The new millimeter-wave body scanners soon to be deployed in airports throughout the United States would not have detected the explosive device smuggled aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day by Umar Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man reportedly trained by a Yemen-based al-Qaeda terrorist cell to destroy the plane over Detroit.

As reported yesterday by The New American, a second person of interest was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers after the failed attempt by Umar Abdulmutallab to bomb Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. According to information published Wednesday, customs agents at Detroit Metro Airport apprehended, handcuffed, and removed an unidentified man while the other passengers remained quarantined in a crowded waiting room awaiting further questioning by border patrol officers.

Reports from two investigations into the intelligence community’s mishandling of crucial information relevant to the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 by Nigerian Umar Abdulmutallab are being released today. President Obama ordered the probes after initial investigations in wake of the failed terrorist attack revealed that the CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security all had foreknowledge of a Nigerian whose father reported had adopted extremist views was in Yemen receiving training from known al-Qaeda operatives based in that country.

As is typical in the aftermath of this sort of occurrence, there is a maelstrom of stories swirling around Umar Abdulmutallab’s attempt to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bound from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. Curiously, though, two of these stories are being roundly ignored by most media outlets despite the intriguing facts they contribute to the still poorly defined though compelling narrative of the foiled terrorist attack and the young well-educated Nigerian accused of attempting it.

As the Airbus 300 from Amsterdam packed with holiday travelers descended toward Detroit on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab returned to his seat after spending about 20 minutes in the lavatory. Upon returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab pulled a blanket over his legs and stomach, informing the passenger seated next to him that he wasn’t feeling well.

Accused Ft. Hood murderer Major Nidal Hasan was charged Wednesday by military attorneys with 32 counts of attempted murder in connection with the victims wounded in his armed rampage on November 5. Among those injured by Hasan were the two civilian police officers who eventually fired on Hasan and brought him down, ending the massacre.

Justifiably, much is being made in the press of FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Pentagon investigators’ inscrutable failure to take any sort of appropriate action that may have prevented Major Nidal Hasan’s shooting spree of November 5 — when he shot 13 people to death and wounded more than 30 others at his duty station of Fort Hood, Texas.

For a man who has shown little regard for the immutable and sacred principles of the Constitution during his 13-year legislative career in Congress, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is inexplicably very anxious to extend constitutional protection to accused noncitizen terrorists. When questioned whether he would read Osama bin Laden his rights as required under the Supreme Court’s Miranda ruling, including the right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel, Representative Kucinich responded that everyone, without exception, should be afforded those basic rights.

In a gambit he must have known was futile from its inception, John Galligan, attorney for accused Ft. Hood murderer Nidal Hasan, played upon the sympathy of the military magistrate presiding at a pre-trial confinement conference held in Hasan’s hospital room on Saturday.

Displaying unparalleled skill in a game they play too often, various agencies of the federal government appear to be conspiring to cover up research that was conducted that may have prevented the massacre of 13 people at Ft. Hood on November 5.