"Transportation chief gives security update at KCI"

Wednesday, September 17, 2003 

Transportation chief gives security update at KCI 
By Dana Fields
The Associated Press


Kansas City, Mo. - The nation's transportation systems are safer now than
before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but the government will never be able
to close every security gap, the head of the Transportation Security
Administration said Tuesday.

"The bad guys are out there gaming everything we're doing with respect to
airports and any other mode of transportation," James Loy told members of
the National Defense Transportation Assn. "Our challenge has to be to find
the means to try to stay ahead of them."

Loy was in the city both to address the association's annual meeting and to
talk with security officials at Kansas City International Airport.

KCI is one of five commercial airports nationwide where employees of a
private contractor -- under TSA oversight -- continue to screen passengers
and baggage. The others are in San Francisco; Rochester, N.Y.; Tupelo,
Miss.; and Jackson Hole, Wyo.

At the roughly 424 other commercial airports, about 50,000 federal employees
replaced privately employed screeners last Nov. 19, as required by a new
federal law. Those airports will be able to apply in November 2004 to return
to private screening.

Loy already has visited KCI twice and, although not disclosing details, said
the private screening operations seemed to be going "very, very well."

The experience at KCI and the other four airports with private screeners
will help guide decisions next year on whether to maintain the federal work
force at all airports, he said in an interview.

"Our challenge is to make sure that when Nov. 19, 2004, rolls around, we
have done a good job of making certain that airport directors can make a
good, solid, objective decision about whether they want to reprivatize," he
said.

In his speech, Loy reviewed the TSA's accomplishments since its creation by
Congress shortly after the Sept. 11 hijackings, chiefly the strengthening of
airline security through tougher screenings and the installation of
thousands of explosive detection machines at airports.

Besides aviation -- which Loy pointed out was Congress' first concern -- the
TSA also oversees security of maritime, highway, rail, transit and pipeline
transportation.

Loy said for all six methods of moving people and goods, the agency is
devising security plans that involve awareness of threats, prevention and
protection of terrorism, and response to terrorist acts.

Overall, Loy said, the goal is to "build a series of obstacles for the bad
guys," partly through the collection and sharing of information about people
who use or work around various transportation systems.

The government plans eventually to issue Transportation Worker
Identification Credential cards to truckers, longshoremen and others as
proof of identity after background checks.

A separate initiative -- the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening
System, or CAPPS II -- is aimed at making air travel safer and more
efficient.

For CAPPS, commercial and government databases will be used to rate
passengers as possible security risks who merit extra screening. Unless a
passenger is flagged as a terrorism risk, the information will be discarded
after a flight, Loy said.


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