"Airports Have Increased Security, But Are They Now Really 'Secure'?"

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Airports Have Increased Security, But Are They Now Really 'Secure'?
By MATT POTTINGER 
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


NEW YORK -- While passing through security at one of America's largest
airports Saturday night, I found that despite extra time spent checking
IDs and baggage, the ritual appears to be basically the same as it was
before last week's deadly hijackings -- and passengers were left feeling
less than secure.

Like most of my fellow travelers, I showed up at New York's John F.
Kennedy International Airport three hours ahead of the flight to Hong
Kong. With the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldering a few
miles away, few people dared to complain about having to arrive an extra
hour ahead of the scheduled departure. But we expected the added time
would at least make us feel safer.

The first apparent change, and the one that seemed to take up most of
the added time, was laughable. With curbside check-in now a thing of the
past, we lined up at the entrance to the main terminal waiting to put
our check-in luggage on a conveyer belt leading into security scanner.
Scanning our check-in luggage seemed like a good idea, but there was a
fatal flaw in the system: After pieces of luggage were scanned and
labeled with stickers that read "secure," an attendant returned our bags
to us even though we still held unscanned carry-ons. If I were a
terrorist, I thought, now would be a pretty good time to slip a bomb
from my shoulder bag into my check-in luggage. "This is secure now?" a
Japanese passenger asked incredulously, pointing at his suitcase. He
laughed. No one else did.

After checking in our "secure" bags and picking up our boarding cards,
we made our way to the next checkpoint. There were lots of security
personnel milling about, including armed cops and marshals. Officials
checked my passport and boarding pass multiple times. But this
apparently would have failed to prevent last Tuesday's attack. You may
need a fake ID to buy liquor if you're underage in America; you don't
need a fake ID to hijack an airliner.

Next, our carry-on bags were scanned -- by machine only, not by hand.
The only visible change in procedure was that passengers were guided
through two metal detectors, rather than one. Too bad the knives the
terrorists used last week weren't made of metal, according to
preliminary reports.

Security staff didn't bother scanning my keys or the large wallet I
placed on a tray. At the same checkpoint, two guards argued about
whether they were required to scan the items people emptied from their
pockets. A third security attendant, who was supposed to be focusing on
the X-Ray monitor, was watching them argue with a big grin on his face.

Once aboard and strapped into my seat, I glanced through the newspapers
I bought to read on the long haul to Hong Kong. All featured articles
about airline executives lobbying Congress for billions of dollars in
aid to save their companies now that many Americans are too scared to
fly. This even though the government and airlines failed to implement
anti-terrorism measures that have been laid out in numerous official and
independent studies over the last decade, including one led by then
Vice-President Al Gore in 1996.

As my plane took off and banked left, I had a clear view of Manhattan,
whose skyline struck me as almost generic without the commanding
presence of the twin towers. Smoke continued to billow from the World
Trade Center ruins, and drift over New York harbor.

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