"US airport fake ID study 'was found in al-Qaida cave'"

Thursday, May 20, 2004

US airport fake ID study 'was found in al-Qaida cave'
By John Lettice
United Kingdom - The Register


The US House Aviation Subcommittee yesterday heard how congressional
investigators used false IDs to gain access to a series of federal buildings
and two commercial airports, and how a copy of the report detailing their
success was later found in an al-Qaida cave in Afghanistan. The
investigators were 100 per cent successful in getting past security, but
apparently less so in the case of their own report's security.

Subcommittee Chairman John Mica told a hearing on biometric ID in aviation
that the deployment of more secure ID needed to be accelerated, given that
terrorists are interested in gaining access to restricted airport areas. The
congressional investigators had made their fake IDs using software
downloaded from the Internet, and apparently this passed muster.

Documentation presented to the hearing however included even more comforting
information about the security of the US aviation industry. If you look down
near the bottom of this document, in the section covering the Registered
Traveler program you will find a subsection dealing with Law Enforcement
Officer (LEO) Credentials. As you see, it says: "Currently, Federal LEO's
can fly armed at any time, simply by presenting their agency's credential.
In addition, LEO's from 18,000 separate State and local law enforcement
agencies may fly armed if they present their agency's credential and a
letter on their agency's letterhead stating that they have an official,
work-related reason to fly armed. The use of so many different types of law
enforcement credentials increases the risk that an unauthorized person could
use a forged credential to carry a gun on-board."

Under the Registered Traveler Pilot program LEOs wishing to fly armed will
have biometric ID issued by the Transportation Security Administration
saying so, but it's not clear to us whether this will mean LEOs from the
18,000 non-Federal agencies will have to have this if they want to fly
armed, or whether the letterhead will still be enough. The pilot program
starts at five airports next month, and one would hope that the authorities
elsewhere will be taking extra special care in scrutinising LEO credentials
pending a wider rollout.


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