"OpEd: Scissors on flights? OK, but that's not the big threat"

Monday, December 5, 2005

Editorial/Opinion
Scissors on flights? OK, but that's not the big threat
USA Today Editorial Board

 
Since the frightening days after 9/11, the government has confiscated all
manner of sharp objects fliers attempted to carry onto airplanes. Box
cutters like those used in the 9/11 hijackings are among them. But so are
small scissors, pliers and the like. Lots of them - about 5 million a year.

Really. It's sort of a junk collector's monument to the price that fliers
pay for security.

The rules have been relaxed once to rebalance the equation between
convenience and safety. But now a push is on to go further, allowing
scissors, screwdrivers and other implements under seven inches. The risk is
obvious, but the goal is to focus inspectors' attention on looking for more
threatening objects, particularly explosives.

Last Friday, Transportation Security Administration Director Kip Hawley
announced the new rules will take effect Dec. 22.

With cockpit doors now reinforced against a 9/11-style break-in, pilots
packing guns and passengers on alert, that sounds sensible - but only if it
fulfills Hawley's goals. 

Some skepticism is in order. In its four-year history, the TSA has often
promised more than it has delivered.

Cargo still goes unscreened, and security technology is way behind plan.
Plugging those holes is the key to preventing explosives on planes.

   . Unscreened cargo Unlike checked baggage, about 6 billion pounds of
shipped cargo was loaded into the bellies of passenger planes last year with
little or no scrutiny. TSA relies almost entirely on records and assurances
of companies who are "known shippers" to prevent bombs in cargo. This could
be easily thwarted by a terrorist, Congress' Government Accountability
Office reported last month. Yet TSA has objected to calls in Congress for
screening all cargo on passenger planes, fearing high costs and long delays.


   . Outdated equipment. Screeners at airport checkpoints, while diligent,
missed dangerous prohibited items during government testing, according to a
report last March. The inspector general of the Homeland Security
Department, TSA's parent, concluded that improvement might depend on
replacing old X-rays and metal detectors with newer technology.

TSA points to the deployment at 22 large airports of 43 walk-through
detectors, which look like metal detectors but can sniff hidden explosives.
Yet that's an average of two machines per airport, leaving multiple
concourses with nothing but outdated equipment. TSA promises 300 more in
2006.

   . Inadequate training. The government flubbed an opportunity to ensure
that cabins remain safe even with sharp objects on board. A 2002 law
required the TSA to set strict standards for airlines to provide
self-defense training for flight attendants. That certainly makes sense,
particularly in light of Friday's rule relaxation. Yet Congress later
weakened the law and, according to the Association of Flight Attendants, the
basic training now offered is ineffective.

Flight attendants and some families of 9/11 victims vehemently oppose this
latest revision, and several lawmakers are trying to prevent the changes.
But TSA, still just a 4-year-old start-up, seems to be improving and may
have struck the right balance.

Fliers surely will be glad that their scissors won't be confiscated. Whether
they'll be safer from terrorists remains to be seen.


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