"Workforce cuts heighten concern over airport security gaps"

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Workforce cuts heighten concern over airport security gaps
By SARA KEHAULANI GOO
The Washington (DC) Post


WASHINGTON - As the travel season moves into high gear, concerns grow about
gaps in airport security.

Lawmakers, airport security officials and other experts warn of inadequate
cargo inspections and a failure to thoroughly check the backgrounds of
airport workers.

They also warn of delays in a system that would screen all checked luggage
for explosives.

In e-mails, airport officials throughout the country recently vented their
anxieties after the federal government issued new details about further cuts
to the nation's airport security work force.

Dulles International Airport near Washington already was losing passenger
screeners at a rate of at least one a day, said Scott McHugh, the airport's
security director, in an e-mail to colleagues at other East Coast airports.

McHugh said that with fewer workers, the airport was able to screen only 57
percent of checked luggage for explosives.

"Up to now we have been able to hide this fact from the public (and any
terrorist surveillance teams)," McHugh, an official with the Transportation
Security Administration, wrote in a June 6 e-mail obtained by The Washington
Post.

McHugh further worried that when Congress recessed for the July Fourth
holiday, about 50 to 60 lawmakers would fly out of Dulles.

"They will all see the machines sitting idle," he wrote, referring to the
screening equipment. "We need to hire or transfer people here NOW!"

Since the hijackings Sept. 11, 2001, millions of commercial flights have
crisscrossed the nation without incident. In a fairly short time the
Transportation Security Administration -- the federal agency entrusted with
protecting airports and airliners -- has undertaken aggressive measures to
beef up security.

But as the e-mails and other recent incidents suggest, behind-the-scenes
lapses have weakened airport security in ways that may not be readily
apparent to travelers.

Protecting flights amounts to a balancing act between security and passenger
convenience. Too much security can mean gridlock, roiling travelers and
airlines. Too much convenience can mean security is compromised.

"We have made incredible progress on a number of fronts since 9/11," said
Robert Johnson, spokesman for the agency. "We'll likely never be done with
construction of this. The threat always changes."

The agency has won kudos even from its critics for massive accomplishments.
The agency, which was created two months after the terrorist attacks, has
spent $9.2 billion. A large chunk of the money has gone toward hiring more
than 55,000 federal airport screeners in one of the largest and fastest
employment mobilizations ever undertaken.

The agency also has bought thousands of devices to scan checked luggage for
explosives. The machines are installed in 429 airports across the country,
although all of them are not in use.

Cockpit doors have been reinforced with bulletproof materials. The federal
air marshal system, which puts armed undercover agents on some flights, has
been significantly expanded. And the agency has initiated a program that
allows a small number of commercial pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit.

"Overall there have been major improvements compared to what it was in the
time of 9/11," said Paul Hudson, executive director of Aviation Consumer
Action Project, an organization started by Ralph Nader. "On a scale of 1 to
10, we were about a 3. We're now at least double that."

To some critics, the most glaring hole in aviation security is the lack of
screening for explosives in cargo and luggage stored under passenger seats
in an airplane's hold. Airlines carry not only passenger luggage in the
belly of the plane but also cargo, such as electronics equipment, online
deliveries and virtually anything a company sends from one location to
another. None of this cargo, which sits next to the luggage, is screened for
explosives.

"The more the public learns about this, the closer to a guarantee that
politically the Bush administration will have to respond," said Rep. Edward
Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. He has filed legislation that would
require the Transportation Security Administration to screen cargo with
explosives-detection machines. "It's inexcusable that passengers are
screened but cargo is not screened."

The agency has improved a plan to track air cargo by identifying the
companies that ship the goods. The agency plans to spend $5 million on
research this year to explore whether technology used to screen luggage can
also be used to check cargo, Johnson said.

The government has considered various proposals to scan cargo and luggage
since 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 went down over Lockerbie, Scotland,
killing 259 on board and 11 persons on the ground. A terrorist blew up the
plane by packing a bomb in a suitcase that was placed in the plane's cargo
hold.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Congress imposed a deadline for screening
all checked luggage, using devices that detect explosives. The agency
announced that it had met the deadline last December, but it widened the
definition of screening. In practice, only a fraction of all luggage is
screened by machine.

At about a dozen airports, including some of the nation's largest hubs, the
agency "screens" luggage by ensuring that every bag loaded onto a plane is
matched to a passenger on board -- a precaution that would not prevent a
suicidal terrorist from blowing up an aircraft.

Congress granted the agency an extension until the end of this year to use
machines to scan all luggage. But it now appears the agency is falling
behind in that goal. Integrating a luggage-scanning system into the baggage
sorting areas at airports has proved to be complicated and expensive,
according to Airports Council International-North America, an organization
of airport owners.

Security breaches by airport and airline workers themselves leave some in
Congress uneasy. At Dulles, the agency discovered in an audit several months
ago that off-duty airport and airline workers were using airport
identification badges to access secure doors while they were traveling as
passengers and carrying luggage that had not been screened.

Johnson declined to say how many employees were caught. He said no one was
punished. The practice apparently continues. Just last week at Dulles, an
observer noticed a man with a security badge swiping his card through a
reader and punching in a code. The man then passed through the secure door
with a large piece of luggage on rollers and a garment bag on his shoulder.

Security at Pittsburgh International Airport suffered a worrying
embarrassment last month when a mentally troubled man sneaked through an
airline door, drove a United Airlines truck around the airfield and walked
on to a US Airways plane. He was discovered the next morning, asleep.

In an incident similar to background-check problems with the private airport
security firms that once employed security screeners, the federal government
disclosed earlier this month that it had fired 85 felons it had hired to
work as security screeners and that it had yet to finish 22,000 more
background checks.


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