbotten?

Re:Seriously?

[fractoid]

Aren't the "typical" terrorists/extremists, particularly the ones who get into a position to be able to launch an attack on foreign soil, highly educated, and reasonably well off? I don't think the stereotype of "they only do it because they're so ignorant they believe in sky faeries" really holds water.

You make a good point. The typical third-world suicide bombings are carried out by poor, desperate people but as you say, the high profile, effective attacks on first world countries are not. They're carried out by people who are highly educated, intelligent, and wealthy... but who still somehow believe in vengeful sky faeries, at least to the point of claiming them as motivation.

I propose that it is the sky faeries that we really have to fear, so long as people believe in them.

Re:Seriously?

[Leebert]

Sure - we see more attacks.

Really? I honestly don't think I see more terrorist attacks today than prior to 9/11. Don't forget Oklahoma City, the first WTC bombing, the Unabomber, etc. etc. Terrorist attacks are a fact of life, and are most certainly not limited to attacks on aircraft.

What I *do* see is a lot of mis-characterized "terrorist" attacks around the globe. An IED blows up a humvee in Iraq? Terrorist! (No, it's a military strike.)

Re:Seriously?

[Surt]

Nuclear scale weapons. Creating deadly plagues requires comparably cheap biolab equipment, and are really hard to detect crossing borders. It will be within the price range of a terrorist organization in 20 years to create something as deadly as ebola with the contagiousness of the swine flu.

Re:Seriously?

[Zerth]

I'd be more afraid of a cargo ship full of conventional explosives sailing into NY harbor than a nuke in NYC. Simply more feasible.

Re:Seriously?

[jcr]

Yeah, because Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot were such religious men.

They were, actually. They worshipped themselves. With the utmost devotion.

-jcr

Re:Seriously?

[Kreigaffe]

Yeah uh we already do that. VOLUNTEER army. He wasn't drafted, he SIGNED UP for that shit. He didn't snap because he was being forced to fight Muslims (he was a damn shrink, not a grunt), he snapped because he was CRAZY.

Draw correlations between his religion and being crazy at your own peril..

Re:Seriously?

[Wrath0fb0b]

In real terms, that involves raising the level of education and the quality of life in all parts of the globe to the point where there are no large groups of people who are still so poor that they have nothing to lose, or so ignorant that they have nothing to believe in beyond what their local preacher tells them.

It's hard to square this advice with the fact that most terrorists are college-educated. Bin laden was an engineer from a wealth family, Mohamed Atta had a PHD in urban engineering, KSM has a degree in mechanical engineering, Ayman al-Zawahiri was a surgeon from a wealthy family, Abdulmutallab was a mechanical engineer from a very wealthy family. The Israelis have had the same experience with the PLO & Hamas -- the more educated and affluent tend to be over-represented, especially engineers and doctors (this was discussed on /. a little while ago). When in the Global Attitudes Project, respondents who were more educated or higher income were more likely to say that suicide bombings carried out against Westerners were justified.

Even more bizarrely, most terrorists come from the wealthier nations in the area, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, despite the fact that they enjoy a much higher per-capita GDP, standard of living and education systems than places like Somalia, Sudan or Indonesia. The better their lives, the more they seem to gravitate towards violent extremism. There are a number of plausible explanations for this, my favorite is that military/political influence is luxury good and those that are in abject poverty are effectively apolitical since they have no labor to spare from making ends meet. There is also the point that since terrorist networks are fragile they must only recruit the most competent and self-sufficient.

None of this is to say that we shouldn't promote education and economic growth as worth goals, but the idea that terrorism is born from a lack of opportunity is plainly in conflict with the facts. Terrorists tend to be educated (quite often Western-educated which not a good mark on our schools) and more wealthy than then unwashed, apolitical, masses in the third world.

See, e.g:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Terrorist-Economics-Terrorism/dp/0691134383
http://www.krueger.princeton.edu/terrorism2.pdf (PDF)

Re:Seriously?

[Kjella]

I would be more amenable to the "macho" argument if the governments of the world, particularly those in Europe, would put aside their reluctance to admit that we have a problem with militant Islam and start killing the terrorists instead of wasting their time on fruitless diplomatic endeavors that simply embolden terrorists everywhere by demonstrating weakness and impotence.

I think most of them are well aware there is a problem with militant Islam. The question is if trying to "kill the terrorists" will work and the experience from IRA, ETA and several other european terror organizations is that it won't. Terrorists don't act like a militia or a guerrilla, they blend into the civil population too well. Going in heavy-handed and trigger-happy will mean a harassed population, huge civilian losses and huge public backlash that'll fuel the terrorists, If you can't be accurate enough, it'll only make the problem worse and worse until muslims and christians in general are at arms.

There is, according to wikipedia, about 1,570,000,000 muslims in the world. Honestly, 99.99% of those couldn't give a shit if there's other people who live as Christians. Militant islamists won't stop no matter what we say. But they might stop if other muslims said "WTF are you doing? Are you crazy? Stop that shit." and I dont think it would be possible to win against the terrorists unless the average muslim will help us in any case. Either there'll then be an internal feud and the muslims will weed them out on their own, or in worst case the militants will win but even then I think a post-WWIII where they can look at the militants the way germans today look at nazis is better than a christian-led escalation of the conflict.

Re:Seriously?

[pipedwho]

Probably because they have been shown enormous injustices that are regularly committed around the world - and then convinced that the 'right thing to do' is die for the cause to heroically stand against this 'evil'.

At that point, the 'evil' is whoever they are most convinced it is.

It is much harder to rally people to a cause, when the underlying premise is weak or unemotional.

Re:Seriously?

[fractoid]

Karma be damned, any organisation or group that advocates violence against another group, or converting others by violence, is a "social problem". You want the "PC bullshit gloss" removed? How about "militant religious groups are cancers in our global society and no-one on earth is safe until the scourge of fanaticism is erased".

Goddamn invisible sky faeries.

Re:Seriously?

[sjmacko29]

This is the best grammar nazi post I have seen on Slashdot in a long time... Sadly, it will not be understood by many...

Re:Seriously?

[hairyfeet]

I agree completely, which is why I HATE the political PC "be nice to Islam" BS. Have you ever seen the shit they are teaching their kids? Look up "Palestinian Mickey Mouse" to see a cutesy cartoon character that teaches kids to pick up AK47s and when the show was canceled they had a little "memorial" for the now martyred mouse who "died fighting those evil jews" in a suicide attack. WTF? Or check out some of the "happy songs" that mosques in places like Pakistan teach little five and six year old kids. One of them I saw had this little line sung by happy smiling kids "I'm gonna get to Allah with the heads of Jews and Christians on my belt!" Again WTF?

So I'm sorry, but until the vast majority of Muslims speak out against such evil shit and the spewing of such hate then they deserved to be treated like the dangerous cult that they are. NO other mainstream religion allows such mainstream spewing of hatred to even the youngest minds with nary a squeak of protest. Frankly this PC bullshit where we have to pretend that there is NO difference between the other religions and Islam is frankly globalist insanity and needs to be fought on every front. There IS a BIG fucking difference between Islam and the other religions: full stop. The other religions have accepted the right of non-believers to exist and have marginalized those that spew hatred and advocate violence. Islam? Not so much, in fact not at all.

So I'm sorry, but until they learn to play nice and not treat those that don't bow before their God as infidels unworthy of life they should ALL be treated as members of a dangerous cult. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, and refusing to speak out against the hatred being spewed by Islam because it isn't "PC" is not only bullshit, it is dangerous and foolish.

WTF?!

[wisesifu]

WTF?!

Re:WTF?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sums it up really.

Send the police to jail

[mbone]

Seriously. This could get someone killed. Someone needs to be punished for this.

(Assuming, of course, that this report is true.)

Re:Send the police to jail

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Really? In the shoot-first-ask-questions-later world of "fighting terrorism," you ask how planting explosives on somebody in an airport without their knowledge could get them killed?

Re:Send the police to jail

[jameskojiro]

When someone gets guns pointed at them for carrying "bomb laden" luggage the person who thinks his luggage is clean stands there in disbelief as they demand he gets on the floor and he is so stunned that he doesn't go down and gets mowed down on concourse B by over eager TSA agents....

Re:Send the police to jail

[nedlohs]

Trigger happy SWAT at the other end combined with a confused and scared luggage owner.

Re:Send the police to jail

[Anonymous Coward]

Any citation for your claim? (Sorry to sound like Wiki.)

Re:Send the police to jail

[Anonymous Coward]

^^^^ This.

Slovaks told the Irish police about the explosives in the man's luggage. Slovaks didn't tell the Irish how it got there until after the Irish had raided the man's apartment and recovered the explosives.

Re:Send the police to jail

[QuantumG]

You know what would be awesome? If that happened.

Obviously for the victim or his family it would be terrible, but once the scandal broke that the explosives had been planted on him by operatives there would no longer be any armed thugs in airports around the world, and we'd all be treated with a little more respect. Here's hoping that Slovakia's little experiment has a similar effect.

Re:Send the police to jail

[Reservoir Penguin]

What next? Plant some heroin on unsuspecting passengers and send them to Turkey?

Hopefully something changes

[lendacon]

This country is going to hell, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Police planting exposives in your baggage ? (WTF ? )

Re:Why?

[Jarik C-Bol]

in other news, we know know that RDX can get through airport security. No wonder a guy managed to get a crotch-bomb onto a plane during christmas.

Multilayer WTF?

[Opportunist]

1. WTF: No theat to passengers? At the very least 8 passengers were put into serious danger, considering the trigger-happyness of some guards. Your bags get opened, they find explosives, now don't twitch the wrong way or else...

2. WTF: What about the whole security theater we have to endure? The whole privacy invasion and they can't even find effing explosives? Just do away with the whole crap and be done with it, at least the planes will go on time again that way. Because that showed one thing: If you want to blow up a plane, you can. You just might have to send a few guys, one of them will make it. And that's pretty much all you need. After all, as a terrorist you don't really care about picking a special target plane. Any will do to cause fear.

But I'm sure we'll soon get info how the whole thing works like a charm, after all 7 out of 8 bombs would have been detected...

Re:Multilayer WTF?

[Opportunist]

Does it matter? Imagine I'm a terrorist and want to blow up a plane. Do I take my explosives with me? Hell no. Instead, I'll seed a few other travelers. For multiple reasons:

1) The obvious one you mention, I might act suspicious because I know I will suicidally blow up the plane. They will probably search me throughly because I'm nervous. They won't search some random travellers.

2) They might find one or two of my explosives. By spreading them over a number of people I increase my chance to get the items on the plane.

The test is valid. What matters is that these things are on the plane. You might remember that the 9/11 attackers didn't bring their weapons on board themselves either.

Re:Multilayer WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than trigger happy TSA/border patrol guards. Even assuming it was a high yield explosive that requires blasting caps or even a mid-yield device to detonate it...thus making it materially safe.

Assume for a moment that there's paranoid individuals in the world.

That they're afraid "the government" is out to get them.

That they're stopped at an airport, and see a guard pull several ounces of something that positively tests as explosive out of their bag. That they've heard of Guantanimo, and have been investigated by very angry FBI or government agents at other points in their past. Heck, I've got a file on me for making a particular police report once.

Eeven TSA investigators (WHY are they armed?) took flack in the news recently after documents were published. And now the bag that our hypothetical paranoid has painstakingly packed, agonized over packing nothing that could ever harm them--kept carefully on their person to the best of their ability is separated from them for a "search"--and some spook slips a couple grams of explosive into it--but *NOT* a bomb. And of course--they're caught with it later.

A very..reasonable minded individual might decide that it's preferable to kill their way out of such a scenario, or die trying--taking anyone they had to out with them--rather than risk spending the rest of their life in Guantanimo as a frameup victim that would never be granted a trial or have an opportunity to be proven innocent. A reasonable individual might conclude--if the rest of their life is forfeit--they may as well try to take the perpetrator with them.

Readers may disagree that such an action is "reasonable"--but I assure you--it would be entirely rational under the pure panic that would likely ensue for some individuals--given only the primal fear of being waterboarded and force fed at Gitmo.

This action is atrocious--not just for the risk to individuals--but for the callous, reckless manner in which it jeopardized those about them. Otherwise sane people can do very nasty things when they think the rest of their (soon to be very painful and agonizing) life is on the line.

Re:Multilayer WTF?

[denobug]

What is scary and get people upset is the fact that we are risking innocent bystanders who have no clue what to do. I'm sure the Slovakian government didn't leave a note in the explosives to tell someone the full story and that this poor guy is not involved. I'm not even sure if it would have made him looked even guiltier with that.

Quite frankly the thoughs of this could possibly happen to my parents who doesn't speak proper English to defend themselves just makes me livid.

Re:More proof

[jameskojiro]

Pshaw, if it was engineered it was "engineered by incompetence" much like any other massively bloated software development effort....

The only conspiracy in 9/11 besides the Islamic Radical one to fly buildings into planes was a "Conspiracy of Incompetence" amongst the many federal agencies that could have done something to prevent it. Most all the hijackers wre here on EXPIRED VISAS. Where the hell was ICE on enforcing this? Instead of creating the "Department of Homeland Insecurity" they should have fired and removed the pensions of those who ignored the warnings of those below them and promote those who were warning their superiors to the jobs of those fired. Fire the incompetent boobs that let it happen and blacklist them from ever getting another government job again in their lives.

After 9/11 there should have been several hundred people in the CIA and FBI walking out of the government buildinds with their possessions in boxes and their resumes on monster.

Lucky they landed in Ireland and not the US.

[Dr. Spork]

I really wonder what American authorities would have done! This stunt is so crazy that I almost can't believe it's real.

Smoke test

[Anonymous Coward]

It's horrible for the arrested man, but part of me wants to applaud the Slovakian police. These guys aren't pussyfooting around, and did a real blind security test. This probably exposes how the security works on an average day, rather than when screeners suspect a test of the system.

Re:Smoke test

[Anonymous Coward]

Going through the security themselves with the explosives would be laudable.

Finding willing accomplices who knew the risks would also be fine.

Causing random people to get cavity searched and locked up is just psychotic.

Re:Smoke test

[cyphercell]

you're a fucking idiot. If this had been impressive we wouldn't have heard about it. Furthermore, if this was blind why the hell was the plane allowed to leave after explosives had been found. This was a total fuck up. The whole goddamn thing just sounds like bravado masquerading as competence, with explosives. Hell, I think everyone that gets off a plane from slovakia should be suspect now, after all, we KNOW they will let the planes go after explosives are found.

Re:More proof

[Sechr Nibw]

The only conspiracy in 9/11 .... here on EXPIRED VISAS. Where the hell was ICE on enforcing this?

ICE? Seriously? Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, that was formed in March of 2003? Yeah, they f'd up big by not preventing 9/11 in...2001.

Why "unbelieveably"?

[John Hasler]

We all know that the "security" is crap (and now we have more evidence that those enforcing it are loons).

Re:WHY does this NEVER hapen to me?

[numo]

Good luck sueing the slovak police... there were cases were real harm was done and it took years to sort it out, sometimes at the european level (I am a Slovak living in Slovakia and following the local news).

Here it looks like the slovak police botched their job, but it took irish officers to make a royal mess of it ;)

The local media coverage (by any means _not_ government friendly) says that

1) the slovak authorities informed the pilot who was still waiting for takeoff and he decided that this is not a threat and continued the flight

2) the Dublin airport was informed during the flight. They later reported back that they did not find any explosive, but the officer informed his boss two days (!) later, triggering the a bit chaotic operation.

From the information circulating I tend to believe that the Dublin airport was sitting on the failed catching of the "parcel" for two days and is doing damage control now.

Why is not catching these surprising?

[Locke2005]

My mother managed to smuggle a pen knife on board an airplane in her makeup case. My sister had a knife on the OUTSIDE of her backpack; the supervisor made the screener run the backpack through twice because the screener didn't see it the first time! You try looking at thousands of x-rays a day and see how well you pay attention. Human monitors are inherently fallible; our best bet is automated chemical-sniffing technology that can easily be trained to look for new forms of explosives.

If you haven't done anything wrong...

[beej]

If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about!

Maybe NOW people will stop saying that. Probably still wishful thinking on my part, I admit.

Not necessarily Slovakian police

[a0schweitzer]

TFA makes no mention that the explosives were planted by Slovakian police, only that British police were informed by them. For all we know, the explosives were planted by baggage handlers. I have no idea how thoroughly baggage handlers are screened (both before each shift and before employment) in Slovakia.

Eh, not needed

[SmallFurryCreature]

Dogs are trained with the SCENT of the materials they are supposed to detect, not the actual materials. A rag exposed to the material is enough, and should be enough because if you claim the strength of the smell is important, then another layer of clothing will hide the smell.

So, this was just a really stupid stunt. What if someone had run in a panic during an arrest and been shot? If this story really is true (it seems idiotic) then the world would be wise to demand the execution of the people involved. It really is an amazingly bad move. Using random people as test subjects with life explosives on planes with no warning to other security forces to expect this.

Heads should definitly roll, in a very real sense.

Re:You mean the illegal immigrant?

[honkycat]

Get this and get this straight, using lethal force against someone because they're running away to evade arrest is not acceptable. Whether they're criminal or not is irrelevant.

Some crude stats on the terrorism threat to you

[GodfatherofSoul]

Based on my novice attempts at researching odds, I found you have about a 1/12,300 chance of being killed in a motor vehicle wreck each year and a 1/40,000,000 chance of having a terrorist bomber board your flight since 9/11 (United States only). I flew home on December 27th two days after the attempted bombing and I slept the entire way back.

If only

[BitHive]

Yes, if only there was some kind of "final solution" that could eliminate all the undesirable elements in society...

Be affraid....of whom?

[Dr La]

Seriously. This security scare has gotten to the point where you actually have more to fear, as an air passenger, of security forces than of actual terrorists....

And the latter are sitting back and laughing their arse off...

Re:Be affraid....of whom?

[DigitalSorceress]

Came here to say this.

In a nutshell, we've completely let the terrorists win.

A terrorist isn't specifically interested in killing the given 200 to 400 people on a plane or even the potential thousands of collateral victims. They're interested in scaring the shit out of millions of us and then sitting back while we do their work (terrorizing ourselves).

I'm not adverse to the act of flying, but I'll be damned if I'm going to subject myself to the insane security theater. If I can drive, take a bus, boat, or train or just do my business online, I will do so rather than put up with the hassle at this point.

That may be letting the bad guys win too. I dunno. I'm a lot more afraid of the very real danger that I'll be deprived of liberty/due process/several hours of my life by government and/or security people than I am of the very tiny one of being personally injured/killed by a terrorist attack. /end rant

Smart Idea, badly executed

[Virtucon]

I think it was a smart idea badly executed. If they planted explosives on unsuspecting passengers, the passengers could conduct themselves with a sense innocence. This would give human screening personnel a challenge in looking for suspicious behavior. Also the detection devices would get a thorough test based on finding the traces of those explosives.

Where they failed is that after the screening process they should have taken those passengers aside and explained what was going on and pulled the explosives back and to be honest they should have used something that simulated those explosives. They should have also not allowed any individuals to board flights with live explosives, risking further individuals as well as those carrying them.

As they say, you can't fix it unless you know what is broken.