Posted on 02/13/2002 11:41:06 AM PST by fella
Ron: Security, political correctness can't coexist
By Leslie Miller, The Associated Press
BOSTON - The new security consultant at Logan Airport wants to fight terrorists with a technique that some might call "profiling," saying airport security can't coexist with political correctness.
Rafi Ron, former security director for the Israeli Airport Authority, would replace the long lines, inconvenience, and expense of passenger screening with something he calls "pattern behavior recognition."
Ron will submit a report on March 15 that will recommend having behavior experts walk through the airport to single out suspicious travelers for comprehensive security checks and interviews, which could take up to an hour.
"The basic civil right is protecting human life, and this is the business we're in," Ron said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Security has been an issue at Logan since it was the starting point for the two airliners that were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center on September 11.
Ron, who started work at Logan in November, said there's no system in the world that can prevent passengers from carrying a knife or small sharp object onto an airplane 100 percent of the time. But he said behavior-pattern experts would likely have been able to stop Richard Reid, the man accused of trying to detonate his explosives-filled sneaker on a Paris-to-Miami flight in December.
Logan spokesman Phil Orlandella cautioned that Ron's ideas wouldn't necessarily be adopted. "I'm not sure Massport has the authority to do that kind of thing," Orlandella said.
Ron has worked with Logan officials to create a security web around the airport, including mobile handheld computers that allow state troopers to do instant background checks, and pilot testing of facial recognition systems. In addition, troopers now conduct random roadblocks to search vehicles, and clam diggers have been banned from shorelines along the runways.
He defended Logan officials who were blamed for security lapses after September 11, including security director Joseph Lawless, who was reassigned. "He and some other people around here were brutalized by unleashed criticism that should not be directed at them," Ron said of Lawless.
Says so much in such a sort sentence.
D'OH!
Logan spokesman Phil Orlandella cautioned that Ron's ideas wouldn't necessarily be adopted. "I'm not sure Massport has the authority to do that kind of thing," Orlandella said.
I.e., Ron's recommendations make too much sense - we couldn't have that here in Bah-stun.
Sounds like he's talking sense to me. Being a security consultant from Israel, he just might know what he's talking about. Too bad it'll take a bunch more terrorist attacks before the authorities in Massachusetts follow any of his recommendations.
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