"Westchester airport to intensify, vary security"

Saturday, August 7, 2004

Westchester airport to intensify, vary security
By CAREN HALBFINGER 
THE WESTCHESTER (NY) JOURNAL NEWS 


The Transportation Security Administration announced yesterday that it
will enhance security measures and vary routines at airports nationwide
through the presidential inauguration in January. 

The measures are an attempt to thwart al-Qaida's hallmark strategy of
long-term planning and detailed surveillance well in advance of attacks.
They were developed in response to U.S. intelligence reports that the
terrorist group aims to strike on American soil this summer or fall in
an attempt to undermine the presidential election. 

"What we're going to do is change the landscape, so if there was a
terrorist here studying us, looking for a trend, it will not be the way
he expects it," said Romero Iral, the federal security director at
Westchester County Airport. "We want to make this place a hard target so
they won't go here, they'll go elsewhere. It's already begun." 

To prepare travelers for the changes, the security agency wants
passengers to arrive early for their flights and not be concerned if,
for example, they find a vehicle checkpoint in one spot one day, gone
the next, and in a new location on a third visit. Changes travelers may
find at all airports include an increase in random vehicle inspections,
more "secondary" screening of passengers and their carry-on items just
prior to boarding and more explosive-detecting dogs, TSA spokeswoman Ann
Davis said. 

"With the Republican National Convention and the fall elections coming
up, we're looking to augment the multilayered security systems already
in place," she said. 

At the Westchester airport, Iral said all of the measures Davis outlined
would be employed. He said all travelers could be subject to additional
screening, whether they use commercial airlines, corporate planes or
charter jets. He also said vehicle checkpoints would appear and
disappear at various times and locations throughout the property. 

Other changes travelers probably won't notice include revised security
schedules and varying patrol routes. 

The new measures are being put in place with the cooperation of
Westchester County police and airport personnel. Although the changes
may mean varying assignments for police and TSA and airport employees,
there will be no additional federal funding for extra personnel or
overtime costs, Iral said. The airport pays $5,014,583 a year for county
police protection and will work within that budget, county Public Safety
Commissioner Thomas Belfiore said. 

Iral said he would closely monitor the time it takes travelers to pass
through baggage and departure lounge checkpoints to ensure that flights
aren't delayed and travelers don't miss their flights because of added
security measures. 

Jenna Jacobs, 30, who was taking a flight to Minneapolis on Thursday
with her son, Gabriel, 2, and stepdaughter, Madison, didn't wholly
embrace the news about stepped-up security as she waited in line to walk
through a metal detector. Jacobs' son was born six days after her
husband, Ariel, died on Sept. 11, 2001. A 29-year-old technology
executive, he had been attending a business conference at Windows on the
World, atop the north tower, when terrorists aimed the first jet into
the World Trade Center. 

"I'm always pleased to have additional security measures, but I have not
always found them to be appropriate or meaningful, especially when a
2-year-old boy gets frisked," said Jacobs, formerly of Briarcliff but
now a Weston, Conn., resident. "I hope the reasons are genuine and not
political. Right now, I don't know what to believe. I want to keep the
airport safe, and my only hope is the money and effort they put into
doing it is meaningful." 

But other travelers, like Pratima Patel, 26, a marketing executive from
Brookfield, Conn., were pleased by the idea of any tightened security. 

"It's good," she said. "I'm all for the security checks and safety. I
usually allow enough time, anyway." 

Frequent flier Elizabeth Kor, 43, of Minneapolis, had her cell phone,
laptop computer and personal data assistant in hand on the checkpoint
line, ready to drop them in a bin and speed her way through the metal
detector without setting it off. 

"I'm always ready," said Kor, who spends Mondays through Thursdays at
Pepsico headquarters in Purchase, where she is a national applications
manager. "I know to arrive early. It's not going to affect me."


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************