"Federal screeners win mixed reviews"

Thursday, August 7, 2003
 
Federal screeners win mixed reviews
Critics are wondering whether security -- and common sense -- truly have
improved since the TSA took over from private firms.
By Chris O'Malley
The Indianapolis (IN) Star


Flora Rifner attended her brother's funeral in Indianapolis last February,
then prepared to board a Southwest Airlines flight back home to Tampa.

The 66-year-old, who plays Corny the Clown in a church ministry, didn't make
it beyond the security checkpoint at Indianapolis International.

Rifner was deemed a threat by a Transportation Security Administration
screener because of a multi-tool device in her purse that included a 1
1/2-inch blade.

Figuring it was too late to put it in her checked bag or mail it as she was
advised, Rifner was caught again with the device 10 minutes later when
re-entering the checkpoint, making "rude and argumentative verbal
statements," according to airport police who arrested her.

Rifner counters that it was the screener who was curt, and when she pointed
out that airports in Tampa and New Orleans didn't object to the device,
"They said, 'Well, we've got better security.' "

Incidents like prosecuting grandmothers and inconsistent enforcement have
critics wondering whether security -- and common sense -- truly have
improved over the last year since the TSA took over from private screening
firms.

Aside from hiring more workers and putting them in white uniforms, there's
little apparent difference between private and government security at some
airports. "Unfortunately, very little has changed since Sept. 11," said
Isaac Yeffet, former director of global security for Israel's El Al
Airlines. "Nothing has been changed seriously."

The TSA counters that its efforts have netted four arrests already at
Indianapolis checkpoints this year. Two involved loaded handguns. "We simply
cannot afford to make a mistake," said Dick M. Suekawa, a former Secret
Service agent for Presidents Carter and Reagan who took over a year ago as
federal security director at Indianapolis.

"I said, 'I don't know how an airport works . . . but I looked at it like
this is a place the president is going to visit and I'm going to secure it.'
" Yet like a presidential visit, you must "allow for a relatively free flow
of commerce."

Today, security at Indianapolis is the job of 333 TSA employees, of whom 314
are screeners. Comparing that number to the ranks of the private screeners
who once worked here is difficult because the TSA also has the task of
screening checked baggage.

Visitors to TSA's locked Indianapolis offices, in an office park near the
airport, are greeted by a speaker and instructed to state their names. Once
inside, a female employee says firmly: "Stand right here, please."

Suekawa said while airport security still isn't perfect, the TSA has made
substantial improvements.

Many of those are unseen, unlike the days immediately after Sept. 11 when
private screeners stood before passengers and flung their underwear from
suitcases like some naughty cabaret act.

In subsequent months the airport acquired a lone X-ray machine for checked
baggage, parked conspicuously in a hallway.

Now, 10 of the minivan-sized X-ray devices are out of sight. They are
directly behind and one level below the airport's ticket counters. The
machines are laid end to end in a long row like something in a ship's engine
room, connected by conveyor systems. The machines, which cost upwards of
$730,000 each, are to meet a congressional mandate to screen all checked
baggage.

TSA screeners wearing white latex gloves pull aside bags that appear
suspicious. On a video screen, one of the bags held items that resembled
rocket-propelled grenades. An unpacking revealed juggling batons.

Also beyond passenger view is a protocol out on the tarmac. Technically,
this is outside of TSA territory and is the primary responsibility of
airlines to patrol. Workers from baggage handlers to fuel truck drivers are
supposed to challenge anyone who does not have proper identification.

>From 1990 to 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration cited the airport 10
times for compromised access to restricted areas. FAA inspectors entered
unauthorized areas, such as doors leading to planes, without proper ID. "For
police to do this all by themselves is untenable," said Suekawa.

An agitated baggage worker barks something drowned out by jet noise as
Suekawa's delegation walks freely along the tarmac to an area below the US
Airways passenger gate in Concourse D.

This area is closer to ideal for the TSA: two newer-generation baggage X-ray
machines with conveyors that automatically kick cleared baggage toward
baggage trucks and suspicious bags onto a belt that leads to manual
screening.

The strange readings put out by one suspicious bag were the result of
densely packed underwear.

"We had a bag once that was full of canned goods," Suekawa said. "You're
never going to eliminate the human element because machines can only do so
much."

Suekawa said his biggest accomplishment in Indianapolis has been hiring
"highly motivated" people.

"Former military, former law enforcement and those with Ph.D. degrees" who
said "I'm going to get off my hind end and do something for this country
that is worthwhile," he said.

"Finding the right people, putting them there and continually training them.
That's No. 1."

Among the motivated is Leroy Hinchman, an Air Force veteran from California
who traveled three days by bus to interview for a TSA job in Indianapolis.

"After 9/11, you really wanted to do something," he said.

Another new TSA employee is Aaron Anderson, who worked in corrections at the
Marion County Jail for 18 years. There he learned to read crowds -- an
essential survival skill for a guard.

"You learned kind of a 'psyche.' You get kind of a feel for what mood the
public is going to be in," he says through his radio headset. "You keep them
calm. It's your approach."

For the late passenger rushing to jump on a plane, "you will assure them we
have to get them through as fast as possible. Nine times out of 10, they
understand. We explain the whole process that they're going through and what
they will encounter next."

Dealing with children carrying stuffed animals that must be X-rayed requires
special psychology. "We tell them we have to take a picture of them (the
stuffed animals)."

Screeners were reluctant to say much about what kind of passenger behaviors
most concern them. For Anderson, eye contact is crucial. Is the passenger
paying attention to instructions or blowing him off? Suekawa hems and haws
when pressed about his criteria. But in the Secret Service, "for me, it was
the eyes. Did they make eye contact?"

Those who don't pass the test -- however it's scored -- get an appointment
with the "special screening" team.

One TSA worker orders a passenger to take off his shoes, like he should
already have known. A male screener tells a passenger who sidesteps the
magnetometer to step back around, then instructs him to stand on a mat with
footprints and to put arms out to be swept by a portable magnetometer.

"If you like, a special private screening can be done," he says politely.

The portable metal detector is busy beeping.

First, it's the tie tack. Disconnected, the spot still beeps.

Please unbuckle your belt. Still beeps.

Please unbuckle your trousers . . .

Meanwhile, a few feet away, another screener slowly runs a metal detector
over and around the Simonize-shiny crown of a completely bald man.

If there was anything hiding under there, it would take a surgeon to
retrieve.

Clearing the gauntlet was Maribeth Blackman.

"Today was fine. I've learned to take everything off that you can" that sets
off detectors, said Blackman, dressed in formal business attire.

The checkpoints still net a mind-boggling number of items even though
passengers have been told for nearly two years not to carry items from
scissors to utility knives.

"We still bring in at least 100 items a day," said Suekawa, standing with
six bins full of things surrendered over a month. Most common are scissors,
straight razors, corkscrews, carpet knives and box cutters. A sharp
screwdriver and a 7-inch knife were among the most menacing. They once
nabbed a chain saw.

"Have they improved airport screening? The answer is no. They're looking for
sharp objects -- that's all," said Michael Boyd, a Colorado-based airline
industry analyst and one of the TSA's biggest critics.

Who is to say that these seized items may have been used in a hijack
attempt, reasons the TSA. Box cutters were thought to have been used by the
Sept. 11 hijackers to overwhelm air crews.

Moreover, the agency pointed to other items seized in Indianapolis last year
that were even more dangerous.

Last Feb. 14, airport police say Greenwood resident David Everetts was
stopped at the B-C checkpoint after a screener viewed on the X-ray machine a
loaded 25-caliber handgun inside the zippered compartment of his bag.

The gun, eight bullets and the weapon's magazine were seized.

"Mr. Everetts indicated that he forgot the handgun was in his bag," said the
incident report. Everetts, 56, could not be reached for comment.

Nine days later, Lucretria Collier, 26, of Indianapolis, put her purse and
lunchbox into the X-ray machine at Concourse A.

Inside the purse were a folding knife and a handgun with one round in the
barrel and two rounds in the magazine, according to airport police.

Collier told them she has a license to carry a gun, but did not have it with
her. The TSA screeners "were great with me," said Collier, who still can't
believe she forgot to remove the weapons and was "very upset" with herself
at the checkpoint.

"They were trying to calm me down more than anything," added Collier, who
later paid a fine.

As big a catch as a loaded firearm is, some experts still worry. Former El
Al security chief Yeffet once applied for a job with a private screening
firm, as part of NBC television investigation. The manager promised to make
him an expert at detecting guns and pipe bombs on the X-ray machine -- with
only a few hours' training.

Her biggest concern, however, was that he would soon leave the low-paying
job. "If you find a job at McDonald's, with $1 extra (an hour), you will
leave us," she told Yeffet.

The TSA has addressed that problem by trying to professionalize screening.
It gives its workers a minimum 44 hours of training and has boosted starting
pay to a minimum of $24,000.

But Yeffet isn't confident. Consider problems with background checks, he
said, pointing to well-publicized gaffes such as 50 security personnel at
Kennedy International Airport who were found to have criminal records.

He worries that screeners also become complacent after so many hours of not
finding a hazardous material. At El Al, he was relentless with thousands of
tests each year to see if screeners could find real items. If not, he said,
"Thank you very much and find another job."

He also cringes at the TSA's downsizing in screeners. Recently the
government said it would pull air marshals from flights for lack of funding,
until the plan caused an uproar.

"The answer that we need to cut the budget -- this is an excuse that nobody
can accept because if we need security, don't tell me that we don't have a
budget," Yeffet said.

"The United States of America is not Zimbabwe."

The baggage X-ray machines rushed into service at airports also fall short,
he said, giving false alarms on chocolate and cheese, for example, which
have similar densities to explosives such as Semtex.

Yeffet backs technology developed by California-based HiEnergy Technologies
Inc. that bombards luggage with fast neutrons to quickly detect the chemical
composition of most substances.

Suekawa said security will evolve as new technologies can be implemented,
but said condemning security for inadequacies in a particular area overlooks
the broader approach being taken of security in layers.

Security doesn't stand on a single leg but on many, including baggage and
passenger screening, restricted access to key areas, K-9 dogs, cockpit door
reinforcements, air marshals and airlines' own security measures.

"You do not rely on one single method," Suekawa said.

Airport operator BAA Indianapolis also has its own security policies and has
found ways to expand checkpoints. Security at the airport is a key issue
when airport constituencies meet. For example, several TSA managers are on
hand when airline managers meet every couple of weeks.

Security at Indianapolis International has room for improvement. The FAA
found at least 51 security lapses in the 1990s. Private screeners failed to
detect 11 test dynamite bombs, eight hand grenades and other weapons such as
toy pistols.

Assessments of the TSA's performance thus far are not yet available.

Yeffet, who also was a senior intelligence director for the Israeli Secret
Service, has advice for Suekawa's new team of screeners.

"Make sure that they understand what they are doing. This is a holy mission.
On their shoulders are thousands and thousands of flights. Thousands of
people's lives are in their hands."

Attached Photo:

TSA-hired screeners run baggage through a $730,000 X-ray machine.
Indianapolis International maintains 10 of the minivan-sized devices.
They're kept out of sight, directly behind and one level below the airport's
ticket counters.

image-063522-1927.jpg