"Opinion: Airport Insecurity"

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Opinion 
Airport Insecurity
By Arnold Ahlert 
FrontPageMag.com


On Wednesday, while the Obama administration was taking credit for thwarting
the latest attempt by al-Qaida to blow a jetliner out of the sky, the House
Transportation & Infrastructure Committee (T&I) and Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform (OGR) released a damning report revealing that the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) "rushed to install" the
highly-vaunted full-body scanners in the nation's airports despite the
reality that officials have known for years that the machines were incapable
of stopping a terrorist wearing an "underwear" bomb.
 
The 21-page report titled "Airport Insecurity" sheds a lot of light on the
kind of bureaucratic waste, inefficiency and arrogance that has become a
hallmark of the Obama administration in general, and the TSA in particular.
Among its key findings were "Major TSA Procurement and Deployment Failures,"
including a $30 million expenditure to procure 207 "puffers" that ostensibly
detect explosives-only to discover after the fact that they did not do so in
an "operational environment," even as they were "ignoring internal
procedures designed to prevent this type of waste."
 
Lesson learned? "Failing to learn from its failed procurement of 'puffers,'
and in the wake of  the Christmas Day Bomber, TSA rushed to install 500
Advanced Imaging Technology devices, without clear evidence of
effectiveness, at a cost of more than $122 million," the report reads. The
agency also employed Advanced Imaging Technology Devices despite a
Government Accountability Office GAO report noting that it remained
"unclear" as to whether or not "the AIT would have been able to detect the
weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used in his attempted attack" on Northwest Airlines
Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas 2009.

Despite these concerns, the TSA acquired another 378 and still has plans to
buy nearly 1,000 more in the next two years-despite the fact that studies
dating back to 2010 revealed the scanners did not work as advertised. "GAO
has estimated increases in staffing costs alone, due to doubling the number
of AITs  that TSA plans to deploy, could add up to $2.4 billion over the
expected service life of the AITs," says the report.
 
It also accused the TSA of "failing to deploy in-line Explosive Detection
Systems in a cost-effective and risk-based manner." EDS technology is used
to screen baggage, and the report indicates that their successful deployment
could reduce the number of required baggage screeners "by as much as 78%"
Reality check? "However, despite the potential security and economic
benefits of in-line baggage screening, GAO found that TSA is struggling to
upgrade its deployed fleet of checked baggage-screening machines and that
some of TSA's deployed machines are detecting explosives at standards
promulgated in 1998." In other words, like any other bloated government
bureaucracy, the TSA is taking its time in order to keep as many unnecessary
workers on the government payroll as long as possible.
 
Yet inefficiency is only part of the problem, as the lengthy title of
another critical section in the report reveals. "TSA Intentionally Delayed
Congressional Oversight of the Transportation Logistics Center and Provided
Inaccurate, Incomplete, and Potentially Misleading Information to Congress
in Order to Conceal the Agency's Continued Mismanagement of Warehouse
Operations," it reads. The report contends that the TSA's willful delays,
including a failed attempt to hide the disposal of approximately 1,300
pieces of equipment, even as the agency knowingly provided inaccurate
warehouse inventory reports to Congressional staff during an investigative
visit, could amount to a violation of the law.
 
Members of Congress were not amused. "TSA continues to demonstrate its
penchant for bungling aviation security and wasting taxpayers' money," said
T&I Chairman John L. Mica (R-FL). "The CIA uncovered terrorists' latest
modified underwear bomb plot, but TSA has repeatedly failed to effectively
procure and deploy screening equipment that actually detects threats, and
incredible amounts of its state-of-the-art technology is gathering dust in
Texas warehouses. Significant reform is necessary to transform this bloated
and inefficient bureaucracy into the effective security agency it needs to
be."
 
OGR Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) echoed that sentiment. "Money spent on
equipment sitting in a warehouse in excess is money not spent on the front
lines," he said. "Systematic flaws in the procurement and deployment systems
at TSA continue to plague the agency. These flaws are exacerbated by a
management structure that seems content to throw millions of dollars at
untested solutions that are bought in excess and poorly deployed and
managed. This is not a security operation, but rather a recipe for waste and
abuse."

Waste and abuse are key elements here. A Huffington Post report on the
latest attempt by al-Qaida to get another underwear bomb aboard a jet
included a rather revealing email from former Secretary of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff. Chertoff contended that it is "too soon to tell how
technically advanced [the] new device is. Imaging will pick up anomalies
below clothing but [the U.S. government] has to analyze [the] device before
adjusting protocols."
 
Why is that email revealing? Because in 2010, Chertoff's consulting firm,
the Chertoff Group, began representing OSI Systems, one of two companies
licensed to sell full-body scanners to the TSA. OSI makes a machine called
Rapiscan, 300 of which were sold to the TSA in wake of Christmas 2009
attempt to blow up a jet using an underwear bomb. Shortly after that
attempt, Chertoff was lobbying for stronger airport screening procedures on
ABC's "World News Tonight", "Fox and Friends", CNBC's "Squawk Box" and
Bloomberg TV. He also wrote an editorial in the Washington Postone week
after the incident contending that the Obama administration "must stand firm
against privacy ideologues, for whom every security measure is
unacceptable"-even as he failed to mention he was promoting the same
technology he was getting paid to promote.
 
Thus, it is hardly a surprise that Mr. Chertoff wants more government
analysis of existing procedures before protocols are "adjusted."

The American public? Hardly a week goes by without another outrage foisted
upon Americans by an over-bearing TSA. Fort Lauderdale, Florida was the
location of the latest TSA absurdity. On Tuesday an 18-month old child was
ordered off a Jet Blue flight because she was tagged as a "no fly"
passenger. Such over-bearing nonsense is amplified by the revelation that
the latest version of an underwear bomb confiscated by a CIA double-agent in
Yemen "would not have been caught by the TSA's most conscientious human
screeners or its highest-tech fullbody scanners," according to experts who
relayed that information to the NY Post. "They would not have gotten him,"
added a top law-enforcement official. Another official was equally blunt.
"Frankly, the caliber of the screeners is not that good. It's kind of hit or
miss," the source said. "The equipment is wonderful-but it isn't
bulletproof."
 
Apparently Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano didn't get the
proverbial memo. "There is a high likelihood that [the bomb] would have been
detected had he boarded a flight in the United States," she contended, even
as she failed to address the likelihood of detection on flights that
originated abroad.
 
The only realistic alternative to the current technology? Bomb-sniffing
dogs, say the experts. Yet they are currently considered impractical to use
at large, crowded airports. Compared to what? Inefficient and expensive
technology? TSA employees who steal, grope genitalia, or miss detecting
bombs and other weapons slipped past security by government agents testing
TSA efficiency-or those taken aboard planes by actual passengers?
 
The entire rationale behind airport security is to stay one step ahead of
the terrorists. This report reveals that the TSA, with its one-two
combination of inefficient technology and a workforces besieged by the
inevitable torpor that attends federal bureaucracy, is two steps behind.

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