Leading Edge Strategies

Is that you, John Wayne, is this me?

2012 January 25 by les-admin

You can’t go your own way

2011 October 18 by leadingedgestrategies

Let’s Make a Deal – behind door number one is a no-hassle trip to your airplane, with no guarantee it will be hijacked or bombed. You’ll be flying old school.

Behind door number 2 is a body imager, whereupon your saturated fat bursting self will be viewed in all its unglamorous glory by people you don’t know – there’s even chance your unsexy image will be on YouTube before you are able to get to your plane, have your laptop crushed by the seat back of the insensitive jerk in front of you and the flight attendant gives you your peanut ration. But, your flight probably won’t be hijacked or bombed, that is unless some guy working at the airport, who is able to bypass security, decides to join al Qaeda.

Behind door number 3 is someone you’ve never met asking you intimate details about your travel plans, your personal life, and whether or not you still beat your wife.

Regardless, if you want to fly, you’re not getting out of here without choosing a door

So you choose door number 1, and behind it is a goat. Door number 1 means you’re not flying.

What’s next? If you choose door #2 the electric privacy rights groups will protest that your image is being displayed for all to see. If you choose door #3, the ACLU will protest that your intimate travel plans are “nunya,” as in none ya business.

As the old man in the third installment of Indiana Jones said, “you must choose.”

In a recent USAToday article, the TSA revealed their first major attempt at risk based security. Click here for the article. Whereas passengers have complained about the body imaging devices, now some are complaining about the allegedly intrusive questions that the new TSA assessor program is testing at Boston/Logan. It’s as close a mirror as you can reasonably get to how the Israelis conduct their operation and it’s too early to tell if it’s going to work.

Frankly, if this is done right, it should work. Even special operations personnel and undercover officers will tell you, the last thing you want to do when you’re trying to hide, is talk to someone.

As an upgrade from the TSA’s passive observation program, assessor puts security personnel before the screening process to engage in casual conversation to try to determine if an individual has something to hide. The process itself is time tested (when done correctly). It stopped the bombing of an El Al flight in 1986 out of London/Heathrow; security questioning is still used in airports throughout the European Union, like at the Leonardo DaVinci International Airport in Rome, and was widely used internationally prior to 9/11.

I have an old video clip that shows people being interviewed back in the early 70s, when passenger and carry-on bag screening first started. Back in the day, a plane was just as likely to take a weather delay as it was to get hijacked. We decided we needed to screen passengers for the safety and security of the flight – we used existing technologies and processes at the time. Today, we have another imminent threat and the technologies of the 1970′s are no longer adequate. We need to use the new technologies and processes  - so do you want door number 2 or 3?

If you really object to being questioned about your travel plans, then decide to head for the body imager. Otherwise, if you don’t mind sharing a few travel details, you have the potential to maybe undergo some lesser screening (someday). Regardless, you’re not getting on the plane without one form of screening or another. And frankly, I want you screened if I’m on your flight.

I applaud TSA for putting their money where their mouth is and making an attempt at testing this process to see if a proven technique is really scalable to our aviation system and to see whether it works.

Subject: Secure at Any Cost?

2011 June 28 by les-admin

I’m sure everyone has now heard about the TSA requiring a 95-year-old woman to remove her diaper as part of a pat-down at a screening checkpoint. Frequent readers of this blog may expect me to talk about profiling or the use of K-9′s instead of this embarrassing screening process however, I’m going to take a different approach.

In 1955, the first bombing of a U.S. commercial airliner took place. It happened in Denver, Colorado and was committed by Jack Graham, who put dynamite into his mother’s suitcase, took out an insurance policy on her and put her on the flight. All 44 were killed in the explosion. We assume mom did not know about the dynamite.

So, is it beyond the pale to think that there are people out there, who would, perhaps posing as a caregiver, pack a diaper full of explosives and dupe an Alzheimer’s patient or elderly person with Dementia and send them onto an airplane? No. In fact, probably been thought of already.

TSA is defending their actions by saying that all protocols and procedures were followed. I don’t deny that. But, the real question is, are the procedures correct? Are they the right thing to do? How much of our civil liberties and our freedoms are we willing to give up for a greater illusion of security? Ask yourself – would you want your grandmother or yourself to be subjected to this level of screening for a higher guarantee that the flight will not be bombed or hijacked? How about we strip everyone down, but it turns out that the pilot was an al-Qaeda sleeper agent, in place for ten years, who, without a weapon, except for his hands, breaks the first officer’s neck and crashes the plane into a building?

Well, at least grandma didn’t blow up the flight.

TSA is not the problem here, nor are they the solution. This is a Congressional issue. More likely, it’s a societal issue. When the trains and buses were bombed in London in 2005, the U.K. didn’t hire 60,000 screeners and install billions of dollars worth of screening equipment. Keep in mind that subways, trains and busses are the primary forms of transportation in the U.K., just as aviation is the primary form of transportation in the U.S. What the U.K. did was ramp up their MI5 (internal security service – think FBi) and MI6 (external security – think James Bond) to try to make sure similar attacks did not occur in the future.

Of course, I thought they overdid it on the liquid bomb plot but there’s a lot of backstory there – read Garrett Graff’s The Threat Matrix for more information on that plot.

The point is that in the U.K., they accepted a level of risk in order to not bankrupt the economy and to preserve their freedoms. We seem to do the opposite. More and more, going through a screening checkpoint resembles the process for a visitor to enter a prison.

You’ve heard me say it before. Life is a risk sport. Maybe we, as a society, decide that we need to improve our intelligence and investigatory capabilities, establish a baseline level of reasonable airline screening measures, toss in a few random measures now and then, do R&D and test new technologies and processes (slowly, let’s make sure the stuff works before we deploy it) and understand that every flight, just like every car trip to the airport, comes with a certain level of risk.

We do this already, we just don’t realize it. If every flight was to be made as safe as possible (and we’ll assume that we’ll still fly the plane and not just drive), everyone would be sitting backwards, we would all have parachutes with back ups, there would be double the flight crew, quadruple redundant computer and flight systems, a parachute for the plane, big floats in case it lands in the water (or Captain Chesley flights every flight), airbags in every seat back, twice the number of mechanics checking over the plane before it flies, twice the flight attendant compliment and at least one surgical team on board, and we’ll build the entire plane out of the same stuff that the black box (which always seems to survive) is built out of. The ticket will cost $20,000 one-way. Please take your seat.

I recently took Amtrak from Penn Station to Boston, where I got to observe rail security practices. With frequent announcements of “see something, say something,” videos showing up how to see something and say something, no lack of K-9 patrols and armed and armored (kevlar) police officers actively patrolling through the terminal and TSA personnel conducting random screening, I felt pretty safe getting on the train. Well, it is Amtrak, so let me clarify, I felt reasonably “secure” – I won’t get into Amtrak’s safety record.

Could a bad guy still get through the rail security? Sure. But, most bad guys during their surveillance are going to look at another target. Maybe another rail station besides Penn, where Port Authority and TSA seemed to really be on their game.

Maybe we, in aviation, take some lessons from the rail industry here?

That said, the problem I’m addressing is society based. Too many of us want a risk-free life and we want our government to guarantee and provide that to us. Even many people ARE willing to take their clothes off at the screening checkpoint – okay, some if those people are just perverts, but I’m talking about the certainty-freaks who think that if everyone does everything right, they personally will live to a ripe old age.

Like I said, we’re talking about Congressional perspective changes at the least, and ultimately, societal changes. Later, I’ll solve global warming, illegal immigration and world peace. For now, let’s look at what COULD have been done in Diaper-Gate.

Throughout the U.S., in fact, more often than many of us believe, there are breaches at airports. People somehow slip through the screening process, or go the wrong way down an exit lane into the Sterile Area, go out a fire alarm door into the airfield, or are accidentally allowed to enter the Sterile Area (where the gates are) with unresolved screening alarms. Sometimes TSA and the airport figures this out but can’t find the person. CCTV footage will be analyzed, cell phone calls will be made to the Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC), and airport and TSA security officials will confer. At some point, either the airport concourses are evacuated, or a decision is made that the risk is acceptable and normal operations resume without disruption to the system.

Not having all the facts in this case yet. Perhaps the traveling companions could have been interviewed (which they hopefully were), and a decision made, based on all the evidence, that letting grandma fly without taking off her diaper, is an acceptable risk.

Dignity, sanity and security is maintained.

Assault at Denver International Airport

2011 April 15 by les-admin

I used to work as the assistant security director at Denver International Airport. When I saw the story about the recent sexual assault that took place int the terminal building it reminded me, as it should remind every aviation security practitioner and passenger and employee, that aviation security is not just about preventing terrorism, it’s also about preventing common crimes such as assault, drug smuggling, theft and human trafficking.

Large airports are small cities with daily transient populations of 40,000 to 50,000 or more, and employee populations of ten to twenty thousand and up. With that many people, you’re going to have a few that are less then honest.

While theft is the most common airport crime, and assaults are admittedly the least, the question remains, what should or can be done to prevent it? It certainly is a heinous crime. In the case in Denver, airline employees saw what was happening, intervened and summoned both security and police assistance. Word is coming out now that the assault may have been caught on CCTV, however, CCTV is not always an effective method of catching someone in the act of committing a crime, unless someone is watching every camera.

The problem with CCTV is that it’s great at evidence after-the-fact, and has some benefit as a deterrence if the bad guy knows he’s on candid camera, but it’s not very good at catching the act while it’s happening. The problem is, with thousands of cameras at the airport, there are only a few actual monitors and even fewer people watching them. Also, it’s impractical to sit and stare at a monitor all day as humans make terrible system monitors – just ask the FAA guys dozing off in the towers.

Will more CCTV cameras deter this type of crime? The additional question is, will more CCTV monitors provide a better cost/benefit to the airport based on the frequency of the occurrence of this type of crime and, are there more effective methods of preventing, deterring and responding to assaults in the airport. In other words, are there better places to spend money and resources to prevent assaults than buying more cameras?

The chances that an individual monitoring a series of cameras is going to catch a bad guy in the act, considering this type of assault is incredibly rare, is incredibly small.

Many of DIA’s badge holding personnel, whether they work for the airport, the airline, or wherever, if they hold an Airport ID Badge, they’ve been provided with both training in identifying suspicious activities and training in how to notify the airport police in case of an emergency. From early reports, it sounds like some employees may have ignored the woman’s initial cries for help, and it wasn’t until two Frontier Airline ramp workers observed the scene from outside and ran to help, that the assault was stopped and reported. If that’s the case, the individuals who ignored the woman’s pleas, need to be re-trained. And the Frontier employees need a free trip to Disney World for stepping up.

Even though community policing is the strategy for good airport policing, crime still does occur at airports and it’s not always employee theft from baggage and cargo (the most common crimes), nor is it always drug smuggling. Human trafficking, sexual assaults and simple assault, also takes place at U.S. airports – the former more often than many would like to admit.

Perhaps a few more cameras couldn’t hurt – but maybe airports should take a lesson from school security experts and install panic alarms, or train airport and airline workers that in an emergency, if they cannot get to a phone, to activate one of the thousands of door alarms throughout the airport, which will usually get a security or police response rather quickly.

It’s time to issue a BOLO (be on the lookout) to airport police, security guards and operations personnel, and all airport / airline employees for real crime taking place, not just terrorism.

Suicide bombing in Moscow Airport, could it happen here?

2011 January 24 by leadingedgestrategies

Updated: 2:31 pm MST:

Based on the first reports, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in the terminal building at the Moscow Domodedovo Airport. The explosion occurred near the the international arrivals section of the airport. We are now hearing that there may have been two bombers.  Click here for USAToday report. Early reports is that at least 32 have died and an additional 130 are injured. Industry security experts have warned against this type of attack for several years, and this is not the first time airport terminals have been targets.

In addition to airport bombings in 1973 and 1975 at LAX and LaGuardia, respectively, in 1985 armed gunmen with assault rifles and grenades stormed the public terminal areas in the Rome and Vienna Airports, in an active shooter attack. To this day in Rome’s Leonardo daVinci Airport, heavily armed and armored police officers with automatic weapons patrol the terminal areas on catwalks, protected by  bulletproof glass and hard points. U.S. airports, and many other airports throughout the U.S. are not as well prepared.

Some will say that the defense against a suicide bomber in the terminal building is to move the screening checkpoints into the ticketing areas, or even at the front door of the terminal, however, this only relocates the same threat, it doesn’t mitigate or deter it. Others will say that a suicide bomber cannot be stopped. They are also wrong.

So, how do we stop this threat?

The easiest way is to stop the threat in the planning stages. No one just wakes up in the morning, builds a bomb and heads to the airport. There are bomb makers involved, individuals who must acquire bomb making materials, surveillance personnel, drivers, safe house operatives, and handlers all involved in the operation. What seems to be a random event is actually a carefully planned operation that CAN be detected ahead of time. Good behavior detection and suspicious awareness training can help detect when an operation is in the planning stages, such as detecting pre-incident surveillance.

What if that fails?

Israel has developed personal defense training for their police officers, which includes taking down a suicide bomber. This is not to say it isn’t VERY dangerous but consider that the alternative is to likely die in the blast anyway, it’s best to have some skills to try to keep that from happening. Immediate, armed intervention can stop an active shooter event, and police officers who are alert and aware of what is happening in the terminal building can deter or rapidly respond to a suicide bomber threat. However, most U.S. police officers are not trained on how to take on a suicide bomber. They need to be, particularly at our nation’s airports.

The last line of defense, is response. When the event has happened, the best thing to do is to rapidly respond to the event and get the airport back up and running. While the loss of life is always tragic, it’s also important to remember the real motive for the attack, which is to cripple economies, change the way of life for the nation’s citizens, eat away our personal rights and privacy’s, and ultimately change our country for the worse. The quicker we can bounce back, the more resilient we are against these threats.

A key line of defense is deterrence. An alert, well-trained, well-equipped police force patrolling the public areas of a terminal building, like they do in Rome, can be a huge deterrent to a suicide bomber. Suicide bombers fear only one thing more than death, and that is failure. They don’t want to get caught before they’ve had a chance to press the trigger. When conducting surveillance, an airport whose police and security personnel are alert, well-equipped with modern radios and weapons, and who are watching over the public areas closely, will be a huge deterrent to the bad guys planning to do harm. They’d rather find a terminal building where the cops have Retired On Active Duty, are rarely seen and when seen, are not in shape, nor alert and are carrying an aging revolver that hasn’t seen the outside of the holster in five years. If you’re the bad guy, which airport are you heading to?

If rapid response is our last line of defense, what is our first? Fortunately, there are a few. First, there is intelligence gathering and human operatives in the field from the CIA, FBI, DOD, foreign governments friendly to the U.S., and other agencies. The Yemen air cargo printer bombs were discovered by Saudi intelligence and the London liquid bomb plot in 2006 was also discovered by intel operatives, in Great Britain, before the operation had a chance to move forward. Next, there is border security. While some attackers may already be U.S. citizens, it is likely that they have traveled at some point in time outside of the U.S., which means there should be a record of their departure and arrival. While it may not seem that difficult, it actually can be hard getting into the U.S. You can talk to me about the porous border between Mexico and the U.S. but with UAV’s, agents on horseback and plenty of other personnel and technology, not just anyone can wander over. Plus, if you’ve been out of the country getting terrorist training, the last thing you want to do is to get caught coming back into the country, which means you may use false travel documents if flying commercially, or you may engage the services of a guide to smuggle you back into the U.S., both options mean that even more people are now part of your plot.

Once back in the U.S. a bomber must be equipped and most suicide bombers are not bomb makers. It can be hard to find recruits to be suicide bombers as well, as you have to find someone willing to die for the cause. It’s harder to do that than it is to find someone willing to kill for the cause. Suicide bombers will have handlers that keep them separate from family and friends (i.e. any reasons to live), and continue to coach them from training, waiting and right to their target site. In some cases, the handler may even have a device where he or she can remote/command detonate the suicide bomber’s device just in case the bomber is interfered with or loses their will to carry out the mission.

Another point is that suicide bombings can happen anywhere, what makes an airport so special? The fact is that when you bomb an airport, you shut down commerce for that immediate area, you disrupt commerce throughout the world for a period of time, and eventually, with aviation security such a hot button topic, the bad guys know that we will spend billions trying to prevent that type of attack from happening again. Where will that money come from? A key goal of terrorism is to make a country suffer economically, bankrupt it if possible. Currently, the national debt is $14 Trillion dollars – where will the billions or even trillions more come from to prevent the next type of attack?

Should we be worried about a similar situation taking place here in the US? It is a concern but there are things we can do to prevent it from happening and we should start looking at that now, rather than waiting until it does happen. Without spending billions in technology, we can instead spend millions in training – training of airport personnel in suspicious awareness, training of police officers in suicide bomber takedowns, and training of police officers in active shooter response – some semi-automatic weapons like the ones the Boston/Logan police carry around would be a wise investment as well.

The last major aviation security incident in Russia was in 2004 when two female Chechan suicide bombers bribed airline employees to obtain boarding passes for two departing flights. Over 80 were killed when both aircraft were downed by the explosives.

TSA will go back to private screeners

2011 January 12 by leadingedgestrategies

In the end, there will be two reasons why TSA will go back to using private screeners: Queue management and customer service.

Flying out today at my usual airport I approach the screening lines. My iPhone apps have advised me that the wait time will be about 10 minutes. Hmm, maybe it’s measured in dog years. The frequent flyer line has about 30 people waiting in it. There are about 100 people or so in the Line of Lesser Beings. Normally, I’d grab my Clear card and ascend the rarified air to the Registered Traveler line, and right to the front of the screening checkpoint, but my wife is traveling with me on business today and she has not undergone the in-depth background check and biometrics required to receive a Clear card so that the government knows that there is no . . . well, no what? That’s a good question. Why do Clear passengers give tons of personal information to the government along with their biometrics for the privilege of going to the front of the line? How do the background checks relate with going to the front of the line? Oh wait, they don’t. The background check and biometrics was required when the intent of the program was to tell the government more about you so you would be subjected to less screening, or maybe even keep your shoes on at the checkpoint. But I digress.

I debate briefly just going to the Line of Lesser Beings — that’s the non frequent flyer line for those of you without a primer – because it actually looks like it’s moving faster. My security-honed eyes see that the regular lines are feeding into 3 screening checkpoints, while the frequent flyer line, which is also shared with airport and airline employees, feeds into 2 lines, with BOTH of those lines accepting passengers from the regular line. So much for rank having it’s privilege.

I go into the frequent flyer line anyway and proceed to wait 20 minutes. During that time, the lines back up several times and are stopped completely as the divest points back into the queue lines. Nearing the front of the line is Garcia, a screener who could not look more bored if he’d been outside watching the snow melt. Right as we were 3 people from seeing Garcia at the document check station, all doc checkers in some sort of underwater ballet unison just stop everything — without explanation. For the next five minutes we wait…again, without explanation. The divest areas go down a bit, so I’m assuming that’s the reason for the holdup but we are never told for certain.

Finally, the lines start back up and we select what we think will be the quickest – - again, based on an assessment of people in line. I’m trying to follow the higher speed business travelers. At this time, the 3rd individual in a wheelchair is brought through the frequent flyers lines.

We change lines when our line proves to be moving too slowly. Although we’ve been told that staffing is not a problem, nearly half the checkpoints are not staffed this morning and I continue to hear rumors from screeners that they are having trouble with staffing.

I grab some bins from another line and bring them to our new line since our line was out. The “automatic” bin returners are concept only. . . And also in use in Italy, but they don’t look as nice nor do they require electricity so no one is probably making money off those, which is why I guess we don’t want them.

After finally getting to the front of the line, the poor soul in the wheelchair is now up and in the magnetometer. The assistant, an airline contract employee who is helping him, is trying to help him divest as he keeps setting off the alarm. Finally, the TSA screener says, and I quote, “Sir, it’s not my job to figure out what you have that’s setting off the alarm.”

Hmm, with customer service skills like that, I’m sure the Disney team will be recruiting her right away.

Now, it’s CLEARLY obvious to any individual with an IQ over 10 that this gentleman is older, clearly not a frequent flyer, and has mobility issues. There may even be other issues, but whatever, it’s clear that he needs help, not berating. At this point, the line behind him at the mag is up to 7 and nearing 8 people.

Finally, he steps aside to divest some more and the rest of us clear.

30 minutes from start to finish, for our “estimated 10 minute” waiting time on a SLOW travel day.

What frustrates me is that I know how the system should and can work and it isn’t. God Bless my wife for putting up with me bitching about it for the entire 30 minutes.

This is what is going to bring back the private contractors.

See, here’s the deal. In the post 9/11 world, this is a money-making deal for private contractors. The private contracts are now with the federal government and they have actual standards and are profitable. The screeners must meet the same standards as federal employees, so they have to hire reasonably competent help.

So, with both federal worker and private contractor forced by government standards and testing to meet the same security standards, what’s left to distinguish the two? Queue management and customer service.

I’ve stated in my book, Practical Aviation Security, that good security is good customer service. Moving people through the lines means less people standing in public unscreened areas being potential targets for suicide bombers or active shooters. It means screeners are less stressed because the lines aren’t backing up. It means passengers are less stressed and thus easier for the behavior detection officers to find the legitimate threat.

TSA has tried some queue management and customer service concepts at some airports, but they haven’t made their way across the nation. TSA has the ability to fix these problems, but I fear they may not have the flexibility to do what they know needs to be done.

What should have happened this morning, is:

1. There should be individuals out front managing the flow of passengers as they come out of the travel document check, putting frequent flyers into their own lines (yes, flying tens of thousands of miles a year should have privileges, it means my job is more reliant on air travel than yours and thus, I’m losing money when I’m standing in line) and getting the less frequent flyers into lines that have wheelchair accommodations, larger pathways to accommodate the family and kids and extra carry-on’s that always accompany that crowd.
2. Enough screeners to staff the checkpoints. All the checkpoints were not open yet there were plenty of people standing around that could have opened up another checkpoint, or assisted with the line management. At the contractor airports, the screeners monitor checkpoint operations and have teams that can move about and provide additional personnel whenever necessary.
3. Simple returns for bins – weld a rack to the top of the x-ray machine that’s angled so when people get out on the other side, they toss their bins onto the rack and the rack using a mysterious force known as gravity, slides it’s way back to the front of the line.
4. Customer service: the screener working the mag should have immediately figured out this guy doesn’t fly a lot and needs assistance, not to be yelled at. He also should not have been further embarrassed by being in the frequent flyer/employee lines. Without even getting into the profiling issue, good queue management in this case, and customer service, would have had an individual helping him through the process and when he sets off the alarm for the second time, send him to secondary and keep the line moving.

Congress now believes it’s time to change the screening process, but mainly for them because of the Tucson shooting which they are using as an excuse to bypass the process themselves. Didn’t a former U.S. Congressman just get a 3-year sentence for bad behavior? Okay, these are clearly upstanding citizens, but I digress, again. What it does show is that even Congress believes that the current process needs fixing and they’ll use any excuse, even some unrelated security incident, to try to get out of it.

The hue and cry is going up for a return to private screeners under a new model. At the recent AAAE Annual Security Summit I heard a TSA employee say they didn’t understand the benefit of private screening. Just ask anyone at the opt-out airports, or anyone who is still waiting to have their application reviewed for opt-out (the wait time for that is a year right now) and they will tell you. Queue Management and Customer Service.

Pilot You Tube Videos Revealed. . . what?

2010 December 27 by leadingedgestrategies

This story is getting a lot of play this week. I’ve heard that this pilot has been called everything from a hero to a whistleblower, and his attorney is equally enjoying his own celebrity. Just recently his attorney offered to make his client available to consult with Congress on aviation security.

Time to offer some reality.

First, I don’t know who the pilot is. Second, taking away his gun and credentials to carry concealed and be a Federal Flight Deck Officer is beyond my call. Like ALL stories, there are probably details here that we’re not hearing about. I can say that off-hand, it appears that the pilot violated certain items that are either Sensitive Security Information, or through his methods of attempting to reveal security “gaps,” he has demonstrated to the authorities that he may not be able to be trusted with other SSI materials and data.

As for what he revealed and his hero status and potential to brief Congress. From what I can tell, a “gap” was not revealed. The fact that many airport and airline employees do not undergo screening like passengers do, is not an industry secret. It’s been going on since about the time that screening for passengers was implemented. It IS a controversial topic, but there are not easy solutions.

I addressed this issue in Practical Aviation Security. While many employees that work at the airport do go through screening, thousands still do not — at least not in the way that passengers do. In the U.S. employee “screening,” is conducted through the fingerprint-based criminal history record check. Yes, we decide to do a background check on employees, then we trust them. The same type of screening that many security experts have been calling for, in lieu of touching junk and being x-rayed.

That said, several significant aviation security attacks were conducted by employees so the problem clearly still exists. I don’t know that sending hundreds of thousands of employees through checkpoints will resolve that issue. It will certainly cost A LOT MORE MONEY and TSA would have to hire tens of thousands of employees to staff the new checkpoints. Or, TSA could decide that employee screening is the purview of the airport operator, and declare an unfunded mandate that airports install their own employee checkpoints and staff them with contract personnel. This is exactly what’s happening at Miami and Orlando, where employees are screened at checkpoints, in addition to the background check. However, these airports are paying for it themselves.

TSA has run pilot programs on various employee screening options and I agree that this is an area that remains weak in terms of the layered system. However, the “hero” pilot has not revealed anything new here. I know from reading plenty of congressional testimony in my book research that Congress is already aware of this fact. If you want a pilot to address Congress about aviation security issues, then I suggest you contact the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). ALPA has a great team with excellent security backgrounds and can put the proper perspective on this issue.

I’m sure the pilot who shot these videos (many of which just show the public areas of an airport), had good intentions. However, if you really want to make security safer, get involved with your trade associations and union security committees. I think you’ll find some folks there with a wealth of knowledge who can help you address your concerns, so at least you can keep your credentials and gun.

Napolitano speaks in Denver on new threats

2010 October 29 by leadingedgestrategies

Napolitano calls on local police to become first preventers

The threat lives among us.

That was the message from Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano to a Denver audience on October 28th.

Napolitano was the featured speaker, in an event which also included current Denver Mayor and gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper, put on by The Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (www.thecell.org).

Napolitano’s focus was on the changing nature of terrorist attacks. After 9/11, the U.S. engineered itself to deter attacks from organized terrorist cells that came from outside the country. However, with several numerous attempts over the past couple of years by individuals that are also U.S. citizens, Napolitano notes that the threat is changing.

“Today’s threat puts police officers, fire fighters, emergency medical personnel, on the front lines of terrorism,” Napolitano said. “Every police department must put themselves on the front lines.”

Napolitano noted that the intelligence and law enforcement communities are seeing an increasing role of westerners, both from Europe and the U.S. These are individuals that are unknown to the intelligence community and the federal authorities and they focus on small scale, lone wolf style attacks.

“We need to get better at identifying the signs,” Napolitano said. “Local police may be in a better position to detect the next threat.”

“Homeland security begins with hometown security,” Napolitano feels. Her vision is that the federal government can best help local authorities by pushing needed intelligence and information down to the local law enforcement level. “It is vital that information flows in both directions.”

Napolitano said that local police need to be trained, prepared and integrated, in order to defeat the terrorist threat. She pointed specifically to a new program being rolled out by the Department of Justice called “SAR Initiative,” Suspicious – Activities – Reporting.

SARi is being implemented throughout law enforcement communities in the U.S. Napolitano was careful to point out that the training was not profiling, but focused on indicators of suspicious activity and behaviors that could lead to a terrorist attack. Nineteen groups have already received the SAR training.

She highlighted the efforts of local fusion centers, such as the Colorado Information Analysis Center (CIAC) in collecting and analyzing threat information and her desire to create centers of analytical excellence. She also pointed out a recent victory with the arrest of Faisal Shahzad with just 53 hours between receiving a cold tip and apprehension. What she did not do is what cannot be done. She did not promise that we would ever be 100% secure.

“You can’t put the country in Tupperware and seal the top,” Napolitano said. “But we can work together to minimize the threat and make the country as secure as it can be.”

In responding to pre-generated audience questions, the first asked the Secretary which is the greater threat, a Timothy McVeigh or a Richard Reid.

“We have to guard against both,” she said. “I can’t rank them, these aren’t the top 10 college football teams.” Napolitano said that homeland security is not just about detecting and preventing but being able to quickly respond and get back on our feet.

She was next asked about the Arizona immigration law. Napolitano sides with the federal rulings and said that, “the Arizona law is the wrong way.” She cited the need for a cohesive federal strategy, not 50 different ways of doing things.

Another local initiative that DHS is using is called Secure Communities. Through the program, when individuals are arrested for a crime, they will not only be run through the usual FBI databases, but will also be run through immigration databases and lawful residences. The goal is that once the individual has been through the criminal justice system, they will then enter the immigration system to get them out of the country if they were here illegally. Mayor Hickenlooper noted that three Colorado counties will soon have Secure Communities tie in’s, including Arapahoe, Denver and El Paso counties.

With regards to a question on the legality of domestic surveillance in the era of rapidly expanding technological capabilities, Napolitano said that the existing laws need to be reviewed and updated to reflect modern times. “I think the ones in place now were written during the time of the teletype,” she joked.

Napolitano also made a somewhat darker joke about the threat of a nuclear attack by a rogue nation or individual. When asked about whatit would be like if the U.S. is attacked with a nuclear weapon she said, “not good. . . next question.”

While it got a laugh from the audience Napolitano turned serious and said that the control of nuclear material is a concern for the world’s community of nations and that we should all be worried about this issue. For the U.S., she said that technologies are being developed for better detection of materials and looking at the various modes of transportation into the U.S.

Another questioner asked about the role of the Internet in terrorism.

“The Internet acts as an accelerant to the homegrown terrorist threat,” said Napolitano. The Internet also contains training materials and links terrorists with others without physical contact. Noting that the Internet also helps the radicalization process, she said that how an individual becomes radicalized needs to be studied and learned about.

Napolitano ended her speech where she begin, talking about the importance of local law enforcement in the war on terror. “If there’s an attack you don’t call the Department of Homeland Security, you call your local police,” she said. While Napolitano noted that first responders are also first preventers, she also acknowledged that it is difficult to keep personnel and maintain training in times when many police budgets are being cut. She said that security is a core competency of government and that departments should seek government grants and other monies to keep departments running.

Okay, my turn.

The previous article was the old journalist in me coming out, reported straightforward as it happened. Now I’d like to offer some thoughts, particularly for airport and airline security professionals.

First, I agree with two important points: (1) that local law enforcement is in the best position to detect, deter and respond to terrorist threats, provided that they have the proper resources, staffing and training, and (2) that the threat is changing to the radicalized insider that is already working and living here in the U.S. What this means for U.S. airports and air carriers is that your threat may already be drawing a paycheck from your bank.

I was introduced to the term “first preventer,” in former U.S. Coast Guard Commander Stephen Flynn’s book, America the Vulnerable. Flynn pointed out that there are about 8,000 FBI agents and very few of those are dedicated to counterterrorism, while there are over 800,000 local police officers who know their “beats” far better than any federal agent. I wholeheartedly believe that our best monies are spent in training, staffing and providing resources for local law enforcement in the counterterrorism role. It’s nice to see that DHS is finally coming to the party on this, however, years of taxpayer backlash has managed to cut local police budgets so deep that some departments are even using private citizens to help out with forensics and non-felony investigations. The police are incredibly important but without money, they’re incredibly ineffective.

Second, the threat is indeed changing. We are seeing this already with the incidents in Times Square, an attempted truck bombing in Dallas, the arrest of Zazi here in Denver for plotting to attack the New York subway system and the most recent attempt on the Metro in Washington DC.

I also agree with the reality that there is no such thing as 100% security. Just as there is no such thing as a perfectly safe airplane or automobile, but there is “safe enough.” While we can’t prevent everything, our job is to make it as difficult as possible (borrowing some of former U.S. Senator Gary Hart’s quote on the same subject).

The question airport and airline operators have to address is how to handle these new threats. With respect to the radicalized insider, it’s time to start looking inward at their own employees. Better background checks and an environment of awareness in the workplace to look for indicators of radicalized behavior needs to become a priority. The case of David Burke and the downing of PSA Flight 1771 is a great case study for seeing the signs of workplace violence.

Also, all large airports have their own police forces and many smaller airports still must have police officer coverage. It’s time for airport police personnel to be trained in both suspicious awareness and in response to various terrorist attacks on airports. And for them to be properly funded and staffed.

Overall, I liked what I saw. For criticism though, there is plenty, particularly with aviation security and working with the international community. Items that can be saved for another blog.

Remove Security from 1st Class? Seriously?!

2010 October 19 by leadingedgestrategies

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-10-18-air-marshals-first-class_N.htm?csp=hf

Post 9/11 and Security Theater

2010 October 6 by leadingedgestrategies

There was really interesting piece recently posted on CBS4.com posing the question, are we safer than we were before 9/11 from terrorists attacks in our airports? The article examines a highly criticized practice relating to airport safety called “security theater.” The question relating to our post 911 safety and is always the question without an accurate answer. While no one can truly say if we are “safer,” there are just too many variables, we can assess certain areas of the aviation security system to determine if those areas are either more or less effective.

The article quotes several individuals who are of some prestige in the aviation security community. I believe both Dzakovich and Elson were featured in a recent movie about aviation security, “Please Remove Your Shoes.” They both have excellent points, particularly about failure rates pre 9/11 and the general lack of interest the industry had in fixing the problems.

I’m not sure I agree that we are worse off today. As I’ve said before, there is some value to so called Security Theater. When you leave your porch light on at night, you are participating in security theater and it’s been shown that it will reduce crime rates. Having your neighbor pick up the newspaper and mail, having internal lights on timers, and leaving a TV on inside the house to give the appearance of someone being home are all examples of security theater. Let me be clear, I’m NOT advocating an aviation security system built entirely of security theater methods. In fact, I think what Elson and Dzakovich are talking about when they say “security theater” are methods that we believe are working when they are not. But, there is some value to perceived security, just as there is value to actual security. I distinguished this in my textbook, Practical Aviation Security, when discussing Gavin DeBecker’s book Fear Less.

I can’t agree that the detection rates are worse than they were on 9/11, but then again, since the results of these studies are classified, I of course do not know for sure. The challenge is that different standards were used prior to 9/11, so it’s difficult to make comparisons. I’ve recently seen TSA Bomb Appraisal Officers (BDO’s) sitting down with a team of screeners to show them different make ups of different explosive devices, including the latest and greatest that they’ve seen from U.S. intelligence feeds. Sorry, WE never received those types of briefings pre 9/11.

The real problem remains – we are concentrating on how well we look for bad things rather than concentrating on looking for bad people. I am much more afraid of a bad person with legitimate items than I am of a good person with a knife or gun. While there is value to making sure knives and guns are kept off of airplanes, as there is more than the fair share of drunks, druggies and nut jobs traveling the unfriendly skies, I’m more worried about a trained operative in the right place and at the right time.

From what I’ve seen, the detection rates are about as good as they are going to get with existing technology. The problem is that most people make horrible system monitors and that’s what we’ve asked them to create. I know a lot of TSA screeners and many are smart people. Let’s actually train them in how to do security. Instead of identifying that the screening bins are pointed in the wrong direction, they will be able to spot those individuals who warrant suspicious inquiry, engage them in active discussion to further determine their threat level, and then direct them to higher levels of screening, where the line is shorter and the scrutiny more intense.

Until we start being smart about security, instead of relying on 1970s strategies, the system will continue to see these types of issues.

Jeff

Article reference: http://cbs4.com/local/unsafe.skies.airport.2.1929072.html