Law enforcement and intelligence services are faced with a daunting task.
by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne
writing from Montreal
“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.” —David Levithan, Love is the Higher Law
On Saturday 20 June 2020 on a glorious sunny evening at around 7 P.M. a man in his twenties ran into a little park in Reading where people were relaxing, and fatally stabbed three, seriously injuring three others. This dastardly attack shocked the peaceful community of Reading, while counter terrorism intelligence called the vile onslaught a terrorist attack. An expert giving his comments to the BBC opined that since London was well protected, terrorist activities will spill over to areas away from the capital. This is called the Displacement Theory, where terrorists seek soft targets when more attractive targets become impenetrable.
Arguably, the best example of the Displacement Theory comes from air transport and the throwback of the unforgettable and unforgivable attacks perpetrated on the United States on 11 September 2001 when thousands of harmless people were killed by terrorists using aircraft as weapons of mass destruction.
The Displacement Theory suggests that removing opportunity for crime or seeking to prevent a crime by changing the situation in which it occurs does not actually prevent crime but merely moves it around. There are five main ways in which this theory suggests crime is moved around: crime can be moved from one location to another (geographical displacement); crime can be moved from one time to another (temporal displacement); crime can be directed away from one target to another (target displacement); one method of committing crime can be substituted for another (tactical displacement); and one kind of crime can be substituted for another (crime type displacement).
It is a platitude to say that ensuring or managing security threats is a largely reactive process. It will be recalled that after the spate of hijackings in the late sixties and seventies, States rushed to install detectors with X-Ray capability at the entrance to the aircraft gate. After the 9/11 attacks While the United States toughened screening measures on US bound flights, particularly with regard to passengers arriving from 14 targeted nations , airports in the United Kingdom began the use of full body scanners at both Heathrow and Manchester airports . After the underwear bomber’s failed attempt on Christmas day 2009, in Canada, Rob Merrifield, Minister of State for Transport is reported to have stated that 44 scanners have been ordered to be used on passengers selected for secondary screening at Canadian airports. The machines, which can scan through clothing, were installed in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifa . This measure was partly because the Christmas day incident was later classified as having occurred due to a serious lapse in security. Then, as the displacement theory demonstrated, terrorists moved their attention towards attacking airports, which prompted States to install screening equipment at centralized points in the terminal itself. In similar vein, in the aftermath of the attempted bombing of an aircraft on 25 December 2009 by a person who is alleged to have carried explosives in his undergarments, some States began to look seriously into tightening airport security, particularly through a more stringent body scanning process.
In response to the attempted sabotage of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on 25 December 2009 , The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) used the aviation security (AVSEC) Point of Contact (PoC) Network to communicate information and recommendations to participating States, numbering 99 as of 31 May 2010. States were encouraged to conduct risk assessments and implement appropriate screening measures in light of the incident, and were reminded of the need for cooperation in all matters related to aviation security. The twenty-first meeting of the AVSEC Panel was held at ICAO Headquarters from 22 to 26 March 2010. The Panel considered the threat and risk environment in light of the attempted sabotage of 25 December 2009 and issued a number of recommendations. Provisions in Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention on Security were updated and strengthened, and became applicable in 2011, following formal consultation with Member States and approval by the Council.
Stringent measures were taken in response to the attacks of 2001 such as the strengthening of cockpit doors and the introduction of full body scanners. Full body scanners, costing about $ 250,000 each and claimed by some security experts as an effective tool in detecting hidden explosives, show the contours of the human body as well as body parts in some detail, prompting some to question the legality and ethical justification of their use. In the United States, passengers handpicked for a full-body scan can opt out of the screening, but if they did, they were subject to full-body pat-downs by an officer of the Transport Security Administration (TSA The toughening of security measures effectively precluded any further attacks on aviation as has been shown by the total absence of attacks against aviation over the past several years. However, the terrorist found an alternative target in attacking airport premises.
It was reported that in the morning of 22 March 2016, three coordinated suicide bombings were carried out in Belgium: two at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and one at Maalbeek metro station in central Brussels. Thirty-two civilians and three perpetrators lost their lives and more than 300 people were left injured. Another bomb was found during a search of the airport. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Admittedly, guarding airports and aircraft against terrorist attacks are easier as they are localized targets. It is that much more difficult to ensure that every park and public highway or street is secured. The answer could lie in public vigilance and intelligence. As for the latter, the use of artificial intelligence and profiling could help. In an article in the New Yorker by Mattathias Schwartz on January 19, 2015 it is said: “[A]lmost every major terrorist attack on Western soil in the past fifteen years has been committed by people who were already known to law enforcement. One of the gunmen in the attack on Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, had been sent to prison for recruiting jihadist fighters. The other had reportedly studied in Yemen with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, who was arrested and interrogated by the F.B.I. in 2009. The leader of the 7/7 London suicide bombings, in 2005, had been observed by British intelligence meeting with a suspected terrorist, though MI5 later said that the bombers were “not on our radar. The men who planned the Mumbai attacks, in 2008, were under electronic surveillance by the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, and one had been an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. One of the brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon was the subject of an F.B.I. threat assessment and a warning from Russian intelligence. In each of these cases, the authorities were not wanting for data. What they failed to do was appreciate the significance of the data they already had. Nevertheless, since 9/11, the National Security Agency has sought to acquire every possible scrap of digital information”.
Law enforcement and intelligence services are faced with a daunting task. One is not made aware of the numerous potential attacks these authorities have thwarted. For that we must be grateful but must also be aware of the dangers posed by the Displacement Theory.
The author was awarded a doctorate by McGill University in 1996 for his thesis on aviation security law and the displacement theory inter alia. He is the author of Aviation Security Law (Springer)and Aviation Security: Legal and Regulatory Aspects (Ashgate).
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