"Airline Security Still a Work in Progress"

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Airline Security Still a Work in Progress 
By LESLIE MILLER
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Nearly three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, two key
elements of the Bush administration's effort to bolster airport security
remain works in progress: more rigorous background checks of passengers
and a better way to check for explosives in luggage. 

A plan to prescreen air travelers for terrorist connections, once
described by the administration as an urgent need, has been sent back to
the drawing board. And only eight of 441 commercial airports have
systems recognized as the best at quickly and effectively screening
checked baggage. 

The reasons for the delays are varied. Technology problems and privacy
concerns doomed the passenger prescreening program, while the enormous
cost - an estimated $5 billion - has held up progress installing large
bomb-screening machines in airports. 

Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, worries
that the political pressure needed for such initiatives is waning. 

"The further away you get from 9/11, the louder the voices become for a
normal approach to security," said Mica, R-Fla. 

The Transportation Security Administration said in January that the
prescreening project - called Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening
System, or CAPPS II - could be up and running this summer. But the
agency never was able to allay concerns about privacy, and last week
acting TSA Administrator David Stone said CAPPS II would be "reshaped
and repackaged." 

Airlines have been responsible for determining which passengers get
extra attention at security checkpoints. Since the 1980s, they've been
using such criteria as whether a passenger is flying one-way or pays for
a ticket with cash. Screeners also select passengers for extra
attention. 

That system, though, is viewed as ineffective because it flags too many
people and doesn't confirm their identities. 

CAPPS II would have used commercial databases to verify passengers'
identity. Privacy advocates and airlines were concerned about the
invasiveness of such data-mining, which could wrongly suggest people are
terrorists because of inaccurate data. 

"There needs to be due process rights," said David Sobel, general
counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

Technical problems hurt CAPPS II, according to Mica. 

"You get this incredible amount of information, and sorting through it
is very, very difficult." 

An aide to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the newest version
of passenger prescreening would still check names against watch lists,
but it's unclear what data would be used. 

"No final decisions have been made," said Homeland Security spokesman
Dennis Murphy. 

Murphy said that CAPPS II was just part of a comprehensive approach to
aviation security. 

The number of federal air marshals grew to thousands from just a few
dozen on Sept. 11, 2001. Airlines installed bulletproof cockpit doors
and some pilots now fly while carrying weapons. The private screening
work force, characterized by low morale and high turnover, was replaced
with federal screeners who are better trained and better paid. 

A law passed after the terrorist attacks requires all checked luggage to
be screened using electronic devices. 

Installing the best systems for doing so is proving a challenge. 

According to reports by the Homeland Security Department's inspector
general and congressional auditors, bomb-screening machines do a much
better job detecting weapons in checked baggage if they're integrated
with airports' in-line baggage-handling systems. 

The standalone machines require screeners to load luggage by hand, which
is a distraction. In contrast, bags that pass through the fully
integrated systems can be easily reviewed multiple times by a remote
operator. 

But only eight airports have done that: in Boston; Boise, Idaho;
Manchester, N.H.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Lexington, Ky.; Orange County,
Calif.; Tulsa, Okla., and Tampa, Fla. 

The rest use more labor-intensive, more error-prone approaches.
Screeners either use handheld devices or hand-feed luggage into big
bomb-screening machines sitting in terminal lobbies. 

In May, the Transportation Security Administration wasn't electronically
screening all checked bags for bombs at airports, as Congress ordered.
At some airports, the agency hasn't been able to screen 100 percent of
checked baggage 100 percent of the time for hundreds of consecutive
days, according to congressional investigators. 

TSA Acting Assistant Administrator Randy Null told the congressional
subcommittee that half weren't complying with the law because of
equipment problems and half because of staffing shortages or lack of
trained screeners. 

Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, ranking Democrat on the aviation
subcommittee, said investing in more in-line machines would help solve
the problem of inadequate staffing. 

The total cost is estimated at about $5 billion, but the administration
is requesting only $250 million this year. 

Sept 11-Findings 

Preliminary findings from the Sept. 11 commission that are expected to
be included in its final report:

   -The CIA missed the big-picture significance of ``telltale
indicators'' of impending terrorist attacks, partly because of its
piecemeal approach to intelligence analysis. Such indicators could have
raised red flags following a July 2001 FBI report of terrorist interest
in aircraft training in Arizona, and the August 2001 arrest of terrorism
suspect Zacarias Moussaoui because of his suspicious behavior in a
Minnesota flight school.

   -Some of the 19 hijackers were able to enter the United States even
though they lacked proper documentation, and on the day of the attacks
several were allowed through airport security after being stopped for
suspicious behavior. Two hijackers also were on a government terrorist
watch list but were allowed on airplanes because the Federal Aviation
Administration and the airlines had not been told.

   -The Clinton and Bush administrations generally pursued diplomacy
rather than military strikes to deal with the growing al-Qaida threat.
The United States passed up several chances to kill Osama bin Laden in
the late 1990s because the CIA said it never received a clear directive
to do so.

   -Confusion reigned among FAA and military officials the day of the
attacks. FAA officials trained to respond to a traditional hijacking,
not a suicide attack, were slow to alert the military, and some military
fighter pilots were never told why they were scrambled.

   -Basic flaws in New York City's emergency 911 phone system denied
people inside the World Trade Center potentially lifesaving information.
Operators and dispatchers were unaware that fire chiefs were evacuating
the doomed twin towers. With the buildings' public address systems out
of service, workers inside who called 911 for help were told not to
evacuate, preventing a chance to escape.

On the Net: 

Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov


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