Aviation Security that Is Sane and Sensible
By Larry Johnson on November 16, 2010 at 6:23 PM in Current Affairs
Now that folks are riled up about having their junk juggled by a stranger in a uniform at the airport, it is time to focus on security measures that make sense and are effective. Unfortunately the current system is the worst of a bureaucratic solution and is not based on consistent, standard operating procedures that acutally serve a security purpose. At present the TSA allows regions to set their own standards. For example, if you are a woman wearing a “wife beaters” t-shirt and are wearing an unbuttoned long sleeve shirt on top you will be required at some airports to remove the long sleeve shirt. However, if you button up the shirt you will not be required to remove the shirt. Now what is the purpose of removing the shirt? To discover if someone has something concealed under the shirt.
Here is our current situation with respect to finding bombs:
1. It is difficult to get a bomb on board a plane that is in checked luggage. All domestic checked luggage is subjected to examination by CAT scan technology that is capable of detecting the amount of explosives that brought down Pan Am 103 or Explosive Trace Detection equipmet, which is much less reliable and more easily circumvented. But even the CTX system is far from being a perfect technological solution. It can have a fairly high false positive rate, which means the bag has to be opened and physically inspected. Compared to the pre-911 practice, however, we are doing more to ensure that checked bags are “bomb free.”
2. Checked luggage on flights that originate overseas is more problematic. Although the standard is 100% screening of baggage placed in the belly of the aircraft, the actual methods vary from country and airport. Some do physical inspection. Others use only xray systems that are not likely to detect any explosive. Flights coming from overseas are more vulnerable to having a bomb introduced on board in checked luggage than a domestic flight.
3. There is no reliable technological in place at passenger screening checkpoints to prevent an explosive from being carried on board an airplane, foreign or domestic. If an aspiring terrorist decides to shove a pound of explosive literaly up his own ass we have no technological solution currently deployed to detect this threat. Full body imaging scans are “feel good” systems that are better than nothing but there are ways these can be defeated.
4. Even though the threat of a bomb being hidden in shoes originated overseas we only check shoes on domestic flights. Flights that originate overseas normally do not inspect shoes. Within the last year I have flown from Egypt, Rome and Bogota. My shoes were not inspected in any of these airports. Shoe inspection does not make any sense if the sole of the shoe is less than an inch thick. Forcing women with paper thin flip flops to remove their “shoes” is a silly, useless security procedure.
5. You can get a liquid bomb on board a plane as long as you put 3 ounces of liquid in five containers. Those will easily fit inside a quart bag. This is another example of a bogus security procedure that actually does noth keep you safer.
6. Domestic cargo? Yes, it is screened but not always with a CAT scan technology.
7. Foreign cargo? Not scanned, especially pallets stored in the belly of a wide body aircraft taking off from Rome or London or Frankfurt and flying to the United States. This is a wide open vulnerability that remains unaddressed.
So why are planes not blowing up on a regular basis? A major reason, in my judgement, is the aspiring terrorists lack the skills required to build an effective, reliable explosive device that is not easy to detect. The Al Qaeda bombmaker in Yemen had a very clever design but did not demonstrate the same intelligence in constructing a device that would exlode reliably.
So what do we do? Please don’t tell me that we should emulate Israel’s El Al. What a joke. El Al has a total of 40 aircraft. Got that? United Airlines flies that many out of Chicago O’Hare in two hours on any given day. El Al also is focused on a much narrower threat. Basically, if you are Jewish you get a pass. If you are not Jewish, you get close scrutiny. El Al’s system works for them but don’t let them kid you that they are perfect. Several years ago Palestinian terrorists succeeded in getting a bomb on board an Israeli airliner. Fortunately the device never detonated. But it did rack up some frequent flier miles until a captured terrorist divulged the plot. Just pointing out that the highly touted Israeli system is not fool proof.
Where do we need to go? For starters we need to start using smart profiling. I am not talking about racial or ethnic profiling. Instead, flight crews on board aircraft should have a separate line based on biometric systems. If we trust them to fly the damn airplane then the security priority is to make sure that the person with the badge is the same person trying to get on board the plane. Pilots and flight attendants do not need to be x-rayed. The should be subjected to random spot checks to ensure they are not being used to move drugs or cash, but that is a different issue.
Frequent flyers with established profiles should also be put into expedited lines based on biometric data. Those profiles can regularly be checked against criminal databases and lists like OFAC to ensure that the person has not turned to a life of crime. This also would help unclog the security checkpoint mess.
Similarly, people with no extensive record of travel, who are between the ages of 18 and 45 should be subjected to extensive scrutiny. It is in this area that information in US Government databases should be applied to help identify high risk folks and eliminate people who are low risk.
The Federal Government needs to do a much better job of supporting research and development efforts to find technology that will reliably detect explosives in a safe, efficient manner. Right now there is no silver bullet but there are some promising technologies on the horizon.
This is a start towards sanity. The Europeans will be announcing a new plan at the end of November. It should be a game changer and will probably force TSA to rethink how it is doing business. One thing is clear–Americans are increasingly fed up with the current practice and are demanding a fundamental change.
by Ronald Scott
* More novels by 
* 
(
)
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
Pingback: Tweets that mention Aviation Security that Is Sane and Sensible : NO QUARTER -- Topsy.com
Pingback: New Jersey And Others Push Back At TSA : NO QUARTER