What should have been done in response to the briefing that Bin Laden planned to attack the US?

[pnwmom]

38. We did have airport security. It wasn't the Federal government's TSA program,

but airports had security which could have been sent stronger and more comprehensive alerts.

And IF the FAA had warned the existing security about the growing threat of an imminent terrorist attack, action could have been taken to collect information, increase security, and together this might have led to preventing the attacks.

And if Bush didn't feel he had the ability to order the cockpit doors to be hardened (as he did after the attacks), he could have called for a meeting with Congressional leaders and asked for them to pass a law.



http://nypost.com/2014/10/05/airport-security-ignored-pre-911-warnings-on-hijackers-court-docs/

At least three eyewitnesses spotted al Qaeda hijackers casing the security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan Airport months before the 9/11 attacks. They saw something and said something — but were ignored, newly unveiled court papers reveal.

One of the witnesses, an American Airlines official, actually confronted hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta after watching him videotape and test a security checkpoint in May 2001 — four months before he boarded the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center.

The witness alerted security, but authorities never questioned the belligerent Egyptian national or flagged him as a threat.

“I’m convinced that had action been taken after the sighting of Atta, the 9/11 attacks, at least at Logan, could have been deterred,” said Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent who at the time warned of holes in security at the airport.

SNIP

Theresa Spagnuolo, an American Airlines passenger screener, told federal agents after the attacks that she also observed a short Middle Eastern man — Atta — videotaping the main security checkpoint in May 2001.

“She was bothered by Atta’s filming, so she spoke to her supervisor about it” and he “informed her it was a public area and nothing could be done about it,” the agents said in their investigation.

SNIP

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And the threat to aviation wasn't unforeseen. For example:

But an attack similar to this month's, if not on the same horrific scale, was not entirely unforeseen. On May 7, Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent at Logan International Airport in Boston, expressed his concerns in a letter to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

"What protection is there against a rogue terrorist? And with the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? . . . With our current screening system, this is more than possible, almost likely."

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And cockpit attacks had been growing more frequent:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/23/news/mn-48940/2

Commercial aircraft design offered almost no protection from cockpit takeovers. Such attempts, in fact, have been growing more frequent in recent years.