Lessons from New York

Thursday, May 6, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

On Saturday a few street vendors in New York City’s Times Square noticed smoke filling an idling 1993 Nissan Pathfinder. They alerted a police officer, and it was quickly determined that the Pathfinder was loaded with explosives and set to detonate. That set off a massive law enforcement effort: Police quickly cleared the area, a bomb squad worked to handle the vehicle and local and federal investigators spent the next few days searching for a suspect.

Monday night, just before midnight, law enforcement officials had a suspect — Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen — in custody, and he is now facing terrorism charges. Officials boasted about the fast turnaround time — 53 hours — from incident to arrest.

The attempted attack provides a snapshot of how the nation is handling terrorism. The response was largely good. Investigators quickly identified a suspect and made an arrest, a product of cooperation between local and federal law enforcement officials. The nation has also used its international ties, and authorities in Pakistan have arrested other suspects.

However, many anti-terrorism experts say Shahzad wasn’t the smartest suspect, noting any number of his failures, like the design of his bomb. As well, there were problems with the investigation.

An FBI surveillance team, for example, lost Shahzad, who was able to drive from Connecticut to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, use cash to buy a ticket to Pakistan and board the flight. He never should have made it on the plane in the first place.

The Department of Homeland Security put Shahzad’s name on the no-fly list and sent an alert to airlines telling them to check it. Shahzad was added to the list seven hours before he bought the ticket, but the airline — Emirates — apparently failed to notice.

Minutes before the plane was scheduled to take off, Emirates sent its final passenger list to Customs and Border Protection, which flagged Shahzad’s name and grounded the flight.

“We got lucky,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Was America lucky? Certainly. The bomb didn’t go off. But it takes more than luck to protect the country.

The government is tightening procedures. Airlines were required to check the no-fly list every day. That has since been changed to every two hours. The Transportation Security Administration says later this year it will take responsibility from the airlines for checking flight manifests on international flights, as it already does on domestic flights.

The government should also require airlines to report suspicious cash payments immediately; they now only do so voluntarily. The New York Times reported that Emirates did report the transaction — hours after Shahzad was in custody.

As investigators continue to sort through the details, they will undoubtedly find more areas to improve. The nation certainly can do better. However, this case illustrates the difficult reality of terrorism: A free society is vulnerable to attack, no matter how good its defenses.