I doubt if anyone will want to read this but I liked bouncers idea about just putting out some ideas about security. I am sure that I am getting a bad rep, about how long my posts are. Again I do not think that any discussion about security should be done superficially. Too much is at risk.

I know that many of the people out there want a federal police force to be responsible for airport security. I don't agree, but federalising would provide an increase over the current situation for the short term. Much of what people think though will not occur. First lets talk about how they would be hired and employeed. The senate consensus was to make it part of the justice department, or it could stay in transportation. The result would be the same in the long run. First a structure would need to be built, then an operating SOP built, Offices, training areas, training program designed, then an advertising program for initial recruits. That gets us to interviewing, backround checks, testing, to be followed by training and then initial deployment. You are talking about 1-2 years to get it done right and that is just to start, not get 30,000 employees trained.

Actually you are not going to see actually armed officers. The government will not take the time or expense to get them to that level. What I have seen discussed is to train them to about the level they are at now. Maybe you will get them double the training the private sector gets now so about 80 hours.

Many of you have complained about split security duties. Unless you make all airports federal property you will still have local police that have responsibility for much of the security including the perimeter. Basically something similar to what happens in many areas of DC.

To make the plan work, the chief of security will have to be the senior person at every airport. He will have to have final say about every issue, from concourse design, parking etc.

With regard to the job. I hate to say it but it will take a certain type of personality to search bags. It is easy to say that we will hire criminal justice college graduates, but that will not happen. First most actual police do not have college degrees when they start and most never finish a bachelor degree. Why would someone study for four years to look in peoples bag 40 hours a week. Even if you say that they would do multiple different types of jobs, you are talking 50% or more doing that. I would like one person on this board to find a current police officer who would say that they would be willing to do this job, and at what salary. Until you can do that, don't assume that it will ever happen. There is a different type of personality required to be an infantryman, a parachutist, military engineer or special forces op. The same is the case with police officers. If you could actually convince a potential police officer to take this job when he could be a much better street cop, it would be a waste to place him in this position. A good street cop has a much better chance of discovering a potential terr than stopping him at the last line.

The job is actually most similar to working in a jail. Jobs in all prisons or jails usually have relatively high turn over and poor results. Look at the rates of drug use in prison. It is actually possible to make procedures to get into an jail harder than you could ever do at a jail but weapons and contraband are still snuck in. The government has also had problems recently admitted to in the state dept. The FBI losing laptops and weapons including machine guns, and just yesterday airforce police assigned to a nuclear site getting arrested stealing automatic weapons and trying to sneak into mexico. Except for the last example, very little punishment occured to the offenders.

Actually that leads to my final arguement. The suggested situation is going to lead to the security provider(feds) also being the one testing security. Just as you rarely hear of failures at military instalations and federal offices until congressional oversight hearings after a disaster. Many have mentioned the term red cell ops to test security. Do any of you have any idea about what happened to the navy unit that tested base security. It was disbanded and many of the people charged with offenses after if had proved successful at showing security lapses. The military still conducts these kind of operations but not at the same level because the people in charge are also the ones responsible for failures. This actually is one of the best arguements for having a combination of security organizations both public and private. The testers by being completely seperated from the security organization provide a better chance at really pushing the system. You also have to realize that part of the red cell mission is to succeed in beating the security. that way security can learn from mistakes and know that they have made an error. If you just fire everyone that misses something the overall security situation will more likely decrease than improve. Finally a federal agency will probably not publish results of tests as that will be considered a threat to both security and the bureaucracy that now exists. Just as most police/military forces keep similar info secret.

Thanks to anyone that has read this. I do think the issue is serious and hope that people will really think about all the things that we really want to happen and what will really happen.

It is possible to say as the senate did that even as federal employees they can be fired, but actual work rules will be renegotiated every couple of years and why do you think that this class of employees will stand for having a different set of rules than federal marshals, or state dept security. They will be GS employees and probably have legal recourse as such.



------------------
Robert