No Where Is Safe: Does Airport Security Actually Help? (Assignment date: 6-29-16)

          During these troubled times, terrorists can strike anywhere, at any moment. One common type of facility in particular is a favorite target to attack: airports. In an article written in response to the terrorist attack at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul this past Tuesday, the author states how the attack shows that, "Subjecting passengers to more security before they board a plane doesn't necessarily deter terrorists." The author's main argument for this statement is that no matter how tight the security, terrorists will still launch an attack if they really want to, as evident in the Istanbul attack, where the security at Ataturk Airport is more extensive than in U.S. airports. While this may be partly true, these security measures most likely do deter a large portion of would-be attackers from opening fire in a heavily secured airport, since most would-be attackers are likely to not be smart enough to plan around the tight security. However, this enhanced security does relatively little to prevent an attack from prepared terrorists that have "done their homework", per se.
          The best solution is presented at the very end of the article by Professor Mark Stewart. He suggests that spying and intelligence work be conducted in order to prevent terrorist attacks before the terrorists even make it to the airports. Even though this is clearly the best and most reliable solution, it has also been proven to fail in the past in the prevention failure of terrorist attacks. A prime example of this is the Boston Bombings conducted by the Tsarnaev brothers in 2013. Evidence has been released to the public that the United States was warned of the pair by the Russian government in advance, but the government failed to take any preventative action, and lower levels of law enforcement also received no word of them at all. This inaction resulted in a bombing that rocked the nation. Unless the government could freely cooperate with lower levels of law enforcement to actually prevent terrorist attacks, or take action themselves, then the use of intelligence to foil terrorist attacks is null and void.

Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/01/world/airport-security-around-the-world.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0