Airport security misses weapons By Blake Morrison, USA TODAY Checkpoint screeners at 32 of the nation's largest airports failed to=20 detect fake guns, dynamite and bombs in almost a quarter of undercover=20 tests by the Transportation Security Administration last month, documents=20 obtained by USA TODAY show. The tests, the first since the new security=20 agency began overseeing checkpoint screening in February, were done by=20 agents who were instructed to do little to try to conceal the items as they= =20 passed through screening checkpoints, memos about the tests show. At three= =20 major airports screeners failed to detect potentially dangerous items in at= =20 least half the tests. At a fourth, Los Angeles International Airport, the=20 results weren't much better. There, screeners repeatedly failed to detect=20 steel test pieces that set off metal detectors. Screeners also had=20 difficulty spotting simulated bombs. "A 41% failure rate is just pathetic,"= =20 says Jack Plaxe, an aviation security consultant. "There has to be problems= =20 with the people or their training." Nationwide, screeners often failed to find simulated weapons on agents=20 after metal-detector alarms sounded. In 178 tries, screeners failed to find= =20 potentially dangerous items on the agents in a third of the tests. At some= =20 of the 32 airports, agents conducted only a handful of tests. At the 12=20 airports where at least a dozen tests were conducted, the failure rate was= 29%. The documents detailing the results, considered "security sensitive=20 information" by the agency, are part of a series of undercover tests that=20 are set to conclude today. The screeners who were tested had been trained=20 by security companies that used to work for the airlines and which the TSA= =20 now oversees. Tens of thousands of them likely will be hired by the=20 government by November, when screeners will become federal employees. The=20 TSA plans to deploy about 45,000 screeners by then. "The TSA is looking for= =20 problems in the system daily so we can fix them," agency spokeswoman Mari=20 Eder says of the tests. "We have issues to correct." Slightly more than half of the results of 387 tests involved screeners=20 operating X-ray machines. The other tests assessed whether screeners=20 detected objects that set off metal-detector alarms. The results raise=20 questions about whether screening has improved since the TSA took=20 responsibility for overseeing airport checkpoints. In tests completed=20 earlier this year before the federal takeover, investigators with the=20 Transportation Department's independent watchdog, the inspector general,=20 found failure rates of nearly 50% at 32 airports they tested. But the=20 manner in which those tests were done differed from the TSA's approach. TSA= =20 agents were instructed to pack bags containing the simulated weapons=20 "consistent with how a typical passenger in air transportation might pack a= =20 bag." In particular, agents were told to avoid trying to "artfully conceal"= =20 the simulated weapons =97 a different tack from that used by the inspector= =20 general's investigators. They tried to simulate how a terrorist, not a=20 "typical passenger," might bypass security. TSA officials say their tests=20 weren't intended to emulate the behavior of terrorists. Rather, officials=20 hoped to see whether screeners could spot basic items they had been trained= =20 to recognize. But some security analysts question whether the agency's=20 approach of the tests accurately assesses checkpoint screening. "We can't=20 assume that terrorists are like your everyday person," Plaxe says. "They're= =20 going to try to trick us." The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ The Trinbago Site of the Week: (RBTT) http://www.rbtt.com/ (RBTT Financial Group) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************