"Officials won't confirm Las Vegas airport among 15 that flunked security tests"

Friday, September 24, 2004

Officials won't confirm Las Vegas airport among 15 that flunked security
tests.
By Chris Jones
The Las Vegas (NV) Review-Journal


Could the biggest gamble in Las Vegas involve stepping aboard an airplane?

The federal government won't say, despite a new report that indicates
there's still plenty to fix when it comes to securing the nation's skies.

Sources in Washington on Thursday refused to discuss whether this city's
McCarran International was among a group of U.S. airports whose screeners
frequently failed to nab undercover agents carrying hidden weapons and
explosives through security checkpoints during a security audit last year.

Federal investigators successfully bypassed security measures at 15 U.S.
airports, a classified government audit presented to Congress this week
says. But which airports were tested was not fully disclosed, leaving
unanswered questions about screeners' performance at McCarran, the nation's
sixth-busiest passenger airport that last year handled more than 36.2
million travelers.

Clark Kent Ervin, inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, oversaw the airport security audit and indirectly confirmed
Thursday that McCarran was among the more than 30 sites tested.

Still, Ervin cautioned it's difficult to balance national security concerns
with the public's right to know whether their community's airport is
adequately testing passengers for weapons.

"We don't want to give terrorists a road map that says, 'Concentrate your
efforts on these 15 airports ... where your chances of getting guns, knives
and bombs through are better than at other airports,' " Ervin said by
telephone from Washington. "And we don't want to unduly alarm the people who
regularly use those airports.

"We also want to make the general public generally aware of what we found,
so we disclose in a public report the sum and substance of what we found
without going into specifics that might make it easier for terrorists to
exploit."

Such vague warnings offer little to travelers, said Mike Boyd, an Evergreen,
Colo.-based aviation security consultant.

"We don't know where these airports are, if the training these screeners has
ever been followed up on," Boyd said. "There's no oversight and no scrutiny
of anything the Transportation Security Administration does. That's why we
have a major problem. ... No one ever says, 'Are we gonna fix this
stupid-ass system?' "

Ervin said the latest audit was modeled after tests the U.S. Department of
Transportation conducted at 32 airports from November 2001 to July 2002.
Those test details were not officially revealed to the public, but USA Today
in July 2002 said federal agents successfully carried weapons past
McCarran's then-private screeners on 50 percent of their attempts.

Only Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport ranked worse in
2002, with screening procedures failing 58 percent of the time; the national
breach rate was approximately 24 percent.

Ervin said Thursday the recent tests were conducted at "those same
airports," though it's unknown whether McCarran was among the 17 airports
where security had improved, or one of the 15 that performed poorly.

In an abbreviated public version of his agency's classified audit, Ervin
said hundreds of undercover tests were performed at U.S. airports of varying
size from July through November 2003. Testers attempted to carry "threat
objects" through checkpoints on their person or in carry-on items, while
undisclosed procedures were used to sneak explosives in checked baggage.

The audit's classified version, which beginning Tuesday was presented to
members of certain House and Senate committees, totalled nearly 100 pages.
It identified the airports tested and their specific pass/fail rates for
catching different categories of concealed weapons including handguns,
knives and bombs.

"The performance of the screeners was poor," said Ervin, who added more
undercover tests would soon take place at unspecified U.S. airports. "It was
easier to get all of those items ... through than it should have been."

The inspector general's five-page public audit called for improvements in
four key areas: the training of TSA workers; equipment and technology at
checkpoints; policy and procedures; and management and supervision. TSA
already has implemented "significant improvements" since the conclusion of
the inspector general's testing, the audit said without elaboration.

Jim Blair, who oversees federal security efforts at McCarran, wouldn't
comment, but the TSA issued a statement late Thursday that criticized the
inspector general's findings as inaccurate and outdated.

"The report is based on field work that is 10 to 14 months old," said TSA
spokesman Mark Hatfield Jr. "Since that time, the agency has significantly
fortified security procedures, testing and training in every area identified
in the outdated report."

Still, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House aviation subcommittee,
told USA Today on Thursday the audit's findings on weapons were "bad enough"
and the results on explosives were "absolutely horrendous."

Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jon Porter, R-Nev., also are on the
aviation subcommittee.

Porter said he toured McCarran with Mica on Sunday. While he refused to
discuss Ervin's audit in detail, the Nevada congressman said he still
considers McCarran one of the nation's safest airports.

"We're trying to change 101 years of flying in 2 1/2 years," Porter said of
TSA, which was created in November 2001 following the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist hijackings. "We still have a lot of work to be done, but a lot has
been accomplished."

Berkley spokesman David Cherry said the congresswoman had not reviewed the
audit, which was delivered to her office Thursday. He said Berkley believes
it's important that the government identifies security weaknesses "so we can
shore them up," even if it means keeping some information classified.

"There's a fine line between being an alarmist and giving the public the
information they need to know," Cherry said.

TSA has used federal screeners at McCarran since September 2002.

This month, the agency stepped up nationwide testing efforts to check
passengers for explosives and other banned items, including increased use of
pat-down searches, explosives trace detection scanners and requiring all
passengers to remove outer coats and jackets for X-ray.


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