This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ A Study of Federal Airport Security July 1, 2003 By JOE SHARKEY In the roughly 18 months since the federal Transportation Security Administration took over passenger screening at the nation's 429 commercial airports, many frequent fliers have collected tales of silliness, rudeness and apparent ineptness as they pass through security checkpoints. But John Bace remembers how much worse security sometimes was before the agency arrived to replace privately employed, poorly paid security screeners with 55,000 better-paid, better-trained federal employees. The anecdote that he cites happened in the fall of 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when National Guard troops carrying rifles were stationed just inside airport security zones. "As I was waiting in line to go through the screening myself, several Guardsmen were permitted to cut to the front of the line as they were about to take their place on the other side of the magnetometers," recalled Mr. Bace, a research director at Gartner Inc. in Chicago. What happened next astonished him. One by one, the men placed their loaded M-16 rifles and their pistols on the conveyer belt, sending them through the X-ray machine to be scanned, and then meekly walked past the security guards to retrieve the weapons. "I started to say, `But why?' " Mr. Bace said. "But a sergeant just said, `Don't ask. They were told everything had to be scanned.' The look on his face said it all to me: `You just have to pass through here. I stay here and work with these people.' " Today, airport security continues to take heat from many sides. Passengers gripe about shoe searches and pat-downs of elderly women. Members of Congress and officials in the aviation industry denounce the agency as a bureaucratic money pit (it spent nearly $6 billion in the 2002 fiscal year) that is largely unaccountable to legislative oversight. Airport managers and outside security experts say the public, which sees only the heavy uniformed presence at passenger checkpoints, would be shocked at gaping security holes in air cargo and baggage handling areas, not to mention at sea ports and borders. But a closer look puts the security agency in a better light. One figure - zero - tells a big part of the story. That is the number of people, out of the nearly one billion passengers who have passed through the new security, who have been injured or killed by terrorists at airports or on airplanes since Sept. 11, 2001. Safety aside, the security agency and its sympathizers say that politeness and professionalism are now the routine in the check-in experience, and many business travelers and other frequent fliers agree. In recent weeks, though, a growing number have been complaining about a perceived deterioration in standards. As summer travelers hit the airports and checkpoint lines grow, some worry about a replay of the dreaded airport "security hassle factor," which airlines said last year was driving people away. The latest furor centers on shoes, a source of concern since an inept terrorist named Richard C. Reid tried unsuccessfully in December 2001 to detonate explosive material in his shoe on a flight. Savvy travelers had figured out that one way to speed their way through security points was wearing footwear without the metal shanks that trigger the metal detectors. But when guards at some checkpoints began making them take their shoes off anyway, they flooded the agency with complaints. The agency says the searches are justified. "When we ask passengers to remove their shoes, many times it's so we can run them through the X-ray machines to look for a range of items, not necessarily all of which are metal," an agency spokesman, Brian Turmail, said. Not that the agency is taking a dismissive attitude toward passengers, Mr. Turmail said; it understands that some of them are upset at having to "walk around barefoot in a public airport" and is exploring options for providing them with paper foot slippers. It is also moving to address concerns about the way checked bags are processed through security. Since Jan. 1, all checked bags have been subject to some kind of inspection, mostly by machines that detect explosives and, for about 10 percent of randomly chosen bags, by hand. Locked bags are forced opened, and many passengers worry about theft or damage to their possessions either while the agency has custody of the bag or afterward, when it is returned to the airline baggage-handling system. Now, Mr. Turmail said, "If we have to open your bag for security reasons and have to reseal it, we'll place a blue tamper-evidence seal, coded specifically to an airport, on it" to alert a passenger that it has been opened and examined. More broadly defending his agency, Mr. Turmail said that some complaints about it derive from its very success in improving service. "In the early days, people were surprised to find screeners saying hello and thank you," he said. As a result, "there is a higher expectation going through the checkpoint." Customer service initiatives aside, many private security experts have long questioned the central thrust of the new security agency. That is, the agency's main efforts are devoted to examining all passengers, more or less equally, for contraband, and subjecting large numbers of passengers, including children and old people in wheelchairs, to humiliating pat-downs and body searches with electronic wands. Critics have derided these efforts as window dressing intended to convince the public that security is intense, when, they say, it is inadequate and focused on the wrong things. "Airport security may be a little better after the T.S.A. took over, but not to the degree that it should be for what taxpayers are spending for smoke and mirrors, which don't fool the terrorists," said Douglas R. Laird, a former Secret Service agent who is president of Laird and Associates, an aviation security company in Reno, Nev. Defenders of the security agency say it is doing a good job, often shifting tactics in ways that may seem capricious to passengers but that are aimed at throwing potential terrorists off-guard. "We don't have whims at the T.S.A.," said a screener in Fort Lauderdale in an e-mail message, in which he requested anonymity. "Rules and regulations do change constantly due to the constant flow of intelligence - some good and some not so good," said the screener, who described himself as a former marine with a background in military security. "The first rule of security is not to become routine. By randomly changing up the approach, you keep the bad guys guessing." Joe Brancatelli, who publishes a World Wide Web newsletter for business travelers called Joe Sent Me (www.joesentme.com), said he agreed with the tactic of random searching of people who do not fit terrorist stereotypes. Business travelers, focused on convenience, he said, are more likely to complain about that than leisure travelers. "I hear from frequent flyers all the time about how their dear, sainted grandma was frisked," Mr. Brancatelli said. "But I never hear from the grandmas complaining about the frisking." But security needs to pay attention to grandma, Mr. Brancatelli said. "Does anyone think a bunch of Arab-looking guys named Mohammad are going to try to hijack a plane?" he asked. "If they try again, they will look like Mrs. Doubtfire. These guys are a lot of things, but they ain't stupid. The next time will be different. Who's to say they won't be dressed like the executive vice president of I.B.M., or that they won't plant the stuff in some toddler's diaper?" http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/01/business/01SECU.html?ex=1058067961&ei=1&en=7f61aa453325bd1d --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@xxxxxxxxxxx or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@xxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company