"FAA, airlines failed to use security rules"

Saturday, October 6, 2001

FAA, airlines failed to use security rules
Committee's steps proposed in 1996 met bureaucratic red tape and industry
inaction
By Judy Pasternak
LOS ANGELES (CA) TIMES


WASHINGTON -- Federal bureaucracy and airline lobbying slowed and weakened a
set of safety recommendations by a presidential commission -- including one
that a top airline industry official now says might have prevented the Sept.
11 attacks.

The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, created in 1996
after TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, N.Y., recommended 31 steps
that it said were urgently needed to provide a multilayered security system
at the nation's airports.

The Federal Aviation Administration expressed support for the proposals,
which included security inspections at airports and tighter screening of
mail parcels, and the Clinton administration vowed to rigorously monitor the
improvements.

But by Sept. 11, most of the proposals had been watered down by industry
lobbying or were bogged down in bureaucracy, a Los Angeles Times review
found.

For instance, the commission, headed by then-Vice President Al Gore, wanted
airlines to screen all passengers with computerized profiling systems to
detect potential terrorists.

The airlines did not oppose the idea, but the FAA moved slowly and is still
developing a rule requiring carriers to use the system. Profiling has been
employed voluntarily by many airlines but is not applied to all ticket
holders.

Carol Hallett, president of the Air Transport Association, the airline trade
group, said this week that better profiling might have kept the hijackers
off the planes that they crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon
and a Pennsylvania field.

"In our hearts, everyone must realize that failure to use the (profiling)
techniques that are available today may be directly responsible for the
events of Sept. 11," Hallett said in a speech to the Travel Industries Assn.
in Atlanta.

Within days of the attacks, the White House demanded a report from the FAA
on the status of the White House commission recommendations.

The FAA's response, delivered Sept. 16, said 25 of the 31 proposals had been
"completed."

But in elaborating, the memo revealed that few of the safety measures were
in place and working as planned. Most were still in development; some
remained entangled in interagency squabbles and bureaucratic delays.

The memo provoked dismay and anger among White House officials, according to
a knowledgeable source.

"It's a governmental failure," said Gerald Kauvar, staff director of the
Gore commission. "We specifically said the FAA had to change, and they've
proved resistant to change."

The FAA, asked for a response, issued a statement saying that the security
improvements had been slowed by "often conflicting and time-consuming"
federal rule-making procedures and by efforts to protect civil liberties.

Nonetheless, the statement said, "work has progressed over the years ...
with a sense of urgency and resolve."

The FAA memo, reviewed by the Times, said that as of Sept. 16, the Sunday
after the attacks:


The agency was still collecting research on how to keep intruders from
slipping past airport perimeter fences and into restricted areas.

The FAA had not launched an effort to assess the vulnerability of the
nation's 450 commercial airports to terrorism. Instead, it was conducting
studies to determine the best way to spot security weaknesses.

Various measures to improve detection of explosives in baggage were bouncing
from agency to agency. Two commission recommendations regarding mail
shipments on passenger planes had met resistance from the U.S. Postal
Service, which worried that security-related delays would drive away
customers.

The FBI was still working on a plan to protect civilian planes from
surface-to-air missiles.

The FAA was negotiating with intelligence agencies to give airline officials
access to confidential information about potential terrorists and plots.
Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI knew that two men with suspected ties
to accused terrorist Osama bin Laden had entered the country, and agents
were trying to find them.

But authorities did not notify the airlines that the men were at large, and
they were able to buy tickets and board the jet that slammed into the
Pentagon.

Since the attacks, the FBI has distributed a lengthy watch list, and the FAA
has ordered airlines to check all passengers' names against it.

The Gore commission proposals did not go entirely unheeded. The FAA expanded
its use of bomb-sniffing dogs at airports.

Congress appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to buy bomb-detection
equipment and hire more federal counterterror agents.

In addition, the FAA memo said, the agency has complied with a commission
proposal to submit a resolution to an international aviation group on
improving global compliance with U.S. security standards.

President Clinton created the commission shortly after a midair explosion
downed TWA Flight 800 in July 1996, killing 230 people.

The disaster was initially thought to be the work of terrorists.
Investigators eventually concluded that a buildup of fumes in the fuel tank
caused the blast.

Nonetheless, the commission devoted much of its attention to terrorism.

"People and places in the United States have joined the list of targets,"
the final report said. "It is becoming more common to find terrorists
working alone or in ad hoc groups, some of whom are not afraid to die in
carrying out their designs."

The commission sent 20 anti-terror recommendations to Clinton on Sept. 9,
1996, and 11 more on Feb. 12, 1997. Enacting all of the proposals, to create
a layered system of protection, was urgent, the report said.

It described the potential for terrorist attacks as "a national security
issue."

The commission called on the transportation secretary to make an annual
public report on the government's progress in enacting the measures. Rodney
Slater, who served in that post until the Clinton administration ended in
2000, filed one update, in 1998.

Norman Mineta, his successor under President Bush, has been in office for
nine months.

Slater, in an interview, said: "We did monitor all the recommendations of
the Gore commission."

Slater pointed to one area of partial success: persuading Congress to
provide $100 million a year for sophisticated equipment to detect explosives
in luggage.

"We really engaged the Congress on that matter at every turn," he said.

But the devices, used selectively to screen suspicious baggage, are used at
a fraction of their capability, investigators have found.

An assistant inspector general of the Department of Transportation told the
Senate last year that the machines, which cost $1 million each and are
capable of examining 225 bags per hour, were checking fewer than 225 per
day.

The commission also recommended that the federal government set standards
for and license the private companies hired by airlines to operate airport
security checkpoints in passenger terminals.

The companies generally pay minimum wage. Turnover among the workers who run
metal detectors at major airports averaged 126 percent per year during the
late 1990s, an FAA survey found.

The push for standards advanced last year when Congress mandated 40 hours of
training for screeners. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, among others,
continued to press for federal licensing of security companies by September
2000.

The FAA prepared a regulation setting standards for the security companies.
The airlines objected to some of the standards, citing the potential
financial harm to their industry.

"We appeal to you to consider the economic and administrative burden," Shan
Sparks, security director of Nevada-based Casino Express Airlines, wrote to
the FAA.

Alaska Airlines' security manager expressed concern about "the increase in
charges that a new Certified Screening Company will pass onto the industry."

The Office of Management and Budget recently approved the FAA rule. The FAA
plans to publish the final version soon in the Federal Register, the final
step before it takes effect.

In its Sept. 16 memo to the White House, the FAA explained the delay in
acting on the commission recommendation by saying that "the rule-making was
a significant and involved proposal that took time to consider industry
comments."

Kauvar, the Gore commission staff director, said the Air Transport
Association also resisted a proposal to match each checked bag with a
boarding passenger.

Bags not matched to a passenger would not be loaded. The idea was to
minimize the chances of someone planting a bomb in a plane's cargo hold.

The industry predicted long delays and persuaded the commission to soften
its recommendation and call for spot checks.

The FAA requires spot checks but says it is moving toward a system of
matching all luggage with passengers.

The ATA also objected to the commission's call for fingerprinting and
background checks of all security screeners and airline employees with
access to secure areas.

The issue has been a sore point with the industry group for years. In 1992,
the ATA hired William H. Webster, former director of both the CIA and FBI,
to testify at a congressional hearing after a 1990 commission suggested the
precaution.

Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., said he was flabbergasted when Webster
visited him later. "I looked him square in the eye and asked, 'Would you be
taking this position if you were still director of the FBI?'" he said.

Webster, in a recent interview, said he based his opposition on the time and
expense involved in fingerprint analysis, but he added that technology has
improved since then.

"I was trying to keep them from spending the money in the wrong place," he
said.

The FAA did require background checks, but only for job applicants with gaps
in their employment histories.

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