"Security breach at Logan - 'It's Keystone Kops'"

Saturday, September 9, 2006

Security breach at Logan - 'It's Keystone Kops'
By O'Ryan Johnson
The Boston (MA) Herald


Veteran aviation security specialists called the loss of a powerful Semtex
plastic explosive device at Logan International Airport this week the result
of "sloppy police work" by state troopers who should never have taken their
eyes off the volatile material. 
 
"It's Keystone Kops," said Bruce Schneier, an airport security and
technology expert from California and the author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking
Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World." 
 
"I mean, c'mon, people. If you're going to run a security drill like this
you can't lose the explosive." 
  
The troopers say they did not notice when a Massport worker drove away in an
agency truck to which 8 ounces of Semtex had been affixed as part of an
effort to train bomb-sniffing K-9 dogs. 
 
The lost explosive was thought to be somewhere along Harborside Drive, which
is surrounded by a security fence and juts into an airfield near Runway 4L.
But airplane traffic and airport operations were unhindered by the Semtex
snafu, and safety expert Douglas Laird called that a good response. 
 
Laird, former security director for Northwest Airlines, said Semtex is safe
and most people would not know what it was if they found it. "It's sloppy
police work," Laird said. "But it sounds like they handled it
appropriately." 
 
"It's extremely stable," he said. "You could shoot it and it wouldn't go
off. You could burn it. To detonate it you need a blasting cap." Laird said
cases of lost explosives are more common as law enforcement works harder to
train officers to handle the threat. 
 
During Wednesday's drill, a K-9 trooper put the Semtex on the rear bumper of
a pickup truck parked in a Massport pool lot. Troopers have so far
disassembled a street sweeper in the hope of finding it sucked into the
device. Last night it remained as lost as luggage.

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