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HOME > PUBLICATIONS > Exclusive: Will Terrorists Be Allowed to Sidestep Security?

February 15, 2010

Exclusive: Will Terrorists Be Allowed to Sidestep Security?

Gadi Adelman

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Muslim-American groups are supporting a “fatwa” – a religious ruling – forbidding Muslims from going through body scanners at airports saying that the body scanners violate Islamic law. In a statement on February 9th, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) asked that scanner software be altered to produce only an outline of the body and urged Muslim travelers to avail themselves of alternative pat-down searches. (The term "fiqh" refers to Islamic jurisprudence.)
 
In a press release on February 10th, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) supported the statement. In the press release CAIR stated:
 
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women. Islam highly emphasizes ‘haya’ (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Qur’an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts. Human beings are urged to be modest in their dress. See Holy Quran, 7:26-27; 24:30-31; 33:59. Exception to this rule can be made in case of extreme necessity, such as medical treatment, to investigate a crime or in a situation of imminent danger. There must be a compelling case for the necessity and the exemption to this rule must be proportional to the demonstrated need.” 
 
Hmmm. Would the fact that 14,819 Islamic terrorist attacks have occurred since 9/11 not be a “situation of imminent danger” or a “compelling case” to have every Muslim subjected to body scanners? I don’t like the idea of body scanners either. Actually, I don’t know of even one individual who enjoys the thought of being seen naked by a total stranger (much less men during these past few cold winter months).
 
Personally, I would like to see the Israeli security method be implemented where no scanners are used. But given the fact that El-Al airlines spends over $97 million a year on security, with only 55 flights daily, I know that is just not feasible in a world that averages 81,000 flights per day.
 
In last week’s article, “Why is Our Government Hiding the Truth About Our Safety?”, I mentioned a report that the British MI5 had uncovered a plot by al Qaeda to surgically implant explosives inside suicide bombers. Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, warns “that the body-bombers pose a serious threat to security because they can circumvent current methods of detection.” Surgeons from the UK's National Health Service agree that plastic implants are "virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines." Given that fact, one could argue that body scanners just not be used at all. However, in what is an already flawed security system, the scanner would be another layer of protection that is quick and painless for the traveler and easy to use by security personnel. It is impossible to prevent every attack 100 percent of the time. For each new piece of technology that is introduced to keep us safe, our enemy works on another way to circumvent it. That is just reality and has been since the invention of the metal detector. Until we can improve on current technology, we should utilize every safety measure that we have in our arsenal.
 
Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of meeting a young man while he and I were both guests on a radio talk show. Andrew Bieszad is young man who has been studying Islam since the age of 14 and is currently finishing his MA in Islamic studies. He and I spoke of the issue of body scanners and he had this to say:
 
“From the Muslim religious perspective, clothing is a highly sensitive issue, especially for women. We must remember that in Islam, obedience to these commandments is a matter of divine salvation or condemnation. The person who refuses to submit to what Islam commands could be found guilty of rebellion against Allah, and that would mean severe punishment in this world under Islamic Sharia, and eternal damnation in the afterlife. Having said this, the Koran is explicitly clear that Muslim men and especially women are to cover themselves with clothing in varying degrees when in public. The requirements are more stringent for women, but the same divine praise or chastisement awaits all Muslims who follow or fail to follow Allah's commands in the Koran.
 
Therefore from an Islamic religious perspective, it's understandable why Muslims as a whole don't want to expose their bodies in any manner to even potentially be seen by others, since they could be seen as willfully participating in grave sin. It's also been documented that Muslims have used the respectable argument of religious exemption to repeatedly deceive our security safeguards in order to subvert our laws and society. This situation is further complicated because Islamic teachings permit and encourage Muslims to lie to non-Muslims (called taqiyya) if it involves furthering the Islamization of society as whole, which includes both terrorism and, more dangerously, the gradual institutionalization of Islamic law into our society.”
 
The way Mr. Bieszad explains it, one can understand from a “religious” perspective why Muslims do not want to under go scanning. However, his statement of how Muslims use the religious argument repeatedly to deceive our safeguards puts forth the question of do we allow religious freedom to supersede our safety? 
 
Regardless of one’s religious faith, what is stopping any person who wants to commit a terrorist act on an airplane from claiming to be a Muslim? Pat downs are not 100 percent effective. As anyone with any law enforcement experience will tell you, when dealing with a situation where an individual may be hiding something in his or her undergarments, the only way to be 100 percent sure is to do a full strip search – and we already know as stated by CAIR and other Muslim leaders “it is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women.”
 
So where does this leave us? The United States has a strong history of religious freedom and I can already hear the ACLU and other advocacy groups screaming about religious rights.  
 
Given the history of Islamic terror in the world, I have a problem of letting that same group use their religion as an excuse to avoid the very security procedures that were put into place because of them.
 
This is a fight about which we have not even heard the beginning, but knowing the history of the ACLU, CAIR, the American Islamic Congress, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and other organizations, it is bound to become a problem. 
 
I too have a religious dilemma in this argument. It is against my religion to commit suicide. But if I board a plane knowing that someone may be on the same flight without having gone through all the same security measures as myself, that is exactly what I am liable to be doing. 
 
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Gadi Adelman is a freelance writer and lecturer on the history of terrorism and counterterrorism. He grew up in Israel, studying terrorism and Islam for 35 years after surviving a terrorist bomb in Jerusalem in which 7 children were killed. Since returning to the U. S., Gadi teaches and lectures to law enforcement agencies as well as high schools and colleges. He is currently writing his first book, Terrorism; Understanding the Threat. He can be reached at antiterror@nc.rr.com.   

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  Comments (22)

Excellent article. I truly wish that more people would open their eyes and be more observant i.e. the government. As citizens we also have a duty to protect one another, instead of just relying on the idiots in Congress.

posted by: SK
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 06:59 AM

Absolutely not! If Muslims and followers of Islam do not wish to conform to the laws of the United States they can go elsewhere! Unlike Islamic countries, the U.S. is a country of laws.

posted by: Donald Titus
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 09:37 AM

If Muslims were responsible for but .0001% of terrorist acts, perhap they could get a pass. The fact is that 99.999% of terrorist acts are committed by Muslims worldwide. To ignore this reality shows that the country has no true interest in the safety of its citizens, but would rather have the country seen in a favorable eye worldwide. Personally, I don't give a ratz rear what the world thinks of us, so long as MY country is doing EVERYTHING possible to insure the safety of ME and MINE!
Presently, I feel very vulnerable and would not consider flying on any of the airlines that are under the protection of Homeland Security and Janet Incompetano.
Profiling is an ugly but necessary method of finding the uglies who would do us in.
Not no, but NO! regarding excusing Muslims from scanning and any other surveillance to protect me.

posted by: Frankie Cee
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 09:41 AM

They will probably be able to slide by this since we are now saddled with a Muslim president who cares not on iota about the safety of the people beneath him, as in the working people that pay taxes.

posted by: Phyllis
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 09:48 AM

It's easy - no submit to security - no fly!

And as an added sweetener, how about 3 refusals equals 1 arrest!

posted by: Alan
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:12 AM

Look, it is way overdue to rid ourselves of these touchy, feely, nit wit liberals that have invaded our government. These people are as much a threat to this country, if not more so, than the barbaric, pre-historic misfits we call Islamic Terrorist. We should allow our military to destroy every terrorist wherever they are in the world, like our military destroyed our enemies during WWI and WWII. Please, wake up "Silent Majority", and vote these idiots out of there political positions asap, before the damage they do will be irreversible to our country.

posted by: Joseph Durante
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:14 AM

Only IF they are barred from flying!

posted by: Nancy Wainwright
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:33 AM

The 9/11 killers should be facing a firing squad not T.V. camersa.

Obama and th Dems and got to move on from blaming everything on Bush.

posted by: Charles H. Bertram
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:47 AM

Definately not. As I recall it is because of radicalised muslim reactionaries that we are having to do this in the first place. I don't like it either but recognise why we have to do it.If law abiding Muslims do not like it they have two choices - don't fly or exert more pressure within the muslim community to discourage and expose the looney elements that lay within it so we can rid the world of these evil people once and for all.

posted by: malcolm cowing
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:52 AM

Very simple, no scan, no fly. Why in the world would we allow yet another privlege to the very people who are trying there hardest to kill us? Why not just load their weapons for them to?

posted by: Carolyn Frankel
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:58 AM

absolutely not! If the shoe was on the other foot Christians would not even be given consideration. Just keep all Muslims off Airplanes

posted by: Fred miller
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:18 AM

What a question!
Who caused the problems with flight security?

posted by: Henning Andersen
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:39 AM

I am a white guy, so I don't know about any fatwa on my end, I don't believe in these scanners. Scanners do NOT increase security, they in fact decrease it. When we rely on technology more than human intervention we lose the ability to see reality.

A full body scanner adds risk from radiation and back-scatter rays which actually affect your DNA. The full body scanners can still be defeated by many types of explosive compounds if in fact they are going to get into the plane in this way.

The "underwear bomber" never went through a scanner anyway. He was escorted directly through security by intelligence services abroad. There are so many news reports out about this now, I am not even sure why we will broadcast these fake notions that MORE security makes us more secure.

What we need is smarter TSA agents who can properly diagnose someones intent. We need to require all persons go through security, even those who have some kind of government immunity and "safe travelers".

Airport safety needs to be viewed as protecting the flight from problems, not checking to see who is "ok" to fly and who is a terrorist. I could care less if a terrorist gets on a flight, as long as they don't have something on them to hurt us.

Check out "underwear bomber sharp dressed man" on google, and "airport carnival booth".

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/terrorism_secur.html

posted by: Sean
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 12:30 AM

With the liberal, muslim, president and other morons in office, we're not safe from anyone; terrorists or our own ignorant government! If Obama's auntie can break the laws, out staying visa, free healthcare, govt. housing,ect..why should those who want to destroy us think they have to obey the law?

posted by: SMW
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 12:45 AM

My, how righteous they seem.

Until People of the Mosque will police themselves and control those among them - who are also seeming righteous - expose them all.

posted by: dennis
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 01:05 PM

I agree w/many of my above citizens - NO FLY! We don't have to accept any organization's protests - just don't let the offenders into the country - by any means, I might add. If they don't like that, then, too bad!

posted by: EMA
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 02:03 PM

Hey, let's be more than fair to the Muslims. Let them have their choice of either a body scan or a strip search. They can have their pick of which they want to do. If they don't agree to any of the two then they can walk to where they want to go!

posted by: Tommy Atkins
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 09:11 PM

I would think that all people should have to go through the security process if they want to fly(NO EXCEPTIONS) If you think muslims are peace loving in part you should read the koran and some of their other works.

posted by: Jim
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:13 PM

The obvious answer is "If you don't like our laws, why don't you go someplace where you do like the laws?" I've heard caves in Afghanistan are remarkably cheap, and the mountain views, breathtaking. The second answer would be to give any passenger who wanted one a hand pump spray bottle full of pig blood. The third and best answer would be to drill for our own oil and NG, so all the crazies that want to kill everybody won't be receiving any funding.
Ave atque Vale

posted by: Chuck Moody
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 02:02 AM

I'm in complete agreement with all of the above. Would a "burka" (full body cover )worn by female muslims be used by male muslims enabling them to bypass U.S. security ? Is it already done elsewhere?

posted by: barbara
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 05:56 AM

WHAT A STUPID QUESTION.NO SCAN-NO FLY
BETTER YET,NO ALLOWED INTO THE UNITED STATES, ANYTIME ANY WHERE

posted by: JOHN P BOSWELL
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 08:47 AM

Nobody should be forced to be body scanned if they don't want to, just as nobody should be forced to fly.

Anybody who wants to avoid a body scan is free to find other transportation options.

posted by: JohnConstitution
Friday, March 12, 2010 at 11:34 PM