Individually screen airplane passengers

I listen to Mike Huckabee on Fox every Saturday and Sunday evening. He had a most interesting guest on his show recently: Isaac Yeffet, the former security director of El Al Airline in Israel.

One airline that keeps dangerous people off its planes is El Al. The “Detroit bomber” never would have gotten on its plane because its security interviews every passenger. He came with a one-way ticket, paid $3,000 cash, had no luggage. He was giving all of the suspicious signs that were telling them, “Hey, hold me.” Israel hires only qualified people who are very well educated and they train them very well. They have on-the-job training for weeks, they are tested non-stop. Anyone who fails is told to go home.

We Americans don't want to be proactive; we are just reactive. The Israelis don't rely only on technology and, I repeat, they interview every passenger. This gentleman said, regarding Lockerbee: “No security”; regarding 9/11: “nothing learned”; regarding the shoe bomber “we learned just to check everyone's shoes.” “Now our solution is we want to see them naked,” he said. We should be dealing with people, not processes. Our processes seem to be the problem.

He offered to help us. We didn't accept.

Americans deserve and expect a system to be put in place. We don't have a system. Seventy-one percent of Americans would like to profile - carefully examine everyone to see if they should be “flying on the plane with me.” We need to wake up.

Jeanne Carter

Cedar Rapids