Sunday, August 13, 2006 Airport screening put under scope In the wake of the alleged London terrorist plot, federal officials want security measures to reflect both past dangers and threats that may lie ahead. By Jeffrey Leib and Greg Griffin The Denver (C) Post The ban on liquids in airplane cabins will not be the only step screeners take to upgrade security in the wake of the foiled United Kingdom terrorist plot, experts say. In the days ahead, the Transportation Security Administration is expected to revisit all its processes for screening passengers and their luggage. The government also is struggling to find effective techniques for screening air freight carried in the bellies of commercial jets. To some observers, the U.S. government's practices have seemed reactive since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, first screening for box cutters and other sharp objects, then focusing on shoe bombs after Richard Reid's failed bombing attempt, later trying to detect explosives strapped to bodies after two Russian jetliners were blown up in 2004, and now banning liquids after the London plot was uncovered. "We're unfortunately a nation of reaction," said aviation security consultant William McGuire, president of Global Security Associates, of Mineola, N.Y. "It's tough to get out ahead (of the threat)." TSA spokeswoman Carrie Harmon rejected the notion that the agency is merely reactive. "There is constant assessment and re-evaluation of the threat," she said. "We have to be both proactive and reactive because the threat is always changing." The task for transportation security officials is huge: preventing weapons and bombs from entering the cabins of jetliners, keeping explosives out of cargo holds and preventing terrorists from blowing planes from the skies with shoulder-fired missiles. And doing all this in a way that doesn't overly slow a system that handles 30,000 flights and 5.5 million passengers each day. Analyzing for explosives Efforts are underway on all fronts. To identify travelers carrying explosives, or those who may have handled them, TSA has been installing walk-through explosives-detection portals at Denver International Airport and other U.S. airports in recent years. The portals are used to screen "selectees" - often passengers who pay cash or have last- minute ticket changes - for more extensive security screening. The machines work by blowing puffs of air over travelers while they stand in the unit. The device then collects the air sample and analyzes it for explosives residue. Screeners also can swab carry-on luggage for explosive residue using desktop detection devices. Explosives-detection portals "look for explosives and don't particularly care what form (they come in)," whether solid or liquid, said Steve Hill, spokesman for GE Security's Homeland Protection business unit, which makes the units used at DIA. Some experts say existing screening equipment at U.S. airports is not able to detect the peroxide-based explosives said to be involved in the London plot. To combat the threat of bombs hidden in checked luggage, TSA has spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing ever-more-sophisticated bomb- detection equipment to automatically screen checked bags. Terrorist organizations are relying on skilled engineers and computer scientists to get around existing aviation security systems and "look for soft spots," such as concealing liquid explosives in Gatorade bottles, said Chaim Koppel, managing director of International Security Defense Systems, a Dallas-based aviation security firm. The next step could be to hide materials inside the bodies of suicide bombers. What can TSA do about that threat? It will probably take a combination of intensive profiling of potential suspects and the use of high-tech imaging scanners, experts say. "The only way to not have this threat is to deny boarding to suspicious passengers," Koppel said. Using the "human factor" Up to now, any talk about "profiling" travelers to screen out threats has been loaded politically, and it isn't clear how the alleged British plot might alter attitudes toward such tactics in the United States. The London terrorist plot should propel U.S. transportation security officials to employ more "human-factor" screening at airports, said Rockville, Md.- based security consultant Rafi Ron, former head of security at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport. That means selecting some passengers for interviews based on their behavior at the airport and other indicators. In those interviews, which he described as friendly but probing, law enforcement officials can begin to determine whether a passenger poses a threat. "Terrorists have a characteristic of coming up with new inventive solutions. They overcome our technology," Ron said. "The TSA's strategy during the last five years has been almost purely technological. There's no human interaction. "We must go back to the basic human-factor element and improve our performance in this realm." Federal officials have been using "behavioral pattern recognition" since 2003 at Boston's Logan International Airport to single out passengers for questioning, Ron said. Several other airports are testing the process, which is used in Israel and Europe. David Forbes of the Evergreen-based aviation consulting firm BoydForbes Inc. agrees that more advanced technology must be coupled with intensive human screening techniques. "Unless the U.S. wakes up to real suspect profiling, the TSA will lead the airline industry to ruin," he said. "Why should innocent passengers with verifiable credentials be treated the same as, for example, young British Muslims of Pakistani descent?" Clive Miskin, another director with International Security Defense in Dallas, agreed that profiling - or what he said the government prefers to call "interviewing" - of potential terror suspects must be carried out in the United States. "You need to have people trained to do that in every airport and every check-in line," Miskin said. Anxiety over cargo holds Some experts say U.S. aviation is most vulnerable to a bomb getting into the cargo hold of a passenger jet in an air-freight shipment. Last fall, a federal security audit found vulnerabilities in the TSA's system for ensuring that domestic air-cargo shipments are safe. About one-quarter of air freight is shipped in the cargo compartments of commercial passenger aircraft, according to the Government Accountability Office report. U.S. airliners also are completely defenseless against an attack from the ground with a shoulder- fired missile. There have been such attacks on commercial aircraft in Africa and Iraq. The U.S. government has allocated more than $100 million to study anti-missile technologies. Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are competing to build plane-mounted systems to detect heat-seeking missiles and fire infrared lasers to jam their guidance systems. The technology is estimated to cost at least $1 million per plane. As for advances in passenger screening, GE Security's Hill said his company is developing an airport "checkpoint of the future" that combines new explosives-detection capabilities with other technologies to make passenger screening much more convenient and effective. Such a checkpoint might include laser-based "substance identification" equipment with high-tech "millimeter-wave" body-imaging devices that can see through clothes to give a detailed view of an uncovered traveler. The technology would be used to detect "anomalies" on the bodies of travelers, including concealed weapons or bombs, Hill said. But, he added, GE Security is automating such an imaging device - allowing a machine to determine whether someone's body has such an anomaly - because the traveling public won't stand for checkpoint workers gazing at screens that show explicit images of passengers. Attached Photo: A California National Guardsman watches a restricted area Saturday at San Francisco International Airport. Fifty guardsmen have been deployed at the airport.
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