Attention All Passengers (27 page)

One would think the FAA would have beefed up surveillance of its vast database after the debacle of 9/11. But in July 2011 the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security reported that the TSA had vetted about four million individuals licensed by the FAA and found 506 names that were “true matches” to the Terrorist Screening Database. What's worse, the TSA recommended that twenty-seven certificates be revoked. And there's little comfort in learning that the FAA has lost track of the ownership records on one out of every three aircraft in the United States. In 2010 the Associated Press reported that 119,000 U.S. airplanes—33 percent of the nationwide total of 357,000—had “questionable registration” records. And a U.S.-registered twin-engine Piper that crashed in Venezuela in 2008 with 1,500 pounds of cocaine on board: the only problem was the actual registration belonged to a similar Piper that was securely locked up in Washington State. Experts say the confusion over missing and falsified registration “tail numbers” can facilitate drug running and even terrorism.

Silencing the Best and the Brightest

Consider this quote from Bogdan Dzakovic in the
San Francisco Chronicle
: “The real problem is that the TSA is built on the same weak foundation as the FAA. It will always be at least one step behind the terrorists. Remember the shoe bomber? Right after that incident, the TSA made everyone take off their shoes at the screening checkpoints. Then we had the female Chechen terrorists who apparently hid explosives in their underwear. And so TSA screeners started groping female passengers until a big public outcry brought that silliness to a stop. Next time the terrorists might put explosives in toothpaste tubes, and you can count on TSA screeners squishing out all the toothpaste from passengers' bags.” That appeared in print on July 9, 2006; exactly thirty-one days later, British authorities foiled the plot to detonate liquid explosives on ten transatlantic airline flights, and immediately thereafter the United States banned all liquids and gels, including toothpaste. In the weeks that followed, the restrictions were continually modified, tweaked, and revamped, and by September 26 the TSA's infamous “3-1-1” rule was instituted: “3.4 ounce containers in a 1 quart bag, 1 bag per passenger.”

As for Dzakovic, he spent fourteen years working for the FAA, first as an air marshal and then as an elite “Red Team” leader who probes the system by posing as a bad guy and simulating attacks. After 9/11 he joined the TSA and almost immediately found the new agency had no desire to tap into the expertise he and other ex-FAA veterans possessed in abundance. When Dzakovic spoke up and spoke out, he was punished. “They put me in a job that's little more than clerical work,” he says. “I could teach it to a high school kid in two hours.”

What he is not teaching—and what he and others claim the TSA is not promoting—is how effective Red Team techniques can simulate the work of terrorists to make the entire network stronger and safer. Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA security specialist, is outspoken in pointing out the TSA is “a behemoth” that wastes billions of dollars: “If they took down multiple planes on any given day, that could push us over the edge. Is that still possible? And the answer is, yes it is.”

Considering that the Department of Homeland Security—which oversees the TSA and twenty-one other government agencies—is the newest cabinet-level department, it has generated a disproportionate number of employee whistle-blowers since 2002. And the TSA has been charged with a disproportionate amount of malfeasance and waste. For example, a 2005 report from the inspector general of the DHS found that the rejection rate of applicants skyrocketed, from a ratio of 5:6 for hires-to-interviewees to 5:29. And corporate greed abounded: TSA's outsourced contractor, NCS Pearson, estimated its services at $104 million but was paid $741 million. In one case, the Wyndham Peaks Resort in Telluride, Colorado, was used to recruit fifty-one local screeners, and so billed the government $1.7 million.

As for the government/private sector revolving door that has existed at the DOT and FAA and NTSB for decades? The TSA caught up rather quickly. Michael Chertoff, tapped by the Bush administration as the second secretary of homeland security, left office in 2009 and formed the Chertoff Group. Although he would not reveal his client list, later that year it eventually came to light that it included Rapiscan, a company that manufactures full-body scanners, the same product he repeatedly hyped to the media. A few months earlier, the TSA had purchased 150 of these machines at a cost of $25 million. Passenger advocate Kate Hanni accused Chertoff of “shamelessly peddling his wares.”

Still, the TSA has its defenders. MIT's Arnold Barnett asserts, “They really are showing a bit of courage and doing a fairly good job. They're under all sorts of pressure.” He also says that security issues worry him much more than do safety issues: “It seems to me that if you find a lapse, you should try to take it off the table. It does seem monstrously reactive, but still, the more options you eliminate the harder it will be [for terrorists].” Barnett adds that he previously felt European airports were more secure than U.S. airports, but recently reversed that opinion.

Another thoughtful expert about security issues in general—and aviation security issues specifically—is author and speaker Bruce Schneier. He is at once critical of the TSA and quick to commend it. In a 2011 speech he declared that airport passenger screening is wasteful: “This is actually a stupid game and we should stop playing it. This is not security—it's security theater.”

Schneier maintains that the actual track record since 9/11 has been amazingly good: Through 2011 there were no aviation security fatalities worldwide after August 2004, when two Russian airplanes were bombed simultaneously. And for U.S. airlines, there were two incidents since 9/11—the would-be shoe bomber and the would-be underwear bomber—and neither was successful. “I'd like to see more of us accept the mathematics of security,” he has stated. “The most dangerous part of your airline flight is the taxi ride to the airport.”

So what are we doing right? Schneier says the focus has been effective at the “beginning and end” of a flight, with intelligence and investigation in advance and emergency response at the scene. He says two positive developments since 9/11 are reinforced cockpit doors and passengers fighting back. As for what works at the airport, he cites three factors: the deterrence of passengers carrying weapons and bombs, the use of canines for detecting explosives (which presents logistical issues), and behavioral profiling (which also presents logistical issues).

So I asked him, what would he do if he were named administrator of the TSA? “The head of the TSA is the wrong place to address this,” he said. “The TSA has too much budget already. It's not just about aviation. So it should be addressed at a level above the TSA.” In other words, while we fret obsessively about airlines, we leave ourselves vulnerable to attacks against our subways, train lines, ports, bridges, tunnels, arenas, shopping malls, and other infrastructure.

Passenger Screening

For a decade now the TSA has been searching for just the right machines and methods to screen passengers and their carry-on baggage—but without success. What's more, there are equipment shortages, and little continuity of systems and technologies across the board, creating a patchwork quilt of screening processes, particularly at smaller airports.

In 2007 the U.S. Government Accountability Office stated: “Concerns have arisen as to whether top management at [TSA] were negatively impacting the results of red team operations by leaking information to security screeners at the nation's airports in advance of covert testing operations.” Subsequently, GAO's Forensic Audits and Special Investigations team conducted testing of its own and found that investigators passed through airport security checkpoints carrying prohibited explosive components without being caught by TSA security officers.
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On his site Ralph Nader writes at length about screening deficiencies. On the topic of radiation, Nader states: “Homeland Security should respond when physics professor Peter Rez of Arizona State University calculates the radiation dose to be ten times higher than [DHS] is asserting. Or when David J. Brenner of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research says that using these scanners—with up to 1 billion whole-body X-ray scans per year in the U.S.—‘may profoundly change the potential public health consequences to the population.' ” Nader also asserts there are malfunctions, and cites John Sedat, “one of four scientists at the University of California at San Francisco who is questioning TSA's technical assertions.” According to Nader, Sedat claims “these machines could stall, giving passengers ‘severe burns if not worse' ” since “software fails often.”

The TSA has gotten high marks from some experts for finally introducing a Behavior Detection Officer program, which “utilizes non-intrusive behavior and analysis techniques to identify potentially high-risk passengers.” Schneier, for one, is a strong proponent of profiling based on behavior—not race or gender—but he acknowledges it's difficult to implement proper training: “Profiling is a hard one because you want to avoid organized racism.” This dovetails with the screening methods used by Tower Air's Israeli security teams on our flights to and from Tel Aviv; I used to watch as they screened reservations information weeks in advance and profiled passengers in the airport parking lot before they even entered the terminal.

Unfortunately, critics charge, the TSA is shortchanging its own efforts, through weak and sometimes virtually nonexistent training. “They heard the message, but their method is almost laughable,” says Sullivan. “We have to get away from screening everybody. We have not made full use of dogs and behavior profiling . . . I think they're starting to recognize it's pure folly to pat down everyone. They're starting to look for bad people.”

While many suggest more of an Israeli approach to passenger profiling, a recurring theme among U.S. security personnel is that one-size-fits-all doesn't work in the largest commercial aviation market in the world. As one American security expert says, “I get tired of the El Al people telling Americans what they should do, because they have one airport and forty planes. We have that many planes taking off
every minute
in this country.”

I reached out to Barbara Peterson, who worked as a TSA screener and wrote about the experience for
Condé Nast Traveler
in 2007. Years later, she was floored by how little things have changed: “We still have no effective way to prescreen passengers and we're still treating everyone who transits an airport as a potential criminal.” Working inside the system confirmed for her how pointless the security drill really is, without focusing much beyond the passenger checkpoint. Sadly, Peterson says she sees no sign of that changing.
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Of course, all this screening can add minutes or even hours to an air travel itinerary, and security is the prime source of the “hassle factor” cited by weary flyers. Shortly after its inception, the TSA introduced a terrific tool for consumers: an online Wait Time Calculator that allowed passengers to calculate how long they would be standing in security lines at specific terminals in all of the largest airports throughout the country. First the calculator was under construction, and then it disappeared.

Baggage and Cargo Screening

In July 2011 the GAO issued a report with a title that could have been used as an executive summary: “TSA Has Enhanced Its Explosives Detection Requirements for Checked Baggage, but Additional Screening Actions Are Needed.” The GAO found that “some” explosives detection systems met standards established in 2005, while many others did not; what's more, “TSA has no plan in place outlining how it will approach these upgrades.” Congressman Mica, the Florida Republican who heads the House Transportation Committee, is always eager to make the case for privatizing airport security, and he greeted the report by saying TSA continues to waste our limited resources and threatens transportation security.
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So the question is whether the TSA is more about jobs or about security. Blurring the issue is the internal debate within DHS over the exact responsibilities of screeners. The TSA boasts whenever an airport pat-down leads to an arrest for a nonsecurity issue, such as an outstanding warrant; others worry that undertrained, underpaid frontline federal employees are overstepping their bounds.

Transportation policy expert Stephen Van Beek underscores this when he says, “The TSA and CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] have to be service oriented. They have evolved into law enforcement organizations rather than service-oriented organizations.” He adds, “Sometimes it's just appalling the way passengers are treated.” Appearances clearly are a factor. Despite its budgetary concerns, in its short history the TSA has found the money to revamp screeners' uniforms, and it's not lost on law enforcement veterans that the current model gives screeners the appearance of police officers—albeit without the proper training and authority.

Meanwhile, one of the best detection systems is decidedly low-tech: dogs. Experts say they still represent “the state of the art in real-time detection” of items of forensic interest, and they must be an integral part of interdiction or threat prevention systems.
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Most alarming of all is that experts say millions of tons of cargo and mail are carried on U.S. passenger airlines every day without being properly screened at all.

Federal Air Marshals

For years I have been speaking to air marshals and former air marshals who tell of the TSA's nonsensical methodology. And for years the most egregious policy debate focused on the strict suit-and-tie dress requirements, even on summertime flights to beach resorts; it became known as the “kill-me-first” dress code policy. They also speak of inflated employee ranks.