Forewarned

Why the Government Is Failing to Protect Us – and What We Must Do to Protect Ourselves

By Michael Cherkasky with Alex Prud’homme

Consider these two scenarios: (1) Warned of an impending terrorist attack, Americans endure disruptive security measures or simply stay home and hide. By day’s end, it doesn’t matter: A plane carrying a dirty bomb has crashed in Los Angeles, killing tens of thousands of people; (2) After an alert, Americans face strict yet sensible and efficient security, before a suspect is arrested and an attack averted.

The first scenario is inevitable unless we take immediate steps to ensure the second. Written by Michael Cherkasky, one of America’s foremost security experts, and Alex Prud’homme, a nationally recognized journalist, Forewarned is a brave and indispensable new approach to local, national, and worldwide law enforcement, a specific blueprint for altering America in order to save it, and a road map to protecting ourselves and those we love. Starting from the shocking contention that everything done to fight terrorism at home since 9/11 has been politicized, expedient, and inept, Michael Cherkasky presents a step-by-step plan for improving our chances of survival while understanding where we’ve gone wrong. Here are frank discussions on a variety of issues:

• Well-meaning but ineffectual, the Homeland Security Department should be overhauled — its color-coded threat alerts are simply ignored or ridiculed
• Ground airport security (from National Guard deployment to banning of sharp instruments) should be abandoned as useless
• Fighting terrorism should be shifted from the rigid and hierarchical FBI to a new Domestic Intelligence Bureau (DIB) with expanded powers
• All cargo containers should be bar-coded, with information uplinked to a satellite and downlinked to a database, to prevent the shipping of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons (only 2 percent of containers are inspected now)
• All airplane luggage should be screened for explosives and electronically matched to a passenger (not done now)
• Every citizen over six should be given a new US identity card to start a lifelong database of associations and actions that could speed (most) people through airports, landmarks, or government buildings without incident

Presenting a provocative new program that is practical, thoughtfully conceived, and easily adopted, Forewarned is an unprecedented book for a swiftly changing landscape, one that must be read by all citizens and by all officials sworn to protect them.