"Wide gaps remain in U.S. airport security"

Monday, April 9, 2007

Wide gaps remain in airport security
By Tamara Lytle 
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel

 
WASHINGTON . An airplane could be blown out of the sky by a
cigarette-pack-size bomb hidden in a cargo hold or a small plastic bag of
explosives tucked inside a passenger's clothing. 

Those scenarios and others are among the many concerns expressed by aviation
security specialists and lawmakers who say gaping holes remain in the
nation's security net despite myriad improvements since the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks. 
 
Their interest became more intense last month when airline employees in
Orlando smuggled a duffel bag full of guns and drugs onto a Delta flight to
Puerto Rico.

Since the March 5 incident, members of Congress have proposed more laws to
protect airline passengers. In addition, four Florida airports -- in Fort
Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa and Orlando -- as well as San Juan, quickly
increased screening of airline and federal airport employees. The security
measure has since been implemented at other airports nationwide.

But there is pressure to do much more. Among the weaknesses identified in
the nation's current system:

Screeners have no technology to detect whether passengers walking through a
checkpoint have liquid explosives hidden on them.

Only a few airports use the most effective way to screen bags for
explosives, because it's expensive. Other airports use technology that
critics say is largely ineffective, though all checked bags are screened for
explosives.

The vast majority of the cargo loaded onto passenger planes is not screened.

Thousands of airport, airline and vendor employees throughout the country
access secure areas by simply flashing their badges instead of going through
screening. That loophole allowed two Comair employees at Orlando
International to sneak an assault rifle and 13 handguns onto a Delta Air
Lines flight to Puerto Rico.

Major changes in airline security were made after the Sept. 11 attacks, in
which terrorists brought down four airliners and killed almost 3,000 people.


All checked bags were ordered screened for explosives. Cockpit doors were
made impregnable. The air marshal program was increased. Some pilots were
given permission to carry guns. The screener work force was federalized and
better trained. Terrorist watch lists were expanded. And items that
passengers can bring aboard were limited.

After Richard Reid tried to light a bomb in his shoe during a flight, new
rules were added to screen footwear as well. And last summer, after a
suspected plot to bomb flights between England and the United States was
uncovered, liquids in carry-on bags were limited.

But aviation-security experts say all of the reactions focus too much on
past incidents and not on what innovative attack might come next.

"I have a great concern about the system's ability to be able to even detect
an attack, which I greatly fear is in the planning stages," said U.S. Rep.
John Mica, of Winter Park, the top Republican on the House Transportation
Committee.

Mica's biggest fear is "clean terrorists and clean bombs," meaning attacks
by people who don't fit known terrorist profiles using easily available
materials that can evade current bomb detection.

David Heyman, director of homeland security at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said liquid explosives have been a threat since long
before Sept. 11. But it took the discovery of the suspected plot in Britain
to bring about rules limiting the liquids that passengers bring on board, he
said.

There are no security checkpoints that can detect hidden liquids on
passengers. 

A body-scanning machine that shows screeners an X-ray-type image of people
is being tested in Phoenix, but it has raised concerns about privacy.

Such technology is imperative, says Douglas Laird, an aviation consultant
and former security director for Northwest Air. 

"It doesn't take much to cause enough of an explosion to create a hole large
enough in the plane that the plane blows itself up because of the pressure
difference."

Transportation Security Administration spokesman Christopher White said the
agency does have ways of detecting explosives on individuals, including
behavioral training. 

"We have learned over the past five years that a flexible, unpredictable
approach to aviation security is the best approach," White said.The problem
with checked bags is a shortage of the best explosive-detection machines.
Congress hasn't spent enough to place those in all airports, so most
airports use trace-detection technology, Laird said. 
 
Trace-detection machines -- many equipped with wands that detect explosive
residue -- cannot always find liquid explosives in checked luggage if
someone packages the explosives in certain ways.

Mica has pushed for conveyor-belt "in-line" explosive-detection machines
that are much more accurate. Classified and other spot checks of the
trace-detection system show it fails to find explosives, he said. 

The TSA, which handles screening, has a plan to put the in-line systems into
the 250 airports with the most baggage. But under current funding of
$22.4.billion during 20 years, it would take until 2024 to get them all
installed. 

At Fort Lauderdale, officials say the terminals have to be reconfigured
before an in-line system could be installed. "It's something that's on our
radar," said airport spokesman Greg Meyer.

Miami's in-line system is being installed in the new terminal, with the
south end opening in August and the north end opening in 2010. Palm Beach
International Airport officials haven't decided whether to install the
in-line system.

Several pieces of legislation propose screening all cargo that goes onto
passenger planes. One of those bills would increase the percentage of cargo
screened to 35 percent by Sept. 30 and to 100 percent two years later, which
the TSA has said is not possible.

In addition to the current random cargo screening of a small portion of
shipments, the TSA has a system to check up on the companies that handle the
cargo and focus on higher-risk shipments.

"It's almost comical you make such a big deal about what a passenger has in
their take-on baggage, yet we're not making a big deal of cargo," said
Richard Bloom, director of terrorism, intelligence and security studies at
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. 

However, Laird, a former Secret Service agent, doesn't think terrorists
would use cargo for an attack. Cargo sometimes gets rerouted onto trucks, so
it's not predictable for terrorists.

The Orlando arrests have spurred cries for screening all workers with access
to secure areas of the airport. U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville,
pushed the idea in legislation that will come before the Homeland Security
Committee on April 24. Her bill would set up pilot programs to screen all
workers with access to secure areas at five large airports.

But Bloom, who spent 20 years working for military and civilian government
intelligence and security agencies, said screening all workers is not the
answer.

"The more you pay to screen everybody, the less you have" for other
important security measures, Bloom said.

Bloom and other experts say security always will involve such trade-offs. He
favors fewer national mandates from Congress and more ability for local
airport-security chiefs to adapt to changing risks and focus on worst-case
scenarios.

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