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The Transportation
Security Administration is stepping up screening of airport workers
nationwide amid growing concern that nearly 1 million employees can get
into airplanes or other restricted areas without going through
security.
Teams of screeners, air marshals and inspectors will
go from airport to airport, spending several days at a time searching
workers and checking airplane cabins, agency chief Kip Hawley told USA
TODAY.
The strategy, dubbed "surge," comes three weeks after
two Orlando-based airline workers were charged with carrying 14 guns onto
a Comair flight. Their arrests heightened calls in Congress for workers to
be screened like airline passengers.
"It's emerging as a big issue," airport lobbyist Joel
Bacon told an aviation forum Monday. Screening workers would impose
"horrendous" costs — billions to buy and run inspection machines — and tie
up workers, he said.
Not screening airport workers is "a terrible
vulnerability," said aviation consultant Douglas Laird, former security
chief at Northwest Airlines. "The system is totally wide open," said
Laird, who advocates screening of all airport workers. "It's long
overdue."
The House of Representatives is likely to pass a bill
next month that would require the TSA to go beyond "surges" and screen all
employees at five airports in a six-month test, said Dena Graziano, a
spokeswoman for House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie
Thompson, D-Miss.
The TSA has required more airport workers to pass
background checks and last year started randomly screening the workers. In
its first "surge," the agency sent 160 security officers to five airports
in south Florida and Puerto Rico for several days after the Comair
employees were arrested.
Hawley said the extra TSA workers will "really be
noticeable" to deter potential terrorists.
On the Web:
Press Release: Bill Would Require Full Screening of
Airport Workers, Closing Gaping Security Hole
http://homeland.house.gov/press/index.asp?ID=187&SubSection=0&Issue=0&DocumentType=0&PublishDate=0 | 
