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..... Wasn't Argenbright doing Logan's security back then?......

The Dennenberg Report
November 19, 2001

HOW LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, THE FAA, THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY AND OTHERS WERE BLIND TO THE OBVIOUS BEFORE AND AFTER 9-11.

If there's one thing that the recent World Trade Center catastrophe proves, it is that there has to be responsibility and accountability for failures, or those failures will be repeated and compounded. The case of airport security proves it all, having provided a long-running national disgrace with every aspect of its failures for many years. Yet nothing was done about it, and those responsible were not brought to book. As a result, four planes could be hijacked on September 11, 2001, in one of the greatest and most inexcusable and preventable security failures in history.

That whole catastrophe can be easily explained. Airline security was always virtually non-existent and no one did anything about it despite endless warnings. Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration, the airports, the airlines, and the security firms tolerated the intolerable until their negligence and stupidity caused the unthinkable.

Unfortunately, the evidence is clear that the lessons of September 11 are yet to be learned. Even after September 11, all the parties in question were slow to act, and permitted one fiasco after another, without speedy and dramatic remedies. As one of many examples, take the case of Logan International Airport, where the two planes that were flown into the World Trade Center were later hijacked.

On November 16, over two months after the catastrophe, Logan International Airport finally barred Argenbright Security from the airport. It acted, according to its own account, because it learned that Argenbright, which has 40 percent of the market for airport security, had pleaded guilty to felony charges in Philadelphia last year (for failure to do criminal checks of screeners, for failure to give exams to screeners, for covering up its wrongdoing, etc.) Although this matter had been in the national media and with special intensity after September 11, it took the management at Logan International Airport until November 15 to figure out something was amiss with Argenbright. Can anyone be so dense as to miss all the red flags flying on airport security and on Argenbright for many years before November 15?

The airport's interim security chief, Col. John DiFava, explained this long over-due epiphany on security this way, "After a while, it's like enough is enough when you just hear 'Argenbright, Argenbright' all the time. It's a drastic move, but I think it's the right move." It may be the right move, but it is certainly not drastic in view of what has been going on, and it calls into question the decision-making at Logan International Airport and the rest of the security system in recent years.

Even before the brain trust at Logan International Airport finally got the word on the felony conviction of Argenbright, there had already been security lapses at Logan that should have led to action. According to published reports, that same week an Argenbright employee left an airport exit door unattended for four minutes. That, of course, led to delayed flights and travelers being forced to go though the screening process again. The very next day, an Argenright employee abandoned an elevator post that was part of the airport's perimeter security.

What's more, even earlier, there were two highly publicized reports of Argenbright security lapses at Chicago, involving two travelers who got by Argenbright security with everything from tear gas and stun guns to knives and cleavers. But Logan, like the rest of the airport security system, apparently are in the tradition of the three monkeys that see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.

As I've noted, I tested Argenbright security and other security companies at the Philadelphia International Airport and found nothing resembling security. In fact, I sent an undercover employee to the airport, who got a job on the screening line for Argenbright. That security company did not even bother to check her employment references. That security lapse was worse than the other allegations against Argenbright, as they involved failure to check criminal background information. But in this case, they did not even check employment references.

So why isn't someone asking Logan International Airport why they weren't doing some checking on their own? Why weren't they aware of dozens of media reports over the years on airport security failures? Why weren't they aware of the findings of the FAA and other government agencies on airport security failures? Why were they in the dark about the obvious until September 11 and even thereafter? Why did it take them until November 16, 2001 to take action? This is a case of the incompetent watching the incompetent, and in turn being regulated by the still more incompetent FAA.

--SNIP----

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Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, professor at the Wharton School, and Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner. He is an adjunct professor of insurance and information science and technology at Cabrini College. You can e-mail him at hdenenberg@aol.com (as of Nov 2001).