Boston Airport Scrambles with New Procedures

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Boston's Logan Airport on Wednesday scrambled to comply with new U.S. Federal Aviation Administration security measures, towing cars and sweeping terminals for bombs as they tried to account for missing security badges.

The new measures still allow up to 5 percent of the security badges issued to airport, airlines and cargo personnel that permit them to go unquestioned through check points, to be missing before a new round of background checks must be done, MassPort officials, operators of Logan Airport, said.

MassPort Security Chief Joseph Lawless said that for several months the airport has been in the process of "upgrading our security system" and issuing new badges. The upgrade began months before two Boeing 767s were hijacked from Boston and crashed into New York City's World Trade Center, Lawless said.

There are 16,000 workers at Logan and 12,000 have badges that allow them free access to planes and tarmacs. Under previous and new regulations, up to 600 of those badges can be missing before an airport operator has to do fresh background checks on all personnel.

Meanwhile, Logan is trying to tow some 9,000 cars from its parking garages that were left behind in Tuesday's chaos. The garages and the shuttered terminals will then be swept by teams of explosive sniffing dogs before the airport is permitted to reopen, MassPort's Director of Aviation Thomas Kinton said.

The security measures to be applied to all U.S. airports will include the elimination of curbside check-in, restricting access to secure areas, increasing both uniform and plain clothes police details, and stepping up the number of random identification checks, Kinton said.

"I cannot tell you when we will reopen...They will take a lot of time and we're going to take our time to get it done and get it done right," Kinton said.

The new measures will also ban the sale or use of knives -- metal or plastic -- at most areas within the airport. This includes concession stands or retail shops, Kinton said.

Airlines will not be accepting cargo or mail and aircraft must be searched before each flight is boarded, he said.

After reading some of these articles, I'm not even sure that a "Teg/Akal Security" would be needed to breach the security at our nation's airports. Then again, with the upcoming changes and higher security, terrorists will increasingly need some "inside" help to do something like the WTC again.

Good thread... Let's keep looking. :-)

The Boston Globe
September 12, 2001, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION
NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A1

Glen Johnson, Kimberly Blanton, and Stephanie Stoughton of the Globe staff contributed to this report.;
CRASHES IN NYC HAD GRIM ORIGINS AT LOGAN
By Peter J. Howe, and Matthew Brelis, Globe Staff
(snip)
While Logan officials insisted they have hewed to "high-security standards," in recent years safety concerns have repeatedly been raised at Logan. Some Massport officials said they worried about the reliability of low-paid private security company officials charged with inspecting baggage for weapons and keeping intruders out of secure areas.

The two companies that provide check-in security crews for American and United in Boston - Burns International Services Corp.'s Globe Aviation Services unit, a subsidiary of Stockholm-based Securitas AB, and Huntleigh Corp., part of Israeli-Dutch company ICTS - have faced union organizing efforts and criticism.

(snip)
A former Massport official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that for years airport officials have been concerned about "the quality of the people hired, basically at the minimum wage, to check your bags. There were a lot of people at Massport who said this was the weak link."

Sullivan agreed that in general, "the screeners at checkpoints are not well educated. You can't keep up with their background checks. There is high turnover and low pay. And that is our front line of security. It can't be."
(snip)
Responsibility for security at Logan is split among Massport and its State Police Troop E contingent, which oversees the airport perimeter, parking areas, and terminal space, and the airlines themselves, which hire contractors to staff the security checkpoints for passengers boarding flights and inspections of baggage being loaded into cargo holds.

Danielle Crosby, a spokeswoman for Globe Aviation Services, said the company could make "no comment about anything because of the national security issues." Officials with St. Louis-based Huntleigh could not be reached for comment.

The 136 violations found by the FAA in the 1997-2000 monitoring came after plainclothes agents were able to board airplanes parked overnight at gates and walk into restricted areas unquestioned. People hired to operate luggage screening devices also routinely failed to detect test items such as pipe bombs and guns.
(snip)
In July 2000, Globe won a three-year contract to provide American with 200 terminal staffers to screen bags and provide skycap and baggage services.

Earlier this summer, Huntleigh faced picketing and worker-organizing efforts by the Service Employees International Union at the Los Angeles, Oakland, and Seattle-Tacoma airports. The SEIU said low wages - in some cases $6.25 an hour starting pay for baggage screeners - and high turnover were jeopardizing traveler safety.

Chicago Tribune
September 13, 2001 Thursday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION
News; Pg. 15; ZONE: N
Checkpoint screeners weak link in system
By Laurie Cohen and Michael Berens, Tribune staff reporters.
(snip)
Both Argenbright Security, which provides security at Dulles and Newark International Airports, and Globe Aviation Services, which oversees checkpoints at Logan International Airport in Boston, are employed at O'Hare.

CBS News Transcripts
CBS News Special Report (7:00 PM PM ET) - CBS
September 12, 2001 Wednesday
Special Report/Newscast
Continuous coverage of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
WYATT ANDREWS reporting:

Logan Airport, the source of two of the hijacked planes, remains both closed and cordoned off as police complete a terminal-by-terminal sweep for explosives. Tow trucks began dragging away 2,500 cars stranded in the closed-in parking garages because police would not permit the cars' owners inside the security zone. Stunned by the still-unknown breakdown in security, officials of Massport, the governing authority of the airport, announced a crackdown on security beginning with the secure access doors used by employees.

Unidentified Man #3: We will be locking down a number of employee access doors and requiring all employees to go through screening prior to going to work.

ANDREWS: But this is not the first time security has been found lax at Logan. In a recent FAA investigation, plainclothes agents slipped fake pipe bombs and guns through Logan's screening checkpoints. Agents also physically slipped themselves past security guards, through secure doors and, in some cases, onto empty aircraft. Former Congressman Peter Blute was director of Massport at the time.

How did they do that? What did you lear--what did you learn about how that was accomplished?

Former Representative PETER BLUTE (Former Executive Director, Massport): We learned that they were able to distract many times the people who worked for the airlines in security at the gate. These were not people who were necessarily trained not to be distracted. And so a couple of people moving here and there and--and--and they were distracted. Then somebody went right--shot the gap, if you will, and were able to get through quickly.

ANDREWS: So they played a very simple game of look the other way.

Mr. BLUTE: Exactly.

ANDREWS: And in essentially--in front of, essentially, minimum-wage workers.

Mr. BLUTE: Exactly.

ANDREWS: Blute is an advocate for federalizing the airport security, ending the practice of having the airlines hire contract security employees and making these workers federal agents. Without saying so directly, that is on Massport's agenda, too.

Unidentified Man #3: I think we all need to look at it, including FAA, airport operators and the airlines. Going forward, is this the right kind of security staffing and the right caliber of employee to have?

ANDREWS: Clearly, in response to that vulnerability, the laxity in screening. Massport officials today announced that for the foreseeable future, Massachusetts state police will be assigned and on patrol at those terminal screening checkpoints. Dan.

Not to change the subject, but I wonder what the odds are that TWA 800 was shot down because of a terrorist hijacking -- a hijacking by terrorists who hadn't learned to turn off microphones and transponders and who were openly talking about crashing into the White House. That would be just like Clinton to cover something like that up, wouldn't it?

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alumni Association
Technology Review
April, 1997
No. 3, Vol. 100; Pg. 38; ISSN: 0040-1692

Defusing airline terrorism
Fischetti, Mark
(snip)
The heat increased in 1995 after Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the suspected mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was implicated in a plot to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners. His laptop computer, confiscated in the Philippines, stored flight schedules and detonation times. Accordingly, the NRC formed a committee on detection technologies. It issued its first report, pointing out relative strengths and weaknesses of various systems, in June 1996. The FAA responded by assembling a security task force on the morning of July 17; that evening, TWA Flight 800 blew up over Long Island Sound, killing all 230 people aboard.

Although the cause has yet to be determined, the July catastrophe set off a flurry of activity that is rapidly putting new technology into airports. The White House set up a Commission on Aviation Safety and Security under Vice-President Al Gore and gave it a mere 45 days to present a national technical strategy. In the frantic last days of its fall session, Congress banged out the October 9 Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act. The legislation earmarked $ 160 million for aviation security, tracking the Gore commission's recommendations that a variety of new detection techniques be tried out in real settings to identify the ones that are most ready for deployment.
(snip)

If I were the fighter pilot who had to do it, I'd sure not want my name connected to it. Same may go for key folks that ordered some missiles launched at 800.

The poor military guys who would've actually launched the missles would undoubtedly have suffered many sleepless nights over it, for sure. I'm afraid the same just can't be said for those who would've ordered the hit.

If I remember correctly, in July of 1996, Clinton was ahead of Dole in popularity for the upcoming fall election. Thanks to Clinton's excellent job of using the April OKC bombing to increase his popularity, only a catastrophe could have kept him from skating past Dole. A "Ramzi Ahmed Yousef-inspired" terrorist hijacking into the World Trade Center would definitely have been categorized as a "catastrophe."

If you follow that line of thinking -- that the TWA 800 terrorist plan for a suicide bombing was foiled because the TWA 800 was shot down by our military -- then you're forced to conclude that the Middle Eastern terrorists who planned it were never held accountable. Instead, they were left untouched to leisurely plan their next suicide bombing -- the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks.

The end result of this line of thinking is that last Tuesday's tragedy happened because Clinton failed to deal with the Middle Eastern terrorists in 1996, when he had a chance.

Instead, he deals with the terrorists by bombing an aspirin factory and becoming intimately acquainted with his White House study ceramic sink basin.

The bottom line: My sons may go to war because of Bill Clinton's inability to be a man and deal with some two-bit, tin-horn Islamic idiots who are hell-bent on the 70-virgin comet ride.

< /rant > Sorry, I had to ventilate a minute. I don't want to get this excellent thread off track from trying to find out more about Logan's security contractors, so don't feel obligated to respond to that. :-)

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Security Badge Office Supervisor
Posting Date:	7/16/2001
Bid #:	3010
Summary:
The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) is currently accepting applications for the position of Security Badge Office Supervisor in the Public Safety Unit located at Logan International Airport. Salary: up to $51K+ annually, depending upon experience.
Essential Tasks:
The successful candidate supervises administrative support staff in daily operations of unit; oversees production and issuance of security badges for Logan Airport; and designs reports detailing operations of Aerodrome Office.
Job Requirements:
B.S. or equivalent work experience; 3-5 years work experience; and thorough knowledge of supervisory practices.
Work Schedule:
Ability to work a 37.5 hour work week. Ability to work additional hours as workload demands.
Location/Facility:
Logan International Airport

Boston airport scrambles with new procedures