A small editorial on Security
 

Hi, relative newbie here who's been on a couple of international flights since 9/11.

We have a problem.

The problem is, we're trying to close the barn door after the entire herd has sashayed out.

The failures of 9/11 were multiple, and on multiple levels. OTOH, the system was simply not designed for the threat it faced. It was a cheap, mostly facade effort that was more oriented towards stopping illegal drug shipments and perhaps pure explosives. It was never designed to face the problem the terrorists posed. Understand that the problems extended far beyond the weapons that were smuggled on board the aircraft.

Unfortunately, we are now overreacting. What's worse, we're doing so in the wrong direction. Does anyone seriously think that nail clippers are a deadly weapon? Seriously? Can you imagine someone leaping to their feet and trying to hold anyone hostage with a nail clipper or a metal comb? I mean, theoretically these things can be weapons, but so can about 900 other things we carry with us on a day to day basis. You can do more damage faster with a simple house key. You could grab an unopened can of diet coke and use it as a blunt object weapon. Short of putting us all in human sized cigar tube containers you're not going to truly eliminate all the possible weapons out there. We are far too inventive a species for that to work. Pens, Pencils Watches, belt buckles, shoelaces.. the list goes on and on. And that's not including the many items already on board the aircraft.

It's truly counter-productive to spend any time or effort on nail clippers or combs. It's not only wasted effort, it makes the travel process so inconvenient for the 99.999999% perfectly normal customers that they simply won't bother flying if they can avoid it.

The point is that we are not focusing on the right problems. We're clamping in down in a way that grants far too much authority to the wrong people and doesn't secure us in any meaningful way. We need to get the administration of the airlines and the security companies to focus on what is truly important.

Some simple commonsense reccomendations:

1) Ground crews must be rotated on a truly *random* basis. Both in terms of the craft they service AND the teams they are on.

Doing so is the simplest most effective way of minimizing the ability to smuggle items on-board. It makes it much harder for a inside job to work. If you don't know *exactly* who you're working with *and* what aircraft you're working on there's no way to ensure you can smuggle things on board.

2) Offer a reward for whistle-blowing. Corporate thanks isn't enough. If you spot someone doing something suspicious it should be worth 50000 dollars cash to report it. If it turns out to be nothing you get a Steakhouse dinner certificate or something similar for keeping your eyes open and coming forward. If it turns out to be something more serious, then indeed, 50K is a pittance compared to the cost of a lost or damaged aircraft and the lawsuits. In all cases it should be confidential.

In ANY case of a report a second team will come in and duplicate what the first plane crew did, down to checking every seatback etc. The delay is worth it. Period.

3) Random security inspections of aircraft after servicing and before boarding. Truly random and more than a quick walkthrough, a five person team (rotated among three different teams) is handed a sheet in the morning and inspects listed aircraft after service and before departure. Five people should be enough to do a reasonably thorough pat-down of the aircraft in fifteen or so minutes. Again, team memebers are rotated and the schedule is random. Any aircraft picked for search is immune from being counted in the OnTime percentile and gets priority in the take-off queue so as not to be punished for being selected.

4) Random shifting of a few passengers (particularly in first or business) from their seats to other seats within their class. This applies especially to males or foreign nationals travelling together.

To be fair this would probably mean that myself and one of my teammates might be moved around a bit. Oh well.

It's important to remember that these attacks ALL occured from First/Business class.

Therefore the closer you get to the front of the plane the more likely you are to be moved from your initially assigned seat to another one (again, within the class).
There is no way for your ground crew confederate to know which seat you will be in, and so they will have to take the enormous risk of trying to plant a weapon under every seat, AND hoping they get assigned the right aircraft to do so AND happen to be working with someone else who is either in on it or not caring about making 50K cash.

5)Retinal identification of every employee on the tarmac everytime they come to work. It is ridiculous to talk about eye scanning passengers and NOT eye scan every single employee out there.

6) Police officers at EVERY major check-point. National Guardsmen are (with respect) by and large useless unless the need is for heavy duty firepower. They're not trained in the law and don't know how to deal with the public. That seems condescending, but when you have Nat Guardsmen trying to arrest or bar people form aircraft because of a book they're reading... That makes the point. you need someone with a criminal justice degree who knows the law. Not someone with a gun and a new sense of power. It also takes the baloney factor down to zero when you have someone right there with the power of arrest. We have at least as much security in our courtrooms.

6) A refined, realistic list of allowed items on carry on luggage. Enough of the no nail clippers nonsense. It's stupid and trivializes the whole security process to be told you can't bring a nail file or a sewing kit or other innocuous item on board. It is a hyper-childish scared response to a bogeyman. People tend to respond with disdain, and lose respect for the process. You have to wonder if they're going to ban pop rocks next since I hear you can make someone eat pop rocks and drink cherry coke and their head will explode.

7) Why not LOCKED carry on bins. How often do you really access your stuff overhead during flight anyways? This would be a very cost effective and straightforward implementation. The FA's can unlock it if you need them to do so, (Perhaps to get the baby's diapers or some medicine) but they can't unlock more than one (or possibly) two bins at a time.

This allows those of us with work laptops or carry on materials to still carry what we (in some cases) *have* to carry whiile minimizing risk to passengers in general. The handgun you "forgot" about is LOCKED away. The current mood is a lot of inquisitive looks if you so much as go to the bin for another paperback, I can imagine the response when you oopsy find your gun.

8) Requirement by law that foreign nationals in the US have paperwork on them at ALL times, and ALL such paperwork to be verified before they are allowed on flights. This is more problematic and really out of the hands of the airlines. We should require on a Drivers license or any other State/US Gov't issued ID an indication that the person is a foreign national. They should reasonably be required to carry passports with them on all trips within the US on airlines. Failure to have an active visa/passport AND US issued ID would bar them from boarding the aircraft.

(This may seem a bit racial or profiling, but please remember, none of the 9/11 terrorists were US citizens. I have to show my passport when I want to go from one EU nation to the next because I'm not an EU national. Fair is fair)

9) finally and most importantly we MUST begin revamping our system to a more european model. They have learned the hard way how to do things right (or as right as can be done without bankrupting the airlines). It would be terribly stupid of us to ignore the lessons they have learned.

My long winded .02 cents.

Regards,
-Bouncer-
(edit: for spelling) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Bouncer (edited 11-04-2001).]

Bouncer:

Well said. I don't agree with all of your proposals, but you make logical arguments for them. Contrast that to the current madness (which is apparently the best the FAA/DOT can muster).

Although I generally agree with most of what you say, I have to wonder about the "locked overhead bins" proposal. For most passengers, there is also space under the seat in front of them to stash their stuff --including whatever weapons they might have sneaked on board. It would also make retrieving or stashing coats, blankets, pillows, etc. during the flight really awkward, since these items are best put in the overhead bins rather than under the seat.

But I do appreciate the thoughtfulness of your suggestions.

Kathy

Most international carriers with high security standards (read El Al, Air India, etc..) already have some version of most of these points in place.

Two clarifications to your points though.

Not all the hijackers were seated in First or Business Class. Only one or two of each group were up front and the rest were in coach.

All foreign visitors to the US (as opposed to permanent residents) are already required to retain their I-94 card in their possesion. The I-94 is stamped with date of entry as well as the date that the visitor is legally allowed to remain in the US till.

Bouncer, I would like to welcome you to the board. I am glad that someone has finally taken the effort to post ideas to improve security. I agree with you that much of the FAA response is overreacting and will only destroy airtravel. Actually it will return it to the old days of the privledged few being the only ones able to fly.

I doubt if they will put us in tubes but it almost seems like by their logic we should board in issue surgical scrubs with no carry on luggage. It is only by showing something at its logical extreme can some people see the craziness of current policies.

I agree and disagree with you on your focus about crew security. We need to insure that people working on the planes are not a threat. In europe and in the third world many of the hijackings were abetted by employees. There is no proof or even good speculation that this was the case on 9-11. One of the first actions by the FBI has been to check out everyone that had anything to do with those flights. Not one of the people currently detained is reported to have been a current employee. I wish someone would prove otherwise when they make those claims.

I don't know how much you know about security operations in general, but your first couple of suggestions would not work in the majority of airports. Ground crews at most non hubs are based around very small numbers of people. So you could not actually randomize who works with who. Not even catering services in the majority of non hubs have enough trucks to really randomize. You also create serious ineffiecencies by constantly changing who does what and with whom on a plane turn.

The reward is a good idea but I think that you will see people turning in anything suspicious. In general large rewards result in many false situations, resulting in the same type of situations that the FAA is causing. I do not agree that every job should be preformed by 2 crews and a security sweep. I can agree with random security checks of flights after they have been prepped. I think most airlines were doing this before, even if only for customer service reasons. Again the way you have suggested is unworkable at smaller airports. Remember that a couple of the terrorists intentionally connected from a smaller airport. I would surmise to limit the chances that someone would wonder why so many arabs were going through the 1st/bus. checkin at the same time.

Random shifting of passengers is only useful if you assume that something has been stashed by the ground crew. The sections are too small to effect someone attacking the flight deck by moving a couple of seats. Additionally in the majority of cases, terrorists have been spread throughout coach. Only rarely have they sat together. In a couple of cases the terrorists had women involved to fool the profile and acted as a couple. So this case was an anomaly in them all sitting in first. A guess being that they wanted to be closer to control the situation better since they were only going to have small knives.

Again I could agree with improving control of who is where at the airport through better pass control/ identification. Yet we need to realise that we have been unable to complete complete backround checks and followups on current gov employees that have as much or better chance to seriously harm US nat. security. That is another issue but effects many of the peoples plans for the future and complaints about the current system.

Locked carryon bins might be a useful feature but I really doubt that it is useful. If you can get your bag through security, you could easily stash the item on your body before getting on the plane. Another metal check at every gate? then needed.

Positive requirement for passports by all foriegn nationals is a good idea, and something I would be surprised if we don't see it. Remember that this will result in crackdowns on mexican nationals and will result in many people being accussed. Think of the old cheech and chong movie Born In East LA. Anyone with an accent will have a requirement to prove he is a US citizen. Remember that most of the terrorists gained false papers(drivers licenses) from people helping latinos get fake papers. The only response is a new national id system with extra protection devices.

Finally the main point is tied between having police at every security point. I agree that national guardsmen are not being properily used in this situation. The majority of police officers do not have college degrees. You do see more now than 10 years ago but still no where near a majority. I saw a stat from a report wanting an expansion of a police ROTC, though I can not find it right now. No matter what this job will not be sought after. It will get people applying similar to jail guards and weighstation police. The best response is to improve our intelligence and target threats in general. You can not succeed if you work mainly from a defensive standpoint. Postive bag control and a general increase in security awareness is a good idea. Actually Europe is more effiencent because people have been living under a higher threat condition for a while.

As you said, making stupid policies will only result in people disregarding them or being contemptious of procedures.

Again I am finally glad to see people post something other than making gov employees.

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Robert

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.



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Robert

Ssshh! Don't give the airline execs ideas!