Saturday, July 28, 2007

More About Airport & Airline Attacks

In my last post, I noted that terrorist attacks against airports and airlines were rare in the U.S. Rare is an imprecise term, and on e of the problems I have with modern journalism is the overuse of general and imprecise terms surrounding important issues.

To be more precises: of the 554 terrorist incidents occurring in the U.S. since January 1, 1968, only 50 have been against airports and airlines, according to the data in the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) Knowledge Base. The 50 incidents include nine hijacking but not the attacks on 9/11. The events of September 11, 2001, which are listed as three separate attacks, are classified as an unconventional in the Knowledge Base because aircraft were used as weapons and the targets were business and government facilities. There have been eight terrorist incidents, including 9/11, in which unconventional tactics or weapons were used. They include the ricin attacks against news and government personnel in 2003 and 2004, the staking of trees by the Earth Liberation Front in 2001 and the lacing of two seedless grapes with cyanide in 1989.

The Knowledge Base does not track whether any of the individuals involved in the 50 actions against airports or airlines were or pretended to be airport or airline employees to gain access to their targets. It does indicate that airline and airport employees have been injured and killed in some of the incidents which resulted in injuries or fatalities. Injuries and/or fatalities were reported in only about 10 percent of the incidents.

It should also be noted that the only terrorist incidents recorded in the Phoenix metropolitan area was the arson and firebombing of a luxury home near Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve in 2001 by ecoterrorist Mark Warren Sands. Similar arsons occurred in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson that same year.

The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism is a non-profit organization formed after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. It is dedicated to preventing terrorism on U.S. soil or mitigating its effects. The MIPT Knowledge Base is a resource for the research and analysis of terrorist incidents, court cases, groups and leaders around the globe that includes data from the RAND Corporation, the Terrorist Indictment database and Detica's research on terrorist organizations.
[Get Copyright  Permissions]
Click here for copyright permissions!

Copyright 2007
Informed Ideas

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Security Gaps at Sky Harbor

Having pointed out the gaps in security at one civil aviation airport in the Valley, I would be remiss if I didn't address the security issues raised recently at Sky Harbor. On Monday, July 23, 2007, Paul Armes, the federal security director at Sky Harbor International Airport was placed on leave after the local ABC affiliate, Channel 15, KNXV, aired a video tape of airport employees carrying bags, backpacks, boxes and other items entering the "sterile" zone or airside part of the terminals without passing through any security check beyond showing their employee badges. The employees were entering the normally secure area between midnight and 4:30 a.m. Because no commercial flights arrive or depart during this 4.5 hour period, no Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel were on duty and no X-ray machines or metal detectors were operating. Security was being handled by contract security guards.

The security gap everyone is talking about is rather obvious: unscreened packages were being brought into a secure area, an area with access to not only planes but also the tarmac and airport ground vehicles and facilities including fuel tanks and tankers. Being obvious, the gap is relatively easy to close and, in fact, the TSA has already done so by taking over security and operating screening of all individuals, employees and passengers, entering the airside portion of the airport 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"TSA and our partners at Sky Harbor were rapidly able to close a potential loophole in aviation security," David Beecroft, Western Area Director for the TSA said in a written statement to the media. "Ensuring airport and aviation security at all hours of the day is paramount and we were able to fortify any deviations from that undertaking literally the same day we became aware of the issue."

This statement is misleading in implying that providing 24/7 security at all airports is a goal of the TSA. It is not. There is no national requirement that the TSA provide such round the clock services. More subtly, the statement implies that the TSA has policies and procedures in place for the screening of airport employees both during and after hours.

In fact, the TSA only announced plans to improve employee screening in April 2007. The first 90 days, which, based on the date the effort was revealed to the media would have ended less than a week before Armes suspension, were to be spent forming a working group with the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE), the Airports Council International - North America (ACI-NA) and the National Air Transportation Association (NATA). The goal of the working group was to develop the standards for employee screening and a timeline for implementing them. A phased rollout of the plan developed by the working group was to follow.

No announcement has been made to indicate that the working group has completed their standards or developed a plan. Even if they have, it is unlikely that a plan that was 90 days in the making could be rolled out in all 452 commercial airports in the country in less than a week.

Until the media revealed the gaps in Phoenix, there doesn't seem to have been a great deal of urgency to improve employee screening, although the April announcement indicates it was at least on the radar screen for the TSA and other airport groups. This lack of urgency is apparent in the testimony of Greg Principato, President of ACI - NA, before the U.S. house Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection in which he emphasized that "airports have an effective regime in place to screen individuals with access to secured areas including extensive FBI background checks, checks against the federal terrorist watch lists and security threat assessments; access control systems and initial and recurrent security training for employees." Perhaps this is why TSA executives are so confident that the security gaps discovered in Phoenix had not endangered passengers or the public.

It should be noted that while explosives were the weapon most widely used against airports and airlines between 1970 and 2004 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), airport employees were not the ones delivering the explosives to the target. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 serve as reminders that attacks on American aviation can result in significant loss of life. Fortunately, attacks on airports and aviation in the United States have been rare.

Also worth noting is the Department of Homeland Security believes Al Qaida continues to have an interest in aviation as a potential target. As a nation, America relies almost exclusively on airlines as a means of commercial passenger traffic, so any possible threat, and any security gaps, must be taken seriously, not just by those like the TSA who are employed to keep aviation safe but also by the flying public. We owe it to ourselves.
[Get Copyright  Permissions]
Click here for copyright permissions!

Copyright 2007
Informed Ideas

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Arizona's Security Issues Go Beyond the Border

[Get Copyright  Permissions]
Click here for copyright permissions!

Copyright 2007
Informed Ideas

On the 4th of July I went out to take some photos of local events. I ended up walking out on the tarmac of the Chandler Regional Airport and taking photos of aircraft, the control tower and surrounding areas. No one said a word or asked me what I was doing. A few people actually waved at me.

I accessed the tarmac through an unlocked gate near the terminal building. The terminal building itself was closed and locked in observance of the holiday and no one seemed to be around. There was one other vehicle in the parking lot and the flag had been raised but the newspaper was still sitting on the sidewalk.

Once through the gate, I was able to walk right up to the planes. The photos show how close I got. It was a fairly busy morning, with several planes taking off and landing during the short time I was there. Even so, there were plenty of opportunities for mischief.

Having spent a good portion of my life wandering around civil aviation airports, I can come up with plenty of excuses for why I went unquestioned and seemingly unnoticed:
  • It was a holiday, which always means visitors flying in and locals flying out to visit family or friends.
  • People were off work and the weather was good making it a great opportunity to add some more flight time.
  • People who visit civil aviation airports are generally private pilots themselves or relatives/friends/passengers of private pilots and so, be extension "belong" there.
  • Making it tougher to get to their planes would mean some unhappy pilots.
  • No one except pilots, their family or their friends would be taking photos of these smaller airports.
  • Few civil aviation airports are located in the center of densely populated areas and therefore are not an attractive target.



I know better than to think that any pilot close enough to see me didn't notice me, if only because of safety issues. Since I didn't approach any aircraft in operation, however, I wasn't in danger or putting them in danger and thus they could focus their attention elsewhere.

That doesn't make me any more comfortable with the fact that I just walked out onto the tarmac and started taking photos. I've never flown into or out of this airport. I was a complete stranger to all of them, even if I did look like I knew what I was doing and had a valid reason for being there.

My stroll occurred at a time when the nation's security threat level was elevated to the Yellow level. It was the same week terrorists crashed an SUV into the Glasgow Airport in the Scotland. A month earlier, four men had been charged with conspiring to blow up jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

The airport and tarmac looked secure. The tarmac, hangers, tower and aircraft were surround be fencing topped with barbed wire. I noticed vehicle gates which were closed and appeared to require the use of a security code or card in order to be opened from the street. The terminal building was locked up tight. There were plenty of people around. Obviously, none of this was enough.

The Arizona Republic reported today that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is nearly tripling homeland security funding in the Phoenix metropolitan area. This is good news, since the $3,920,000 in Urban Area Security Initiative Allocations (UASI) Phoenix received in fiscal year 2006 was among the lowest amounts provided. In fact, only the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Buffalo, New York and Toledo, Ohio areas received less. The $12 million in funding expected to be announced by the DHS today at least puts Phoenix on the same funding level as Texas' Dallas-Ft. Worth area and California's Anaheim/Santa Barbara area, based on the 2006 funding of those areas. A significant portion of those funds are likely to be used to address illegal immigration and the security gap posed by more than 1,000 people illegally crossing Arizona's border every day. Hopefully, some of the funds will also go to closing other security gaps like those at civil aviation airports. It would be nice to have such gaps closed before the nation's attention is focused on the Valley for Super Bowl XLII in February 2008.

I haven't tried walking out on the tarmacs anywhere else in the Valley. I think part of me is afraid, especially after calling attention to this security gap, that I will get stopped. Part of me is afraid I won't. I'll let you know what happens.
[Get Copyright  Permissions]
Click here for copyright permissions!

Copyright 2007
Informed Ideas

Monday, July 16, 2007

Friday Night Ruckus

The baseball game was over. The concert was in full-swing along the first base line while staff tidied up the rest of the infield. So why did two kids running across the outfeild merit being tackled, punched and apparently arrested?
Yes, it is clearly stated in the Fan Ground Rules in the Chase Field portion of the Diamondbacks' web site that "guests...going on to the field will be ejected and subject to arrest." Of course, those same rules also refer to interfering with balls in play or the game, so their post-game application is debatable.

The rules appeared to be selectively applied at the post-game concert. To be fair, Roger did try to keep it clean, but some foul language managed to sneak in. He was also handed at least two drinks, one apparently a shot of tequila, from audience members, so I won't even hazard a guess as to how many people appeared intoxicated but weren't thrown out. More significantly, several rows of VIP seating were actually set up along the first base line between the stadium seating the the stage meaning the management knew there would be fans on the field.

Why then did two kids running across the outfield merit such abuse?

Sure, the guy might have embarrassed the security guard or cop (I'm not sure which they were) initially chasing them because he easily outdistanced him. There was no way the girl was going to outrun the guy chasing her and she knew it. She kept looking over her shoulder, knowing it was just a matter of time before she was caught. Throwing a tackle that would have brought down a 250-pound professional football player to stop a 110-pound teenager was a bit extreme. After seeing the treatment his girlfriend recieved, it's hardly surprising that the guy tried to elude his chasers even though he clearly had no plans on what to do wen he reached the outfield wall. His choices are moot since he lost his footing and was pounced on by at least three members of the security force. One, possible the one who had been outrun, could clearly be seen punching the kid.






I didn't get any photos of the actual punches but here another shot showing the pile-up continued even as the young woman was being led off in handcuffs.


















It seems a shame to have a great, and free, concert, marred by stupidity. Unfortunately, the Rocer Clyne and the Peacemakers concert after Friday's Diamondbacks-Padres game was. Read more about the positive aspects of the Baseball and the Band on HotelsByCit.net's Phoenix Blog.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Hi! Hello! How Are You?

Hello! I'm just getting started on Blogger but if you want to know more about what I've been up to, especially during July 2007, visit HotelsByCity.net's Phoenix Blog at www.hotelsbycity.net/blog/usa_arizona_phoenix/index.php?author=254

The HBC blog is taking me to many places and events throughout the Valley. My imagination, however, is roaming even farther. Watch this space to find out where my imagination takes me!