"Editorial: Airports need to sharpen screener skills"

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Editorial
Airports need to sharpen screener skills 
The Torrance (CA) Daily Breeze


If the creeping lines and tedious searches were not bad enough, now we learn
that security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport flunked
hidden-bomb tests 75 percent of the time.

USA Today, which got hold of a classified memo, reported last week that
screeners at two other major airports, Chicago O'Hare and San Francisco
International, did somewhat better in tests with fake bombs. Chicago missed
finding them 60 percent of the time, and San Francisco, which uses a private
company rather than federal employees, missed by an almost respectable 20
percent.

LAX has more than 2,000 screeners who each week receive about four hours of
security training.

The scores should have been, and probably were, a shock to security bosses.
The former inspector general of the Homeland Security Department, Clark Kent
Ervin, said they were a huge concern.

But here's something to make you feel a little better. Those low scores were
racked up last year. This year, the Transportation Security Administration
says it is running tests every day at every airport, and every time a
screener misses, he or she gets remedial training.

The surreptitious testers use concealed detonators, timers, batteries and
stuff that resembles plastic explosives. Some of the devices are very small,
and deceptively harmless in appearance.

Even so, we'd feel a whole lot better about the long, slow lines and
shucking our shoes and belts if those airport screener scores show some real
improvement. 

Better still if, instead of making those meticulous searches of Granny with
her umbrella and tennies the screeners would pay more attention to more
likely suspects. 

Perhaps the publication of the classified memo will do some good by ensuring
that screeners are aware that their actions are under constant scrutiny. And
security officials at LAX should now be more aware of any potential holes in
security procedures.

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