Bart,
One thing I think about the issue with screening the people you mentioned above is verifying identity. How can you verify that an airline pilot really is one and not a bomber with a fake badge or an airline pilot who is actually going to fly (vs. one who is just flying in a passenger's seat?) Are caterers, gate agents, and mechanics exempt too? What about TSA?

- Pat

It's starting to sound real to me now. I kind of think this was put out as a "feeler" to see what public reaction would be (there's a political term for this, but I forget what it is).

With all the news media outlets picking up on this, there's GOT to be something done, whether it's a relaxation of the prohibited items list and/or leniency of the shoe carnival.

That said, I was listening to CBS radio news a couple of hours ago and heard that the governor of Illinois was not pleased about the scissors or stars thing being re-allowed. He is talking about making it a state law to not allow those items aboard aircraft in his state. Given how it's all federal, I don't know how he's going to get his jurisdictional tentacles wrapped around that one, but we'll see.

Again, cautiously optimistic are the words here in 59-degree Denver today.

I have to agree. Airport security and immigration doesn't have a great track record now recognizing senators and representatives. There was a black lady congresswoman a few years ago who was detained at O'Hare after her return trip from Africa. They held her with no access to lawyers etc until she passed feces to show she was not smuggling anything in. They had no probable cause except they thought she might be a drug mule because she was black and seemed affluent.

This was another story that dropped out of site after awhile and we never saw the update.

How would we know they were real IDs? How many senators and congressmen could we recognize?

It is a bad idea to exempt anyone from screening. No weapons means no weapons. Government officials are not a higher class of citizen.

This is good and bad. Loosening up on the prohibited item list, shoe carnival, SSSS is all for the good. The throwing star thing goes a bit far, but no one is going to hijack an airplane with archery equipment (which competitive archers are probably loath to check in as baggage)

Exempting congressmen is a terrible idea. They need to be treated as ordinary citizens are. Same with federal judges - if they get a case in front of them dealing with screening in some way, the experience of having gone through it themselves is valuable.

The top secret clearance thing is very strange. Have they started issuing ID cards to show active clearances? When I worked for the government, that was certainly not the case. Some federal agencies don't even call the clearances by the same name (i.e. DOE's Q clearance), although there are equivalencies.

If I was a pessimist, I'd guess that the bad stuff will be approved and the good stuff will be rejected. I'm hoping for a pleasant surprise....

Lets all hope Bart is right.

I still can't see exempting pilots from screening entirely. Even if you assume they could crash the plane anyway (ala Egypt Air 990), they could still act as a witting or unwitting mule. "Put this package in the men's room, and take the $10,000." Would you trust foreign pilots as well?

Screening of airline staff started with PSA 1771 in 1987. Prior to that, airline employees could enter the secure area without a check.

After being fired, David Burke took a gun on board and murdered the flight crew. The plane crashed killing him and everyone else on board. I don't see any of the people listed as possibly being exempt that would also be exempt from going whacko like this.

Where the "I smell a rat" comes in is the carefully-worded phrases about doing these things as a cost-reduction measure. This tactic is one of the oldest tricks in the book here inside the Beltway. Chertoff is annoyed that his budget has been cut. So, he floats a trial balloon like this where he basically threatens to cut the meat from his agency because Congress has cut his budget. He sent out his talking head to make these remarks just to see who pushes back and how far they do.

His goal is to get an outcry from Congress along the lines of "You CAN'T do this!!!" in order for Congress to see the error of their ways and restore most of his budget cut. If Congress does nothing, he's not on the hook to actually follow through with these threats -- and that's what these are -- threats.

I find it interesting that he did this during the August recess. Staffers are in town, but the members aren't. So, he's not going to get a reaction. I guess his motivation was perhaps to get revenge by ruining a few vacations.

Even if this were real, I do not believe that the DHS/TSA culture will permit change this radical to happen. Just one of these changes would take 6-12 months to implement.

My recommendation is that we don't read too much into this proposal. It's simply the political process at work.

A lot would think Ted Kennedy is. Maybe that's why he's on the No Fly List?

Excluding those with high-level clearances (or perhaps those with polygraphs on file) does offer one advantage - it removes a well-investigated, low-risk population from the screening pool without regard to anything that could be considered prejudicial (race, religion, sex, etc). Of course, it would concern me a bit if a large number of the CIs you did on these individuals yielded derogatory information

Knives, scissors, arrows and throwing stars will be allowed, but no mention of
other small items currently banned, like my small jewelry making and wire cutters? How about if they just start with only looking at your ID and boarding pass ONCE. As much as I would appreciate not having to remove my shoes, jewelry and glasses, I don't look for any changes in the near future.

This is just the point that I was thinking of when I heard about potential exemptions based on people's status. If some people get security exemptions, then I would expect attempts at bribery or blackmail to get those people to act as "mules".

Consider that the IRA recently managed to rob a bank in Northern Ireland by taking hostage the families of two senior managers at the bank and then getting those two guys to allow the robbery to take place. I think this shows that if a person's family is under threat he can be coerced to do some pretty dire stuff. (OK - so a bloodless bank robbery is not in the same league as a hijacking).

If pilots became exempt from the security check, how far fetched is it to imagine that a terrorist organization would use this kind of tactic to force a pilot to take a prohibited item into the airside zone and leave it there for someone to use on another flight?

For this reason, I think there should be no exemptions. By all means give pilots, senators, VIPs and morris dancers a priority lane or something - but make sure that they are screened as thoroughly as everyone else. To do less could put their families at risk.

I'm concerned that the proposal contains two paragraphs referring to screeners' "discretion". This terminology is almost oxymoronic as stated. Their job is to be seen SCREENING people, not standing by twirling their HHMD wands (I'll leave it to you to choose which activity is most security-vital). Secondly, I wonder how many of them could even spell "discretion" and still get one letter in the correct position. Seems to me very little would change, given the more than often arrogant or assertive-to-the-point-of-absolute-nausea attitude many screeners display.

With 100 SSI criteria items which comprise the SSS public SSSlap in the face, it's also a good bet you'll still be forced to grovel in any number of ways and never be told why.

You guys go first. I don't trust people with big smiles calling me a damned liar by inference. Let me know how cold (and sticky) the floor is...

It's a difference between a general officer, for example, who possesses a top secret security clearance WITH a 25-year record of demonstrated trustworthiness and a 21 year old contractor who may have a top secret security clearance only because there was no derogatory information to disqualify him/her from consideration for that clearance. As a general rule, I believe everyone needs to undergo a measure of security scrutiny; however, IF there are going to be exceptions, then let's have some logic behind them.

If we are truly going to embrace risk management, then we have to accept the concept of exemptions. But let's not let the pendulum swing all the way to the other side and become a matter of political or economic convenience.

A loaded firearm is not a threat. A loaded firearm in the possession of somebody who intends to use it is.

Although I am no Hillary fan, if she carries a firearm for her own protection and forgets she has it in her purse, I can not foresee her suddenly remembering inflight that she has it and deciding to hijack the plane.

There have been several conferences at the regional level on radically overhauling the checkpoint and baggage SOPs in the past several months. The recommendations in the article are pretty much what came out of the conferences. Thankfully as the top TSA figure heads move on to lucrative contractor positions, these slots are being filled by people who actually have worked in the trenches and agree with the proposed changes. People in the field (screeners, leads, supervisors,managers) want these changes just as bad as you do. ^

Really I think this is all good.

The Congress exemption seems weird, but I could care less.

The most significant part of the changes, which I hope take effect, is the reduction in secondaries. If there is one thing that sets people on this board ablaze, it's cuckoo secondary screening. From a cost-cutting perspective, it seems like an obvious choice. Reducing secondaries will save money and make informed passengers happy.

If Chertoff and committee members are thinking clearly, they'll decide that someone who chooses to wear flip-flops, who doesn't alarm the WTMD, probably doesn't need a full secondary.

Likewise, the airlines can finally come to their own senses and edit their SSSS selection criteria. I always want to say, "Yes, after 100,000 miles over the last couple of years, I've decided that THIS is the flight in which I'll become a terrorist. It's a good thing that you selected me!"

As far as sharp objects go, I've never had issues myself with carrying any forbidden objects, but the danger presented by belt buckles, blenders and rolling pins does seem exaggerated.

Now if only the new rules could include recommendations for screeners to use their "inside voices..."