Did the system fail?
From what I understand, the system didn't fail. The system was never designed to catch someone carrying what this guy was carrying, despite Napoliatano's claims.
We may think we want the system to catch something like this, but if that means cavity searches for all and sniffing dogs whiffing every passenger, and taking X-rays or CAT scans to detect liquid explosives stored within someone's body, perhaps we have to re-evaluate.
(Perhaps this particular person should have been searched, as he was on a list of 550,000 people 'of interest', according to an NPR report this morning. But that just means those who are planning this sort of stuff choose their agent a bit more carefully, and hide the material a bit more cleverly)
We may think we want the system to catch something like this, but if that means cavity searches for all and sniffing dogs whiffing every passenger, and taking X-rays or CAT scans to detect liquid explosives stored within someone's body, perhaps we have to re-evaluate.
(Perhaps this particular person should have been searched, as he was on a list of 550,000 people 'of interest', according to an NPR report this morning. But that just means those who are planning this sort of stuff choose their agent a bit more carefully, and hide the material a bit more cleverly)