

© Matt Davies

Once again, the problem wasn’t gathering intelligence. We already had all the information we needed to know that Abdulmutallab shouldn’t have been allowed on that airplane. Heck, his father even went to the US Embassy to warn us about him. We didn’t need to torture anyone (or even violate anyone’s rights) to get this information. But having the best information in the world doesn’t do any good if you fail to act on it, or even share it with the people who could have acted on it.