"Keeping the Airports Safe"

Sunday, September 7, 2003

Keeping the Airports Safe
By Rocco Parascandola and Lauren Terrazzano
Newsday (NY)


Screeners at Newark, JFK and LaGuardia airports have been told to watch out
for suspicious-looking women because intelligence reports indicate that some
terror groups have discussed using females as shoe bombers, a federal source
says.

Unlike in the case of Richard Reid, who in 2001 tried to blow up an American
Airlines plane by detonating a bomb in his shoe, intelligence reports
indicate that a woman would try to sneak the explosive aboard in her shoe
while an accomplice detonates it.

Passenger screeners -- hired by the federal government when the
Transportation Security Administration was formed -- have routinely found
contraband, the source said, usually carried by passengers who don't realize
what the rules are, as well as fake bombs planted in bags by TSA
supervisors. Still, the source said, more screeners are needed because the
current force is overworked.

"You can't be effective without the right amount of time off and breaks
during your shift," the source said. "Your eyes just begin to glaze over."

But Mark Hatfield, a TSA spokesman, says the agency, working within its
budgetary parameters, has achieved "tangible and significant" improvements
in airport security.

There are currently 49,600 airport screening positions in the nation, more
than 4,000 of them at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports. Though the
numbers have fluctuated, the TSA says it has sufficient numbers of screeners
to provide high-level security, and has concentrated its efforts at peak
hours.

Hatfield said there are "scores" of million-dollar machines in place in
lobbies, baggage rooms and passenger checkpoints at the three airports to
detect explosives in baggage.

At Long Island MacArthur Airport, full-time screeners currently number about
100. But the Transportation Security Administration plans to create 32
part-time positions at the airport. Some full-timers will take a cut in
hours to fill some of the part-time openings. It would leave 79 screeners
working full time.

Hatfield said the screening workforce is now "much more highly skilled,"
noting the 104 hours of required training.

Since new government rules at the beginning of the year required all checked
bags to be screened for explosives, MacArthur in January added a dozen trace
detection machines for luggage screening in the airport's lobby.

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