"Nonetheless, as economist Kip Viscusi argues in a recent article, the public appears to place a greater premium on preventing deaths by terrorism than some other possible dangers (such as natural disasters). "

This is a pretty well-established fact - you can also find studies on how people perceive the risk of certain jobs and get that very wrong as well. Although these studies are not entirely original in their findings, it does some good to try to cause people to recognize that their instinctive views on risk just might be wrong.

Worse, the politicians know better, and they still play up to it. They don't care what the right policy decision is as much as making sure that their words (and actions, when that is possible in Congress) sound good to their unknowning constitutents.

In re. to Jason Sigger and more distantly to Mr. Viscusi, I recall from Hoffman's Inside Terrorism a mention of a sudden drop in Americans flying after a flight to Greece was hijacked despite the improbable nature that their own plane would suffer the same. Humans aren't very logical, I think that this has been established.

On the article itself, accepting that we are vulnerable probably isn't something that an American can do. When you look at the history of the U.S you note that it has a great lack of recent invasions or occupations, which makes the reactions to terrorism that much greater.

is the right person to draw upon. We have more control over who boards planes than over whether a natural disaster hits. And a terrorist attack on airlines could once more have an adverse effect, to say the least, on air travel, which impacts commerce, etc., etc. So I get to ask the perfect question for Steve Walt's blog: should the US embrace the more efficient El Al model? El Al's model may not be scalable for a country of 300 million, but it perhaps asking.

One is unfamiliar with El Al procedures, but one knows that many countries have already and since a very long time, entrusted the security of their airports to special commando units, and actually fly armed commando personnel; albeit in civilian clothes, on their national carriers.

Still, there is no watertight solution, because as the saying goes; the terrorist has to be successful once, while counter-terrorism has to be successful all the time. In addition, the a-symmetry in counter-terrorism warfare, extend to the field of finance, as the methods to fight terror become more expensive by the day, the impliments of terror are becoming exceedigly cheaper by the day.
khairi janbek.paris/france

While there is certainly no such thing as perfect security, there are some tangible things that the U.S. Government can do to make sure something like this does not happen again...or at least make a similar terrorist operation more difficult for the perpetrator.

First of all, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrrorism Center can get rid of some of the lists that are only doing nothing confusing intelligence officials in their work. Currently, Washington has four lists of terror suspects that it relies upon.

First and foremost, there is a general terror database (called TIDE) that has about 500,000 names. Individuals on this list are not flagged per-say, but they are regarded as suspicious characters by intelligence agents both in the United States and throughout the rest of the world.

Secondly, if there is ample reason to believe that an individual poses a moderate risk, he or she is placed on another list controlled by the Terrorist Screening Center. People listed here are required to go through extra security precautions in airports across the country (and the world). According to the U.S. Government, there are around 13,000 members that comprise this list.

The no-fly list only comes into consideration if there is concrete evidence that an individual has terrorist connections. In fact, this is why Abdulmutallab was not flagged during his flight to Detroit.

If you are reading this and thinking, "wow, why all the lists and why all the names," your not the only one. There is simply way to much bureaucracy embedded within the U.S. security establishment. It is as if the United States has learned nothing since the confusion and malaise of the September 11 attacks, One of the reasons why Washington was ill-prepared on that devastating day was because of a less-than transparent system of security.

Why not get rid of a few names? And no, I am not talking about people that are suspected of having ties to AQ or Islamic fundamentalism. I am talking about people who belong to organizations that have no relevance whatsoever in the 21st century.

Members of the Irish Republican Army are still included in the TIDE list; an organization that the U.S. Government does not even regard as a designated terrorist group. Is it really imperative to include groups that were once violent decades ago, but who now resort to peaceful means to address their concerns?

A simple solution for a complex problem.

http://depetris.wordpress.com

profs walt and viscusi and Jason are right on in their identification of the problem. It also goes back to politics and the cable new cycle. politicians jump on any chance they can get to talk about defending the country against evil threats and the news media latches onto any minor story and adds graphic images, expert analysis etc and drills it into the american public for days straight. result: politicians win political points and cable gets good ratings.

the psychology involved here is a large part of the reason we can't cut our defense budget easily (no one wants to be seen not being 'strong on defense')

It is sad.