DTIC ADA566743: Aviation Security: After Four Decades, It's Time for a Fundamental Review

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Aviation Security: After Four Decades, It’s Time for a Fundamental
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Review
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OCCASIONAL
PAPER
HOMELAND SECURITY AND DEFENSE CENTER
Aviation Security
After Four Decades, It's Time for a Fundamental Review
Brian Michael Jenkins
RAND ReseARch AReAs The recovery earlier this year of a new,
Children and Families improved bomb designed to avoid detec- Overview
eduCation and the arts
tion by airport security underscores ter-
energy and environment
Aviation security is costly, controversial, and
health and health Care rorists’ continuing determination to bring
inFrastruCture and transportation down commercial airliners. Like the bomb carried by contentious; no other security measures directly
international aFFairs affect such a large portion of the country’s
Umar Abdulmutallab in his unsuccessful attempt to
law and Business
population. Because of the nature of the threat,
national seCurity sabotage an airliner in 2009, the new device designed
aviation security is the most intrusive form of
population and aging by al Qaeda’s bomb-maker was intended to be con-
puBliC saFety security, pushing hard on the frontier of civil
cealed in the saboteur’s underwear. The device was
sCienCe and teChnology liberties. And the threat is real: terrorists remain
terrorism and obtained by an intelligence operative who managed to
homeland seCurity obsessed with attacking airplanes.
persuade his al Qaeda handlers that he was ready to
carry out that suicide mission. While it is necessary to At the same time, passenger loads are increas-
investigate possible ways to counter this latest terror- ing, while security budgets are likely to decline.
ist innovation, a more fundamental review of how we Performance suffers. Meanwhile, public toler-
secure the airplanes that 2 million passengers board ance and cooperation are beginning to fray.
every day in the United States is imperative. But the Transportation Security Administration
Evolving terrorist tactics and technology pose new is often blamed for things beyond its control.
threats, as growing passenger loads and added security And post-catastrophe reviews can push us in
procedures are already straining airport screeners. the wrong direction, usually resulting in new
And terrorists are not the only problem faced by the security measures rather than a reexamination
Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Air- of strategy.
line passengers have become increasingly hostile to the
After 40 years of focus on tactical measures,
This product is part of the very measures deployed to protect them, while TSA is
it is time for a sweeping review of aviation
RAND Corporation occasional
under continuous assault in Congress.
paper series. RAND occasional security. Instead of forming the usual federal
papers may include an informed
perspective on a timely policy commission to undertake this task, several
issue, a discussion of new How Did We Get Where We Are? non-government research institutions could be
research methodologies,
In terms of the total volume of terrorist violence in
essays, a paper presented at selected to independently design an optimal
a conference, a conference the world and the casualties it causes, attacks on avia-
aviation security system, beginning not with the
summary, or a summary of
work in progress. All RAND tion do not loom large. Between 9/11 and the end of four decades of accumulated security measures
occasional papers undergo 2011, there were 75 terrorist attacks on airliners and
rigorous peer review to ensure currently in place but with a clean slate. The
that they meet high standards for airports worldwide, resulting in 157 deaths. Compare
competing models would be reviewed and the
research quality and objectivity.
that with nearly 2,000 terrorist attacks on trains and
best ideas or combination of ideas would be put
© RAND 2012 buses, resulting in approximately 4,000 fatalities dur-
forward. Even if the results turn out to resemble
ing the same period.1
what is already in place, at least the process
In view of this, why is so much of our effort and
offers some comfort that we are pretty close to
our precious resources focused on protecting airplanes
getting it right.
1 These statistics were obtained from the Mineta Transportation Institute's
www.rand.org
database of attacks on transportation targets.
– 2 –
and airports? From the earliest days of contemporary although the term is no longer used, America still
international terrorism in the late 1960s, terrorists considers itself “at war” with terrorism, with overt
have made commercial aviation a theater of combat, and covert military operations ongoing in a number
mainly through hijackings. While governments were of countries. Military action in response to terrorism
trying to build international consensus on outlawing is today a well-carved path.
airline hijacking and sabotage as acceptable modes of Aviation security remains one of the most impor-
Aviation security conflict, they were, at the same time, obliged to pro- tant components of our overall defense against ter-
remains one of the tect their own airlines. And they also had to protect rorism. It is costly, controversial, and contentious. It
most important themselves. dramatically demonstrates the basic tenet of terror-
components of our Aviation security was never viewed solely as a ism—that small groups with a limited capacity for
overall defense problem of passenger safety. Far more people die in power can achieve disproportionate effects by using
ordinary traffic accidents. Hijackings and incidents terrorist tactics. The threat of one terrorist bomber
against terrorism.
of airline sabotage are spectacular events that put obliges the nation to divert vast sums to airport
passengers’ lives in the balance for hours, days, even security. Terrorists need to recruit only one bomber;
weeks, or cause airplanes to explode in the air. They the United States has to protect 450 commercial
have created dangerous political crises. Hijackings airports, with tens of thousands of flights daily. Mil-
have forced governments to negotiate for the lives of lions of passengers are inconvenienced, some possibly
hostages, to stand by while hostages were murdered, humiliated.
or to attempt long-shot rescues—all bad options. That raises strategic, even philosophical questions.
Sabotage of aircraft represented a significant esca- If security is such a bad exchange, should the United
lation in terrorist violence, matching the most mas- States instead track down and kill terrorist leaders
sive truck bombings. It led to popular demands for and bomb-makers—itself a controversial mission?
retribution, including sanctions, military retaliation, Must the United States go further and attempt large-
acts of war—decisions governments did not want to scale military missions to destroy terrorist organiza-
be forced to make. tions and stabilize the failing states in which they
Imagine the impact on the country if the shoe reside? In the wake of 9/11, the United States invaded
bomber had brought down a commercial airliner just Afghanistan. Al Qaeda’s bomb-maker currently
three months after 9/11 or the consequences if the resides in Yemen. Must American troops now follow?
underwear bomber had succeeded in bringing down Aviation security is also important because it is
a plane in 2009. Nor is such a disaster a far-fetched there, as nowhere else, that security measures directly
possibility today. affect such a large portion of the country’s popula-
Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki’s alleged tion. Moreover, because of the nature of the threat,
involvement in terrorist operations, including the aviation security is the most intrusive form of secu-
2009 airline sabotage attempt, made him the target rity, pushing hard on the frontier of civil liberties.
of an American drone strike in Yemen in 2011, in We cannot afford to keep missing opportunities to
which he was killed. The bomb-maker responsible conduct a thorough, objective, and dispassionate
for the device used in the sabotage attempt and the national review of how we—not just TSA, but we as
improved model recovered in May 2012 also resides a country—address this critically important activity.
in Yemen, where al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
currently considered al Qaeda’s most dangerous An Adaptive and Imaginative
branch, has expanded its base. With the United Adversary
States reportedly already engaged in discreet military For 40 years, terrorists have tried to develop new
efforts in Yemen and calls being made to expand its tactics and devices that would defeat airline security.
role, an American airliner plunging to the ground, Sometimes they have succeeded, as they did in 1988,
killing hundreds on board, could easily be the provo- bringing down Pan Am 103 with a small, sophisti-
cation that escalates American intervention. cated explosive device probably concealed in a tape
That is the fundamental difference between the cassette player; or on 9/11, when they managed to
response to the bombing of Pan Am 103 and the take over four airliners, using knives and pepper
likely response today. The United States did not spray. Over the long run, however, increasing security
consider itself at war in 1988, even though it had has made their operations more difficult. The effec-
bombed Libya in 1986 in retaliation for Libya’s tiveness of security is measured not in the number
sponsorship of a terrorist bombing in Berlin in which of weapons or explosive devices discovered at airport
American soldiers were killed. In 1988, a military checkpoints but in the steadily declining number of
strike was an unlikely course of action. Today, attempted terrorist hijackings and sabotage attempts.
– 3 –
In the 1970s, terrorist hijacking or bombing attempts attempt in 2009 have “the best chance” of detecting
worldwide were occurring, on average, at the rate of such bombs, but he added, realistically, “This is not
one a month—and people still flew. Since then, the 100 percent guaranteed” (Richardson, 2012).
number of attempts has steadily declined. Al Qaeda’s master bomb-maker in Yemen,
The decline in the number of terrorist hijacking Ibrahim al-Asiri, who is believed to have designed
and bombing attempts worldwide reflects in part the explosive device that Umar Abdulmutallab
the fact that there are fewer terrorist groups focused attempted to detonate aboard a Delta Airlines flight
on aviation. In the 1970s and early 1980s, terrorist from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009, also designed
hijacking or sabotage attempts were being carried out the bombs concealed in printer cartridges intended
by a number of Palestinian groups, Shi’ite and Sikh to be carried on two Chicago-bound cargo flights in
fanatics, Croatian separatists, Ethiopian extremists, 2010 and the latest device intercepted by intelligence.
Cubans waging war on Castro’s Cuba, and members He once sent his brother on a suicide mission with
of the Japanese Red Army and Germany’s Red Army a bomb reportedly concealed in his buttocks (some
Faction, as well as Libyan and North Korean agents. reports say in his rectum) to assassinate Saudi Prince
Today, the threat comes primarily from al Qaeda, bin Nayef. The bomb exploded, but the bomber’s
and in Russia, from Chechen bombers, who brought own body absorbed much of the blast and Prince bin
down two Russian airliners in 2004 and bombed a Nayef survived.
Moscow airport terminal in 2011. A recent article in one of al Qaeda’s online
Another reason for the decline in terrorist magazines now claims the bomber got through
attempts is better security. While some critics may security despite the fact that he was strip-searched
think airline security is a joke, terrorists take it seri- and his underwear was inspected, because the bomb
ously. They cannot simply march a hundred martyrs was implanted in his abdomen (Al Qaeda in the
toward security checkpoints, hoping some might get Arabian Peninsula, 2012). That may be disinforma-
through. The risks of betrayal and failure are too tion designed to rattle the rest of the world, although While some critics
great. Instead, they carefully study security measures recent intelligence reports indicate that terrorists are
may think airline
to identify vulnerabilities they can exploit and ways exploring the possibility of concealing bombs inside
security is a joke,
to allay suspicion. Over the long run, increasing secu- household pets or even surgically implanting them in
terrorists take it
rity has made their task more difficult. human suicide bombers.
seriously.
Locked, armored cockpit doors and passengers Whether this is feasible or is simply terrorist pro-
willing to pounce on anyone threatening an airplane paganda calculated to create terror is hard to say.
have greatly reduced the hijacking threat. Of course, The security countermeasures such weapons would
it is necessary to keep guns off airplanes. Terrorist necessitate beyond body scanners and pat-downs
bombs, however, are still getting through security. are not pleasant to contemplate. The Israelis, whom
Terrorists have succeeded in all eight attempts that Americans credit with taking airline security very
have been made to get bombs on board commercial seriously, reportedly have concluded that indicators
aircraft since 9/11, although only two of the devices of an underwear bomb cannot be resolved without
(both in Russia) worked, and no attempts were made undressing the passenger, something TSA may not
in the United States. be ready to do, nor would passengers be willing to
The fact that terrorists are forced to build smaller, accept.
easier-to-hide devices with exotic ingredients and no Despite their past successes in getting bombs
metal parts to make them less detectable represents through airport security abroad, jihadists may have
a kind of progress for security—the new terrorist given up on getting through security at U.S. airports.
devices are less reliable and, even if detonated, may Jihadist terrorists in the United States have plotted
not bring down a plane. But the security dilemma to attack a broad variety of targets, including sub-
remains: Terrorists can make bombs and conceal ways, synagogues, shopping malls, pipelines, public
them in ways that make them undetectable by all but officials, National Guard armories, army recruiting
the most intrusive searches. offices, training centers, courthouses, and com-
Today’s adversaries remain adaptive and imagina- mercial buildings. Although one of the uncovered
tive. After reviewing whether current security mea- terrorist plots involved attacking the fuel depot at
sures could have prevented al Qaeda’s latest under- an airport, and homegrown terrorists were ready to
wear bomb from getting through airport screening take delivery of surface-to-air missiles offered them
undetected, TSA Administrator John Pistole reported by FBI undercover agents in sting operations, none of
that the advanced imaging body scanners deployed at the plots contemplated smuggling weapons or explo-
U.S. airports after the first underwear bomber’s failed sives through airport screening. Every recent terrorist
– 4 –
attempt on U.S. aviation has come from abroad. U.S. but a substantial economic blow, especially to the
law makes TSA responsible for the security of all travel industry. Restructuring in the aviation indus-
U.S.-bound flights, enabling it to mandate additional try and the bankruptcy of several airline companies
security measures, but primary passenger screening also contributed to the decline in passenger board-
remains in the hands of local authorities. ings, but undoubtedly, post-9/11 apprehension was a
Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, boarded his major factor that affected the entire travel industry
flight in Paris. Terrorists planning to bring down (Borenstein and Rose, 2003).
multiple planes on transatlantic flights intended to Nevertheless, the public might rediscover some
board them in London. Abdulmutallab boarded his of the stoicism it showed in the 1970s. Meanwhile,
flight in Amsterdam. The two bombs intended for terrorists have exhibited loftier ambitions, including
U.S. cargo flights in 2010 were smuggled aboard in the coordinated sabotage of several large airliners at
the Middle East. And the most recently discovered once. This was the scenario in the 1995 Bojinka plot
device was to be carried aboard a U.S.-bound flight uncovered in the Philippines, which envisioned the
from Europe. This was also the pattern of terrorist near-simultaneous destruction of 12 airliners flying
sabotage attempts and all but one terrorist hijacking across the Pacific. The plotters in the 2006 Heathrow
before 9/11—bombs and weapons were smuggled bomb plot intended to bring down a number of air-
aboard U.S. carriers abroad, not in the United States. liners on transatlantic flights. Either plan, had it suc-
Terrorist use of shoulder-fired, precision-guided ceeded, could have caused thousands of casualties.
surface-to-air missiles represents another threat to Analysts, if not terrorists, have thought about
airliners. In 2002, al Qaeda operatives tried to bring the effects of a continuing campaign of airline sabo-
down an Israeli jetliner in Kenya—they fired two tage instead of a single barrage of airline bombings.
missiles, and both missed. In 2003, surface-to-air Such a campaign poses a much greater operational
missiles fired by insurgents in Iraq struck two U.S. challenge to the terrorists, but even if only partially
Air Force transports and a DHL cargo airliner. The successful—a couple of actual explosions on flights,
severely damaged DHL plane was landed safely several failed attempts (perhaps diversions), intel-
owing to the pilots’ superb airmanship. Analysts ligence reports indicating more bombs and bombers
have worried about the terrorist missile threat for still at large (perhaps the product of a terrorist dis-
decades, especially after the United States lost control information campaign)—its effects would be nerve-
over hundreds of Stinger missiles given to Afghans wracking. The increase in risk to individual passen-
fighting Soviet invaders in the 1980s. Concern has gers would be statistically negligible, but it would put
been revived recently by the disappearance of a large enormous strains on airport security.
portion of Libya’s arsenal of missiles. According to
Each added
official reports, Moammar Gaddafi’s regime acquired Bilious Anger
procedure
20,000 of these weapons from Russia, but only 5,000 Airport screeners are under increasing stress. Each
complicates the
of them have thus far been recovered. Jihadist groups terrorist innovation has added another security pro-
search, slows
in Africa are believed to have acquired at least some cedure. Because of the shoe bomber, passengers must
down the screening
of them. take off their shoes. In response to the 2006 terror-
process, and
At an international conference on aviation security ist plot involving liquid explosives, restrictions were
further stretches in 1989, I offered the nightmare scenario that “sui- placed on liquids. The underwear bomb led to the
human resources. cidal terrorists will hijack a commercial airliner and, deployment of body scanners. Each added procedure
At the same time, by killing or replacing the crew, crash into a city or complicates the search, slows down the screening
passenger loads vital facility” (Jenkins, 1989). My observation was process, and further stretches human resources. At
are increasing, not meant to be a prediction, but rather an extrapola- the same time, passenger loads are increasing, while
while security tion inferred from what I believed terrorists might be security budgets are likely to decline. If the same
thinking. number of screeners are expected to perform more
budgets are likely
What are today’s nightmare scenarios? Given procedures on more passengers without letting the
to decline.
America’s current public and political fragility, a lines back up at checkpoints, performance can be
single successful sabotage of a commercial airliner expected to suffer. Meanwhile, public tolerance and
might suffice to provoke paroxysms of panic and cooperation are beginning to fray.
rage—at least, al Qaeda’s bomb designers think Americans are a cantankerous bunch. They have
so. In the wake of 9/11, airline travel in the United come to hold unreasonable expectations that govern-
States plummeted from 734 million passenger board- ment should provide 100-percent security, and they
ings in 2000 to 683 million in 2001 to 671 million quail when there is any failure. At the same time,
in 2002 before rising again in 2003—hardly panic, they have little tolerance for inconvenience and react
– 5 –
with outrage to intrusions into their privacy. Suc- with airport security—usually illustrating a failure or
cessful terrorist attacks underscore the threat and causing outrage. Some of these tales have the quality
consequent need for stringent security. Fortunately, of urban legends. Some are patently false.
there have been no successful terrorist attacks against Not surprisingly, many people revile TSA as the
American airliners since 9/11. But the safer people embodiment of what they see as an increasingly Many people
feel, the less their tolerance for what they see as tyrannical federal government. Every error of judg- revile TSA as the
increasingly intrusive security. ment, every apocryphal accusation arouses a growing embodiment of
Part of the problem derives from lack of under- chorus of TSA-haters. The antipathy goes over the
what they see as
standing. There is a reason behind every security top on the public blogs where screeners are routinely
an increasingly
measure. Why, for example, do screeners search described as “Nazis” and “thugs” who push people
tyrannical federal
children and elderly women? The fact is, the oldest around, violate their privacy, and touch their “junk.”
government.
person arrested in the United States for plotting a This kind of bilious anger suggests resentment
terrorist attack was 76, while terrorists have employed against more than what happens at an airport.
children as young as six as suicide bombers. The ter- Nevertheless, just as they can demand better
rorists apprehended by British authorities in 2006 for security, Americans should be able to indicate their
plotting to blow up airlines flying across the Atlantic dissatisfaction with existing airline security measures,
contemplated allaying suspicion by boarding the rejecting those measures they regard as inappropri-
aircraft with their own children, including a nine- ate as long as they also understand and collectively
month-old baby, who would have been killed in the accept the increased risks this will entail. The prob-
planned suicide attack. Security procedures must be lem is that terrorist risks are difficult to quantify, and
based on suspicion. If terrorists could be certain that the opinions of those estimating the risk and those
children would not be searched, they would not hesi- flying the airplanes are likely to be divided. A market
tate to have them carry explosives. approach would be to directly charge passengers for
Terrorists watch what security does—and what it aviation security, but the costs of aviation security
cannot do. The public’s reaction to the more intru- cannot be justified by the threat terrorists pose to
sive pat-downs after the underwear bomber’s failed individual passengers. The risks are minuscule, which
attempt kept this line of attack open. Terrorists could is why a strict application of cost-benefit analysis does
believe that they were on the right path but only not work here.
needed to make a better underwear bomb. The risks to the nation of a successful terrorist
An element of randomness—changes that the attack go far beyond the safety of individual travel-
public may find confusing and arbitrary—is essential ers. Bringing down a passenger airliner could have
to prevent security from being too predictable. More- significant economic and psychological consequences
over, changes in security may be dictated by current for the nation and could propel the country toward
intelligence, which TSA cannot always reveal. military action. That makes aviation security a mat-
The latest security measures have increased public ter of national security, not simply passenger safety.
resentment. Public attitudes turned a sharp corner There is no easy way to reconcile these perspectives.
with the deployment of full-body scanners and the
introduction of more thorough pat-downs in response Hostility in Congress
to the underwear bomber and subsequent demands There are legitimate questions about TSA’s perfor-
for something to be done. Seen as a more intrusive mance. Is it taking the right approach to meet new
regime, the procedures provoked resistance, which threats? Does it have a strategy? Can it effectively
in turn was stoked by the news media and joined by manage the development and deployment of new
individuals and organizations with other agendas. technology? Can it operate the information systems
Most people in the United States have limited necessary to support the no-fly and secondary inspec-
direct contact with government authority. At the tion lists, improved passenger pre-screening, and
local level, think of encounters with parking enforce- trusted-traveler programs? Is it overly bureaucratic? Is
ment officers, traffic cops, and the Department of it top-heavy? Is there too much turnover of its front-
Motor Vehicles. At the federal level, think of IRS line personnel? Has the performance of screening
audits or security screening at an airport. None of demonstrably improved?
these institutions are beloved. TSA has the greatest Critics describe TSA as dysfunctional. Some of
frequency of encounters. About 800 million times that perception derives from a dysfunctional political
a year, Americans pass through a TSA checkpoint. situation. Like the American public, Congress seeks
For many, it is a hands-on experience. Everyone has guarantees of absolute security and is ready to point
a story to tell about his own (or his aunt’s) experience fingers and call for heads to roll when failures occur.
– 6 –
From the very beginning, some in Congress have that allowed Abdulmutallab to board a U.S.-bound
been hostile to TSA on ideological grounds, seeing flight, but TSA is a consumer of intelligence, not a
it as another federal bureaucracy employing more producer. And there have been a number of intel-
government workers. Performance problems are por- ligence successes, including the discovery by British
trayed as proof of TSA’s organizational failure. Some authorities of the Heathrow bomb plot; the intel-
call for TSA to be abolished altogether, although ligence warning that bombs had been placed aboard
what would replace it is unclear. two U.S.-bound cargo flights; and the recent recov-
TSA’s congressional critics raise valid issues, but ery of the latest al Qaeda bomb. To be sure, these
they then pile on tendentious accusations, which successes were owed largely to foreign intelligence
prompt questions of motive, undermine credibility, services, but the unprecedented cooperation among
and turn thoughtful inquiry into political theater. the world’s intelligence services and law enforcement
Congressional critics have pointed to 25,000 “secu- organizations is itself a remarkable success story.
rity breaches” at U.S. airports in the last decade as TSA also takes heat for keeping persons on the
evidence that TSA is failing to effectively carry out no-fly list off airplanes, but here again, it does not
its mission. At first glance, it seems an alarming fig- generate the names on the list. They are produced
ure. A “security breach” is when someone enters the by the intelligence agencies and coordinated by the
secure area without having been fully screened. Usu- Terrorist Screening Center, which operates under the
ally, the person is quickly located and returned to the auspices of the FBI. The no-fly list has grown rapidly
checkpoint, but sometimes he or she disappears from since 9/11, when it contained only a few hundred
sight and the terminal has to be shut down. A ten- names. Today, it contains somewhere between 10,000
year total of 25,000 security breaches at 450 com- and 20,000 names, of whom only a small fraction are
mercial airports in the United States averages out to U.S. citizens or residents. It has been reported that
five or six per airport per year. Looking at it another the no-fly list was significantly expanded after the
way, more than 7.6 billion passengers boarded planes underwear-bomber incident. With so many names,
at U.S. airports—at 25,000 breaches, screening is errors will inevitably occur, causing problems for
operating at 99.999-percent efficiency, which doesn’t some innocent people.
seem too bad. Actually, we have no way of counting We have no way of knowing how many actual
how many prohibited items screeners have missed— terrorists may have been kept off airplanes. Possibly
stories of the overlooked army knife or the sterling some. At the very least, the existence of a no-fly list
serving fork missed by screeners are retold with great obliges terrorist groups to seek new recruits with
relish. Even if security is 99.99 percent effective in clean backgrounds for sabotage missions rather than
finding potentially dangerous items, with an average using trusted existing members, and that makes them
of 700 million passenger boardings a year, thousands vulnerable to infiltration by intelligence operatives, as
of objects theoretically could get through. demonstrated in the recent recovery of the al Qaeda
Terrorists, however, calculate not how many items explosive device.
The real problem per million might be successfully smuggled aboard a Pre-security screening offers promise. Computer-
is not that plane. They have to calculate their odds of being on Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening (CAPPS), which
aviation security a no-fly list or a meriting-a-closer-look list; they have was in effect before 9/11, identified nine of the 19
is unavoidably to worry that nervous behavior might betray them; 9/11 hijackers as requiring greater scrutiny, although
reactive; rather, they have to assess the odds of their weapon or bomb it is not clear that any of them were subjected to
being discovered by screeners. They get only one try. secondary searches. The passenger screening protocol
over time, it has
And in spite of the fact that some “potentially used by the airline identified Richard Reid, the shoe
produced an
dangerous items” have eluded detection by airport bomber, as someone who should not be allowed to
accumulation of
screening since 9/11, these have not resulted in a sin- board the plane. French authorities interrogated him
narrowly focused
gle successful attack, suggesting that aviation security twice and let him through.
measures that are
might be more effective if it focused on people rather In the past, TSA attempted to introduce an
both inefficient
than objects. improved version of CAPPS, but because of software
and impervious
TSA is often blamed for things beyond its con- problems and resistance from civil-liberties groups,
to fundamental trol—terrorists boarding flights in Europe or smug- it gave up on the idea. The old CAPPS system used
change. gling bombs onto flights in the Middle East, for criteria based on analysis of the passenger’s individual
example. It is true that the increasing difficulty of flight booking, whereas TSA now relies on Secure-
finding small, sophisticated bombs puts greater pres- Flight to identify elevated-risk passengers (selectees)
sure on intelligence. Congressional critics (and the solely on the basis of national intelligence indicating
President) were outraged by the intelligence failure a suspected connection with terrorists. Passengers’
– 7 –
experience indicates that very few are identified as published its report on aviation security. A national
selectees. Since only selectees receive screening strin- review is in order and should not be put off until
gent enough to find the kinds of explosive devices another catastrophe compels it to be done.
terrorists are now using, security depends on remark- In fact, post-catastrophe reviews tend to push
ably complete and precise intelligence. us in the wrong direction. Hastily done, narrowly A national review
TSA is initiating a new trusted-traveler program, focused on the latest failure, they often end up is in order and
called PreCheck, in which frequent travelers can merely adding new security measures rather than should not be put
volunteer information about themselves in return reexamining strategy. off until another
for access to expedited security screening. This may Procedural tweaks and technological advances catastrophe
provoke less resistance from civil libertarians, but (plus a lot of luck) may keep airline security one step
compels it to be
critics say that the security gains are marginal. Does ahead of aviation-obsessed terrorists while gradually
done.
improving efficiency also improve effectiveness, or is improving efficiency. But more-radical approaches
there an inherent tension between the two? may be needed. They should at least be explored
Congressional critics say that airline security is without waiting for a terrorist-created tragedy to
reactive. Indeed, most security is reactive. Terror- drive a new inquiry.
ists and intelligence analysts can imagine more sce- Kip Hawley offers a number of suggestions in
narios than security can protect against. It is hard to his new book Permanent Emergency. He argues
mobilize finite resources and gain public acceptance that TSA needs to break out of its strict rule-based
of measures to prevent something that has not yet security regime to develop more-flexible approaches,
occurred. We knew that terrorists were exploring the revamping what screeners look for and reducing time
use of liquid explosives long before the 2006 plot, wasted looking for objects that are no longer capable
but restricting liquids would have been unacceptable of bringing down a flight. He writes that TSA
before revelation of the plot. Officials have known already has the machines to detect liquid explosives
for a long time that some terrorists probably have and therefore can do away with the restrictions on
missiles, but they have decided not to spend $40 bil- liquids, although software problems remain. Actu-
lion over the next ten years to equip the commercial ally, while the technology can detect the presence of
airliner fleet with anti-missile technology (figure from liquids and the composition of some, the false-alarm
Chow et al., 2005). Once an attack occurs, however, rates are extremely high, and resolving them is diffi-
it is almost impossible to resist taking measures to cult. Restrictions on liquids may be reduced, but not
prevent its repetition. The public demands it. Con- without risks.
gress must be seen to be doing something. Others, including me, have proposed expend-
The real problem is not that aviation security is ing less effort looking for objects and focusing more
unavoidably reactive; rather, over time, it has pro- on the passengers themselves, not all of whom pose
duced an accumulation of narrowly focused measures the same risk. Based on personal information they
that are both inefficient and impervious to funda- volunteer, trusted travelers, whose identities would
mental change. be confirmed at each flight, could go through a “pre-
While its members complain about TSA’s ineffi- 9/11 lite” inspection, while more-effective use of
ciencies, Congress itself has at times been an obstacle prior flight histories and other information already
to change. When former TSA head Kip Hawley readily available to airlines might indicate the need
wanted to dispense with the tedious search for small for greater scrutiny for others. This would allow finite
sharp objects once cockpit doors were locked and resources to be reallocated according to risk. TSA’s
armored, Congress said no. Simply put, no politician PreCheck program is a step in this direction.
wants to publicly agree to lifting any security mea- PreCheck depends on the reliability of the pre-
sure. (Hawley’s successor, John Pistole, later quietly screening system and confirmation of passengers’
ordered the change.) As long as the same procedures identity. Stringent requirements for enrolling pas-
remain in place, the illusion of absolute prevention sengers in PreCheck—for example, limiting it to
survives, and failures can be attributed to poor per- frequent flyers with long flying histories that can be
formance. Change brings ownership. It entails risk. confirmed—would reduce the risks of infiltration by
It is easier to blame than it is to accept the burden of terrorists. These passengers account for a dispropor-
responsibility if something goes wrong. tionate number of boardings. Enrolling them in Pre-
Check would enable TSA to shift resources to assist
Time for a Thorough Review ordinary occasional travelers and, more importantly,
It is now more than a decade since TSA was estab- expand the organization’s capacity to focus on those
lished and eight years since the 9/11 Commission posing greater risk (Poole, 2012). Mathematical mod-