Bumps In The Sky

By Daren Fonda and Sally B. Donnelly

A few days before a college kid named Nathaniel Heatwole got busted for acting like a would-be terrorist, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conducted a poll and claims it received good news: most folks believe the agency is doing a decent job. According to the poll, which has not yet been published, about 90% of respondents who had recently flown said security at airports was "somewhat better to much better" than it was before 9/11. It's easy to see why. The federal screeners scanning our bodies, bags and shoes are often infallibly polite, and in their starched white shirts and pressed pants, they appear more savvy than those privately employed workers who could look more bleary-eyed than eagle-eyed. Americans now say they're more hassled by wait times at check-in counters than those at security checkpoints.

Yet in the two years since U.S. aviation began its most radical security overhaul, it doesn't take much to scare us and rekindle this question: Is our system really working? To some experts, the answer is no, and they point to Heatwole's actions as evidence. Saying he was committing civil disobedience to expose flaws in the nation's aviation-security system, Heatwole breached security six times over an eight-month period at Raleigh-Durham International and Baltimore/Washington International airports. He carried aboard contraband such as box cutters and a knife, along with bleach, reddish molding clay (which he hoped would be identified as a plastic explosive) and matches. Frustrated that his efforts were not detected, he finally stowed the items in the lavatories of two Southwest Airlines jets and on Sept. 15 sent federal authorities an email alerting them and identifying himself as the culprit. No one listened. It took a pilot's complaint about a toilet in the rear of a plane for workers to discover the items, which had sat undetected for five weeks.

It's worth pointing out that Heatwole was never a threat. He didn't plant a bomb, and box cutters on a plane aren't a big deal anymore for one simple reason: other passengers. "A terrorist who jumps up with box cutters will probably be beaten to death," says Brian Jenkins, a security expert with the Rand Corp. That said, some security professionals say they're indebted to Heatwole. "That kid is my hero," says Charles Slepian, head of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center. "He got us to pay attention to what many of us have known since 9/11--that security at airports is all smoke and mirrors." That may be overstating it, but even Admiral James Loy, the outgoing head of the TSA, admits that Heatwole's stunt "shows us we have much to learn."

First the good news: we're safer today than we were before the feds turned airline security into a matter of national security. Nearly all cockpit doors have been hardened and bulletproofed, and some pilots have qualified to carry guns on board. Crews hold detailed preflight security briefings led by the captain, and, perhaps more importantly, crews are no longer trained to think they can deal with terrorists by themselves. If a threat is detected, a pilot will alert air-traffic controllers, who will likely call in jet fighters while the pilot would land the plane immediately. Some airlines installed video cameras in the cabin and a screen in the cockpit so pilots can monitor passenger behavior. Virtually all large U.S. airlines now have such doors and procedures in place, and many foreign carriers that fly into the U.S. are required to install them as well.

Passengers, their carry-ons and checked luggage are being more rigorously scanned. One thousand bomb-detection machines have been installed in airports since the start of 2002 to search checked luggage. The TSA has deployed 5,300 explosive trace-detection devices, which hunt for evidence of bombs and plastic explosives by the residues they leave. The agency is also using bomb-sniffing dogs, hand searches of checked bags and, most controversially, bag matching, in which the airline checks that both passenger and bag make it on board. But that's a requirement for originating flights only, meaning a bomber could hop off during a layover while his bag stays on.

As for those federal airport screeners, they look sharp for good reason. Now on the federal payroll, they're paid more than the minimum wage often earned by their predecessors. Their turnover rate is lower partly because they get government benefits. They undergo more rigorous training and there are more of them--48,000 vs. about 20,000 before 9/11. The TSA boasts that the screeners' efforts have resulted in almost 800 arrests and the interception of 4 million prohibited items. They recently found a gun hidden in a teddy bear and a knife in a sealed soda can, and they eased up on one absurdity: you can once again carry nail clippers on board.

Then there's the invisible security wall in the form of federal air marshals and vigilant citizens. On 9/11 just 33 marshals were patrolling the skies. Today there are several thousand (the exact number, identities and methods are classified). Everyone from passengers to mechanics to airport cops are on the lookout for mischief. The TSA can't take credit for it, but that unofficial screening system is more effective than any piece of technology alone.

All that gives the TSA a measure of credibility in bragging that flying is safer today. Yet no one with a deep understanding of aviation security thinks we're safe enough. Heatwole was hardly the first guy to pull off an outlandish security breach in recent months. In September a New York City man had himself packed in a crate and shipped to Dallas in the cabin of a cargo plane and remained undetected through four airports. In August at New York City's JFK airport, three fishermen whose raft was caught in choppy waters tied it to a pier, walked onto a runway and wandered around for nearly an hour past jets with people on board before stumbling upon the airport's police headquarters. Local airports and law enforcement bear some responsibility for those breaches. But if they are so easy for amateurs and bumblers, how tough would they be for the criminally minded? The TSA is "very much a work in progress," says Gerald Dillingham, director of civil aviation issues for the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress's investigative wing. Here's where some of that work is needed.

SMARTER PROFILING

Security experts say the Achilles' heel of our system is that it focuses more on finding things than on analyzing people or their intent. Loy, who is leaving the TSA FOR THE NO. 2 JOB AT THE Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says his "biggest regret was not being able to get a more sophisticated passenger-screening system in place by now." What he's really saying is that we need better profiling. That word butts against our democratic ideal that we should all be treated equally. But the current system--in which information is collected on things like how you pay for a ticket, how often you fly and whether you're traveling one way--can result in Grandpa getting pulled over for the full wand inspection. It's also why up to 20% of passengers on JetBlue, Southwest and AirTran get sidelined, since those carriers sell a lot of one-way fares.

The TSA and airline industry would love a smarter system. "It's the single most effective security measure we could take," says Tom Walsh, deputy head of the Air Line Pilots Association's security committee. But the TSA's proposal isn't winning many fans. That system would assess passengers' risk levels based on a variety of personal data, including criminal records, and give passengers a green, yellow or red light to fly. Get the green, and you would probably breeze through; get yellow, and you and your belongings would be subjected to closer inspection; get red, and you would be subject to extensive questioning and might be prevented from flying. The TSA says the system would automatically delete your personal data a few days after you fly and that the agency would set up a dispute mechanism for passengers who feel unfairly hassled.

Not surprisingly, the idea sends Big Brother chills down the spines of civil-liberties groups and their allies in Congress. It didn't help that a security contractor used itinerary information provided by JetBlue to dig up passengers' Social Security numbers and credit histories. Airlines say they want a system something like what the TSA proposes. But because it's controversial, their strategy is to wait for the government to ram one through and force them to comply.

TRAINING THE AIR COPS

A few weeks before Loy's departure was announced, the GAO issued two critical reports, one of which said there are "significant weaknesses in the testing and training procedures for TSA airport screeners." The TSA collects too little information on screeners' performance and doesn't yet have a systematic way of training supervisors, the reports found. The inspector general of the DHS discovered that the screeners had been given test answers in order to maximize the pass rate. A classified section of one of the GAO reports suggests that weapons are still making their way past security. And this summer 1,000 screeners were fired because they failed background checks.

Congress is reviewing the TSA's hiring, monitoring and training of screeners, and the agency says it's making changes. A better training program is being put in place for both screeners and supervisors, and all screeners must now be recertified annually. The TSA says it met its self-imposed Sept. 29 deadline for finishing background checks on screeners, whose fingerprints are now on file with the FBI, and it told TIME that it had to let go of 4% of screeners because they did not pass muster.

The federal air-marshal program has also suffered growing pains. In its rush to get cops in the air, the TSA put hundreds of marshals aboard planes without waiting for them to receive final security approval. Initial training was criticized as quick and dirty. And some marshals seem confused about their role. According to an aviation source, a marshal recently searched an emptied plane during a layover, discovered some pot in a passenger's seat back, and demanded that a local police officer arrest the alleged offender. "Have you ever heard of illegal search and seizure?" the miffed cop asked, refusing to make the arrest. The program is getting an overhaul. The TSA is ceding command this week over the marshals to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A hiring freeze imposed last year is ending, with plans to replace some of the frequent-flying cops lost through attrition or failure to pass background checks.

THE VULNERABLE BELLY

Security experts shiver when they talk about the nation's cargo-handling procedures. Thousands of low-paid workers have carte blanche to roam airports, ramps and runways without undergoing personal inspections or having their belongings checked. "We put big steel doors on the front of the airport, but the back door is wide open," says Walsh. Cargo on freight planes is rarely inspected. Their cockpit doors, if they exist, aren't required to be reinforced, and security is lax. "There's easy access for a midnight takeover of a major cargo carrier, and a 747 has enough gas on it to make a big impression into the next World Trade Center," says Jay Norelius, security chairman for the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations.

Despite a congressional mandate that 100% of cargo on passenger planes be screened, it is rarely inspected. Cargo companies and airlines have argued that the measure would be too costly, and the government has so far acquiesced. What happens instead is that companies with an established shipping record get a pass under the federal known-shipper program. Yet the program is so secret, no one really knows how effective it is; the number of times a company must ship air freight in order to win trusted status, for instance, is classified. Some airport authorities aren't waiting for the feds to act. Boston's Logan International Airport, where 10 of the 19 hijackers boarded planes on 9/11, just became the nation's first test site for electronic scanning of cargo stowed on passenger flights. The machines use Xray technology, and if the process proves accurate--and minimally intrusive--the feds will face further pressure to impose such a system nationwide.

POLICING THE POLICE

The TSA has been criticized by Congress for approving at least 80 contracts worth $54 million without competitive bidding. In one case, the inspector general of the Department of Transportation found that a contract originally valued at $104 million was allowed to balloon to an estimated $700 million. The agency is nearly $1 billion in the red, and complains about congressional budget cutters, but curious spending practices continue. Many TSA employees cruise around airports in pricey SUVs, not standard-issue Crown Victoria sedans. "Does that make us more secure?" asks one skeptical law-enforcement agent.

The agency is also showing a taste for secrecy. One reason the airline industry has balked at helping the TSA develop a better passenger-profiling system is that the TSA will not share the computer algorithms it's developing to detect threats. "It's a black box," gripes an industry executive. According to critics, the TSA IS TOO INFLEXIBLE AND ARROGANT. Pilots who have worked with the AGENCY say, "They still don't trust us."

For all these reasons, aviation experts say, there is some merit to gadflies like Heatwole. Says security expert Slepian: "It should not be forgotten that every time he walked up to a screening station, he was subjecting himself to arrest and a possible 10 years in prison." Although he evidently broke the law and faces a criminal charge, Heatwole showed what we have learned to carry since 9/11: a huge personal stake in making sure the system becomes terrorism-proof. --With reporting by Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas

With reporting by Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas