The Obama administration and Congress should not overreact to the attempted attack on Northwest flight 253, and may find the best response is to invest in additional intelligence analysis rather than ordering the installation of expensive new screening devices, says a Duke University expert on homeland security.

"There is no silver-bullet screening device that will make air travel 100 percent secure," says David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Terrorists will react to every new security measure by finding other ways to hide weapons, switching to other vulnerable targets or using different methods of attack.

"It makes a great deal of sense to review the watch-listing procedures and examine the interconnectivity between our terrorism intelligence databases and the databases used for visa application review and aviation security."

Schanzer says ordering the installation of costly new screening devices throughout the country is another matter. Such a step should be taken only if it can be demonstrated that the reduction in risk would be worth the large expenditure of taxpayer dollars, additional delays and wait times at airports, and the diminution in privacy of air passengers, says Schanzer, an associate professor of the practice at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy.

According to Schanzer, "If the administration and Congress are willing to invest billions in additional funding for counterterrorism and homeland security in response to this incident, it may turn out that we can reduce the overall risk of a successful terrorist attack far more by investing in additional intelligence analysts, or consular officers in high-risk countries, than purchasing expensive new screening devices.

"Some investments in new screening devices may be worthwhile, but they should only be made after a careful review and in accordance with risk-management principles, not in a reactive response to a frightening, but thankfully unsuccessful, attack."

Schanzer has co-authored a report on risk management in homeland security for the IBM Center for the Business of Government. The report can be viewed at
http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/SchanzerdeRugyReport.pdf.