Saturday, March 17, 2007
Orlando International Airport officials already
scrambling to plug security gaps had a new concern to explain Friday: how
sensitive documents detailing the airport's layout, fuel-storage facilities,
communications systems and power lines wound up in a dumpster.
The
documents, part of an OIA 20-year growth master plan updated in August 2004, are
labeled "sensitive security information" that should not be released without a
"need to know." After being shown the documents by an Orlando Sentinel reporter,
airport officials vowed to tighten security to prevent a similar
mistake.
Larry Johnson, a former deputy director of the State
Department's counterterrorism office who specialized in aviation security,
called the papers "an excellent document for terrorists planning an
attack."
"That should have been shredded," said Johnson, managing
director of Berg Associates in Washington.
Instead, the documents somehow
made their way into a trash bin next to a warehouse owned by the Greater Orlando
Aviation Authority just east of the airport perimeter. The building sits on an
unfenced lot on Dowden Road, a public street north of Lake Nona. "No
trespassing" signs are posted outside the building.
| A 3-volume
airport master plan came with this document sporting a security
warning. |
A teenage aviation enthusiast who was exploring the area around the warehouse
two weeks ago came upon the discarded documents and collected them as a
souvenir. A parent delivered the material to the Sentinel last week in the wake
of recent reports about OIA security problems.
Both insisted on anonymity
because they said they were acting as "good Samaritans" and did not want any
publicity.
After hearing of the incident from the Sentinel reporter, who
returned the discarded materials, the airport's top security official, Robert
Raffel, said an investigation was under way to determine how the documents ended
up in the trash -- and what measures were needed to keep it from happening
again.
"As a general security practice, these are not the kind of
documents that should end up in a dumpster," said Raffel, senior director of
public safety for the GOAA. "Normally, we would shred it or destroy
it."
Raffel stressed that the binders contained planning documents that
were widely distributed to airport managers, staff and planners -- and were not
the airport's ultra-sensitive security plan. Still, he has ordered
airport-security officials to conduct random checks of dumpsters and will send
out warnings to workers about proper handling and disposal of sensitive
documents.
"We're not taking this lightly," said Raffel, who added that
he will use the records as "Public Safety Exhibit A" in document-security
classes.
The discovery of the three binders and a photocopied book of
blueprints comes on the heels of a security breach at OIA nearly two weeks ago
involving 14 weapons and 8 pounds of marijuana smuggled onto a Delta flight to
San Juan, Puerto Rico. Two Comair employees who have since been fired are
accused of using their access to secure airport areas to conceal and move the
weapons and drugs around security checkpoints.
GOAA Chairman Jeff Fuqua
did not return phone calls from a reporter.
Transportation Security
Administration spokesman Christopher White said Friday evening that his agency
was informed of the "potential violation" and was looking into the
matter.
"Anytime that sensitive security information may be released in
error, we are very interested in finding out how it occurred and what we can do
to prevent it from happening again," White said.
'Not minor
stuff'
The binders, with a total of 652, mostly double-sided pages,
contain ground- and air-traffic projections, and planned gate expansion and rail
designs from 2002 to 2022. They are similar to master plans filed by developers
building massive housing and commercial projects.
Still, Mike Boyd, an
aviation-security specialist who has consulted with major airports across the
country, said he was stunned by the discovery of the documents.
"A
document stamped 'secure' should not be found in a dumpster," said Boyd,
president of the Colorado-based The Boyd Group. "Sweet Jesus, that's part of the
security plan. If guys get it out of a dumpster, you don't have a security plan.
That's not minor stuff."
Most of the master plan consists of material
that would be readily available from sources such as the Internet, Google Earth
or records kept by local government and transportation agencies.
But
potentially sensitive information about the airport is sprinkled throughout the
documents: maps of the fuel lines entering the property and storage facilities
with precise figures on the amount of jet fuel in individual tanks in August
2004; maps showing where phone, electricity, power and Federal Aviation
Administration cable lines run into and around the property; and locations where
security fences will be improved.
A warning at the bottom of the report's
preface page reads, in part:
"Warning: this document contains sensitive
security information that is controlled under provisions of 49 CFR [Code of
Federal Regulations] Parts 15 and 1520. No part of this document may be released
without a "need to know," as defined in 49 CFR parts 15 and 1520, except with
the written permission of the administrator of the Transportation Security
Administration or the Secretary Of Transportation. Unauthorized release may
result in civil penalty or other action."
'Just as
vulnerable'
Raffel would not detail what in the documents caused him
security concerns. When the Sentinel requested a copy of the same airport master
plan from GOAA under the Florida Public Records Law, it was provided with dozens
of pages removed "for security purposes."
Among the omitted material:
critical infrastructure maps involving fuel storage; phone, power and gas lines
throughout the property; and an inventory of every building on the property and
its use.
"A lot of information we have about security is
security-sensitive and protected," airport spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell said. "If
we tell you how we're doing something, we're not secure."
That point was
echoed by Boyd.
"Coming on the heels of the smuggling in Orlando with the
guns and drugs, it's just one more indication that we're just as vulnerable as
we were before 9-11," Boyd said.
Raffel said he and security officials
are constantly assessing safety at the nation's 12th-largest airport for its
34.8 million annual passengers and its 16,000 workers. He said security is
designed in overlapping layers, ranging from metal detectors and passenger
screeners to security cameras and roving airport security personnel or Orlando
police patrols.
The idea that detailed blueprints for a facility as
secure as an international airport would be so casually discarded runs counter
to the federal government's otherwise aggressive classification and removal of
once-open records from public view.
Just this week, The Associated Press
reported that more than 1 million historical government documents have been
sealed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Included in the now-restricted
materials is nearly half of a Federal Emergency Management database with
information on federal buildings as well as other papers more than a century
old, according to the report.
Since those attacks, the federal government
and states have enacted laws that protect security records involving airports or
public venues such as arenas or theme parks such as Walt Disney
World.
Meanwhile, tougher screening procedures have forced passengers to
have their shoes searched and bottles of mouthwash seized by security screeners
in the wake of further terrorist warnings.
Johnson, the former State
Department aviation and counterterrorism expert, said humans are always a weak
link in security systems and can make mistakes. He said OIA needs to improve
document-handling procedures regarding the destruction of sensitive
documents.
"You need to put systems in place and to put the fear of God
in people if they screw up," he said.