Ideas from the Agency Everybody Loves to Hate.

First, there was a great deal of recent media coverage about TSA considering a proposal to eliminate passenger screening at about 150 mostly small commercial airports... about 31% ... as a budgetary issue. Without seeing the actual numbers, I suspect those are likely to be the least cost-effective operations per screened passenger. But I was present at the stand-up of TSA when the entire government screamed loudly that if these airports got less than full security protection, they would be the “weakest link” in the chain, and deadly chaos would ensue. The result was called “reverse screening”, where passengers from such small unserved airports would merrily board their RJ to a hub and be screened upon arrival at the connecting airport for their next flight. It was apparently considered rude at the time to point out that the government seemed to consider small town people to be expendable, or that unscreened passengers could be considered a threat only on their 2nd leg of a journey... after all, that’s why we currently evacuate or shut down entire terminals when there is the slightest chance of one having slipped through. Fortunately, a saner head has now prevailed, claiming the elimination was just idle chatter leaked to the press; we’d never do something that dumb. My personal guess is that if, indeed, it was a budgetary proposal, that singular sane head looked at what it would cost to reconfigure the existing terminals and their primary screening and secondary reverse screening operations at virtually every other airport in order to quite effectively worsen aviation security by about 31%.

Next idea: At a recent industry conference, TSA touted something new called the “Atlas Program” – random employee screening at the door(s) to the secured area. Something sounded fishy to me, so after some discussion and questioning, it turns out they admitted the Behavior Detection Officer program “has been disbanded”, and after retraining, they are being randomly posted at employee access doors. No information has been provided on what they’re looking for, but apparently no screening equipment is put in place–impractical to randomly move it around. Note that the former BDOs required full retraining at FLETC because as BDOs, they had lost their currency certification as screeners, and TSA screeners have no law enforcement jurisdiction.

More: The Boston Globe and Washington Post outed the TSA “Quiet Skies” program in which Federal Air Marshalls have been engaging since 2010 in something that sounds suspiciously almost identical to the recently disbanded ineffective BDO program. They appear to be working off a similar BDO tip sheet of suspicious behavior; I have previously pointed out that sometimes I easily hit 7 of those criteria just walking in the door. My critics delight in confirming that.

Federal Air Marshalls are still being deployed in flight - it’s typically pursuant to current intelligence suggesting higher-risk routes and destinations, last points of departures (LPD) to the US, but could also be based on many sources of flight-specific or person-specific intel. Generally, probably a good thing, and good deterrent, although there’s no public data on how many actual interventions have occurred.

Finally, allow me to weigh in on the recent event at SEATAC in which a Horizon employee stole a commercial Bombardier aircraft, did some local joy-riding, and dove it into a relatively remote island area, killing only himself. Media, Congress, and everyone with a Twitter account is screaming “major vulnerability” that requires psychological evaluations for everybody, more cameras, 100% employee screening 100% of the time, more cops roaming the AOA. There is a House of Representatives bill to that effect pending. While this event clearly fits somewhere in the “insider threat” category, airport/airline employees have clearances into the secured areas because their jobs require constant unfettered back and forth movement. Collectively, they are the trusted persons who are the eyes and ears of the airport security system. For example, they are the ones to recognize that something or someone is “out of place” or acting unusually in a particular area. The problem (if it is one) is that they constantly go in and out of 100 other non-screened operational doors, not the passenger checkpoint. There was no “security violation” at SEATAC. The guy was properly badged, with a full background investigation, full access for his job responsibilities, had been on the airline job more than 3 years. Thus, no airport security regulations were breached: he was supposed to be there. The airlines are responsible for their own aircraft and support property. Thus, what occurred was employee theft of company property. For whatever personal reasons, the guy just came unhinged ... which he says himself on the tower recording.

This may call for more stringent policies and protocols for the air carriers to protect their assets, but it’s not something the airport can do for them. No amount of employment background checks, criminal investigations or psychological evaluations can determine intent.

• There is no such thing as perfect security; only varying degrees of insecurity.
• He who seeks to protect everything, protects nothing. [Sun Tzu, The Art of War:]