Where are we safer?

In his superficial article, Prof. Dave Logan insists that there is something inherently wrong with the "culture" of US transportation security systems.

After having traveled to Chicago for Christmas, I can say that I have had my fair share of dealing with airport security on both sides of the Atlantic. Thanks to Mr. Exploding Underpants, I thought it would be like post-9/11 travel all over again at the international airports: suspicion, mistrust, racial profiling, and long, long, long lines at security scanners.

But this time, I guess we were lucky. Upon arriving at O'Hare Int. Airport, the longest line we faced was at the check-in counter (we flew Alitalia) and not at the security scanner. Once we did finally check-in, we waited about 20-25 minutes to then be diverted to the "Business/First Class" line (I had no idea this existed). My husband and I were thrilled, looking at ourselves like 'are we in the right line'. Then when trying to be super-cooperative, we felt a little abrasiveness by the people who were conducting the security check- one was obviously tired and quickly frisked me letting me go even though I beeped. Her colleague was staring vacantly into space not addressing my need for more plastic trays to put all our carry on stuff in. And the guy from Homeland Security who checked our passports and boarding passes took his sweet time but seemed so tired and had such a blank, glassy stare he made me wonder if he actually was all that coherent. These security workers must not only be overworked due to cutbacks but must also be a little upset that they have to work twice as hard now that the security level was raised to orange.

According to Logan, I guess these people have a "my life stinks" attitude or 'culture' as he would call it. They "plod along doing the minimum not to get fired." But whose responsibility is it anyway? Well Obama, the righteous guy that he is, has stepped up and taken all of the blame- even though it is not completely his responsibility. I do think that Logan is right up to a certain point. But I do not think simple generalizations about organizational failure help solve the problem. I think Obama's plan to fix the intelligence system is a step in the right direction because it is grounded in communication with other governments and using more human resources. More importantly, we need to examine not only our 'culture' on how things get done but more specifically we must change our attitude or disposition in how we perform our social duties and approach public arenas of interaction- from airports to the workplace.

It's all in the attitude. But is that something that can be detected with a heat-sensitive body scanner?