U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

82–548 PDF 2002

WHAT REGULATIONS ARE NEEDED TO ENSURE

AIR SECURITY?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 27, 2001

Serial No. 107–127

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL RESOURCES AND REGULATORY

AFFAIRS

DOUG OSE, California, Chairman

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, OHIO

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

——— ———

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

DAN SKOPEC, Staff Director

BARBARA F. KAHLOW, Deputy Staff Director

REGINA MCALLISTER, Clerk

ALEXANDRA TEITZ, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on November 27, 2001 ...................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida ............................................................................................................ 6

O’Brien, John, director of engineering and air safety, Air Line Pilots

Association, International; Patricia Friend, president, Association of

Flight Attendants; Mark Roth, general counsel, American Federation

of Government Employees; and Paul Hudson, executive director, Aviation Consumer Action Project ...................................................................... 70

Yeffet, Isaac, former Director of Security, El Al Airline; Edward A. Merlis,

senior vice president, legislative and international affairs, Air Transport Association of America Inc.; and Todd Hauptli, senior vice president, legislative affairs, American Association of Airport Executives ...... 16

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Friend, Patricia, president, Association of Flight Attendants, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 86

Hauptli, Todd, senior vice president, legislative affairs, American Association of Airport Executives, prepared statement of ..................................... 40

Hudson, Paul, executive director, Aviation Consumer Action Project, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 105

Merlis, Edward A., senior vice president, legislative and international

affairs, Air Transport Association of America Inc., prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 35

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 9

O’Brien, John, director of engineering and air safety, Air Line Pilots

Association, International, prepared statement of ..................................... 73

Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 3

Roth, Mark, general counsel, American Federation of Government Employees, prepared statement of .................................................................... 96

Yeffet, Isaac, former Director of Security, El Al Airline, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 18

(1)

WHAT REGULATIONS ARE NEEDED TO

ENSURE AIR SECURITY?

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Ose (chairman of

the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Ose, Shays, Tierney, and Kucinich.

Staff present: Dan Skopec, staff director; Barbara Kahlow, deputy staff director; Regina McAllister, clerk; Alexandra Teitz, minority counsel; and Earley Green, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. OSE. Good afternoon. Welcome to the subcommittee hearing.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, have shaken the confidence of the U.S. Government and its citizens in the Nation’s air

security. Immediately after September 11th, the President and

Congress began to examine the existing system, including the laws,

regulations and actual practices governing air security. Much was

found to be lacking. Some changes were made immediately by the

President, such as having more Federal law enforcement officials

on airplanes and in airports. Other changes were quickly made by

the airlines, such as locking all cockpit doors.

On November 19th, the President signed a comprehensive Aviation and Transportation Security Act written by this Congress.

This law places responsibility for air security in the hands of the

U.S. Department of Transportation. Within 1 year, DOT is required

to primarily use Federal employees for passenger and baggage

screening. In addition, the law addresses many other areas of air

security.

Today, we plan to examine how to make this new system work.

As we are talking about people’s lives, there is no room for error.

We will hear from an expert in air security and other witnesses

representing the airlines, airports, pilots, flight attendants, and

consumers about what regulations are needed to ensure air security.

Federal regulations specify detailed procedures to ensure uniform

implementation of laws. The new law establishes ‘‘emergency procedures’’ allowing the DOT to issue interim final regulations without any public notice or comment. Today’s hearing provides a useful forum for congressional and public input into the regulatory decisionmaking process that is currently under way.

2

Even before the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, there were

minimal Federal protective regulations governing air security. In

1981 DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration issued minimal regulations on airplane operator security, including less than one page

on ‘‘screening of passengers and property.’’ Currently, FAA has only

one page of codified rules on this subject. Also, FAA has noncodified directives and customized provisions in its contracts with each

of the airlines since airlines to date have been responsible for air

security, including screening of passengers, carry-on baggage and

checked baggage. FAA’s approach led to nonuniform and unpredictable screening practices across airlines.

Following the July 1996 TWA Flight 800 airplane crash shortly

after takeoff from JFK in New York, in October 1996, Congress

passed the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996. This law

required FAA to certify companies providing security screening and

to improve the training and testing of security screeners through

development of uniform performance standards for providing security screening services. Even after a November 2000 law established a deadline for FAA to issue an implementing rule for this

1996 law, FAA failed to do so. I am amazed that, in over 5 years,

FAA has failed to issue a final rule on certification of screening

companies.

The new administration has realized there is a problem. In its

April 2001, U.S. Department of Transportation Performance Report

Fiscal Year 2000 and Performance Plan Fiscal Year 2002, DOT

stated it did not meet its 2000 performance target for aviation security and, ‘‘screener performance has not improved enough.’’ To ensure the most effective approach, the new law provides for

a 2-year pilot program at five airports to test different screening

approaches using private security firms instead of Federal employees. In addition, the law provides, after a 3-year period, an option

for any airport to meet strict Federal standards for passenger and

baggage screening by using private security firms instead of Federal employees.

The new law also includes provisions on many other aspects of

air security, such as hiring criteria, identification and screening of

airport employees, employee training, identifying passengers and

the like.

I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today on what

DOT should include in its air security regulations to ensure uniformity and maximum protection for airport and airline employees

as well as passengers. Ladies and gentlemen, I travel every single

weekend. This is a critical issue. This hearing is very timely.

I am pleased now to recognize my colleague from Massachusetts,

Mr. Tierney, for 5 minutes.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Doug Ose follows:]

3

4

5

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing on security of air travel. This is, as you said, a

timely and important topic.

I also want to thank our witnesses that are going to share their

expertise with us today and am particularly pleased to welcome our

colleague, Mr. Mica.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act is a major victory

for the American people. This is legislation which, if done right,

will help restore public confidence in the safety of our airlines. It

can also give our economy a needed boost by encouraging air travel

and promoting other hospitality sector businesses, including travel

agencies, hotels, and restaurants.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act establishes a national system for air security. Security screeners will now be able

and trained professionals working for the Federal Government who

will meet uniform high performance standards. Federalization of

the security system should also promote efficient sharing of intelligence information, a clear chain of command and accountability

for maintaining security in and around airplanes and airports. The

American people overwhelmingly supported full Federalization of

aviation security functions, and I am pleased that Congress has delivered these protections to the public.

The law also requires other important measures to protect our

aviation system. It will expand the Federal Air Marshal Service,

require criminal background checks of all persons with access to secured areas, and mandate the reinforcement of all cockpit doors.

All checked baggage must be screened by explosive detection equipment by the end of next year, and checked baggage must be

screened through other means in the interim.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act establishes a new

Transportation Security Administration within the Department of

Transportation, and it is charged with carrying out these provisions. The TSA has a lot of work to do under difficult circumstances.

This hearing could have been a useful forum for us to hear from

the Department of Transportation and give the Department and

TSA guidance on their next steps. It is unfortunate that no representative of the Department chose to be with us here today. Nevertheless, there are several points that I urge the Secretary of

Transportation to bear in mind as he implements this law.

The new Federal security system gives us an excellent opportunity to help those in the airline industry who have lost their jobs

since September 11th. When hiring Federal security personnel, we

should give first priority to those in the airline industry who have

been laid off. I have cosponsored legislation, H.R. 3067, to give

these workers priority; and a version of that provision was included

in the Aviation security bill passed by the House. While that provision is not in the final law, the Secretary of Transportation has the

authority to help those laid-off workers by giving them priority for

the new jobs, and I urge him to do so.

It is also vitally important that we provide Federal security personnel with appropriate compensation and the benefits that we

provide all other Federal workers. Uniform Federal benefits are a

matter of equity, and they are necessary to attract and to retain

6

a high caliber of dedicated people to perform those critical security

functions.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act conference report

included an expectation that the Secretary will establish benefits

and conditions of employment for Federal security screeners. The

report also stated that these Federal workers should have access

to Federal health benefits, life insurance, retirement benefits, and

workers’ compensation benefits as well as whistleblower protections. I encourage Secretary Mineta to comply with the Congress’s

directive in this regard, and I thank you for the opportunity to participate, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.

We are pleased today to be joined by the chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation and Transportation and Infrastructure, the

distinguished gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN L. MICA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also thank you, Mr.

Tierney. I am pleased to join you here today. I think this is a very

important hearing which is focusing on what regulations are needed to ensure our air safety, and I commend you and the subcommittee on your important oversight responsibility and work. I

want to again thank you for allowing me to testify first.

We have just gotten through putting together in a record timeframe a major overhaul of our Nation’s aviation and transportation

security system and I think this hearing couldn’t be more timely,

particularly today as you focus on the important issue of rulemaking in aviation security.

I believe one of the most momentous provisions of the recently

signed Aviation and Transportation Security Act is the unprecedented provision giving the new transportation security Under Secretary the authority to pass rules in an expedited fashion. In fact,

if you look at legislation we passed, there is nothing in that entire

legislation that is more significant than, again, this unprecedented

authority that we gave to this new transportation security czar to

put rules in place on an expedited basis.

On July 11th of this year, my Aviation Subcommittee heard very

disturbing testimony about the Department of Transportation and

the Federal Aviation Administration’s inability to pass rules in a

timely manner. Let me give you some examples that we heard in

that hearing.

It takes the Department of Transportation an average of 3.8

years to finalize a rule. We also had testimony that with FAA it

takes a median time of 21⁄2 years again to go through the process

of enacting a rule. And let us face it, our country is now on a very

high state of alert and we can’t afford to wait another 3 years to

get aviation security technology or screening standards in place.

Witnesses at our hearings that we held on the problem of cutting

through the red tape and enacting security rules on an expedited

basis shared some stories with us about the time it takes for different rules. For example, the emergency exit rule took 10 years to

process; the child safety restraint rule has taken over 3 years and

7

still isn’t finished; and, finally, the flight simulator rules took 13

years.

Often an agency will place the blame for the time it takes to pass

a rule on the time it takes to study the issue, analyze the cost/benefit data, publish the rule, gather public comments and incorporate

those comments, and finally send the proposed rule to the Office

of Management and Budget for its approval. That also often takes

a good deal of time. However, the layers of review and analysis

have become impediments that are in fact hindering our ability to

achieve a secure aviation environment, particularly in a time of national crisis.

Perhaps the rule that has received the very most attention recently has been the rule requiring screening companies to be ‘‘certified’’ to ensure that they were meeting minimum standards of

performance. Sadly, despite the Gore Commission recommendations—and the Gore Commission after TWA 800 and the Oklahoma

City bombings acted and recommended action—and two congressional laws, one in 1996 and another in the year 2000, the FAA in

fact dallied for 6 years on the screening rule which was still not

in place, standards again for screeners were still not in place, a

rule was not enacted by September 11th of this year.

It is absolutely critical the administration get the right employees to be screeners and also that we set up a rational personnel

system.

Again, we have given unprecedented authority in the aviation security law for this new transportation czar to have almost unprecedented hiring/firing discipline authority over this new class of Federal workers. The major complaint that we often hear about Federal employees has been the impossibility of disciplining them.

I chaired for 4 years the Civil Service Subcommittee in the

House of Representatives. We found some interesting things in

looking at the performance of Federal employees. Federal employees’ complaints take, on average, 3.5 years to resolve. We must be

able to enact performance measures—and if this is done by a rule

and it does affect our security performance as it relates to our most

important assets and that is human workers, but we must be able

to enact performance measures in a meaningful manner, something

that has been resisted in the past.

Twice in the House I passed performance-based management

systems for a Civil Service system and twice they were defeated or

not taken up in the other body. In fact, I let the employees’ groups

help draft the provisions of those standards. We cannot have security tangled in the normal bureaucratic red tape and employee protections that have been chiseled in stone over many years.

The new Under Secretary’s unprecedented rulemaking authority

should not only provide impetus on getting the right standards for

screeners and these new Federal workers but should also give them

the ability to put the most cutting-edge technologies in our airports

immediately. That was part of the purpose of the way we crafted

the legislation. Again, while technology exists which could have detected the plastic knives that we believe were used on September

11th or could detect other plastic weapons, it has not yet been deployed at our Nation’s airports. To approve new technology can, in

8

fact, take months. To complete acquisition or deploy the latest security technology can unfortunately take years.

I know there are other areas which the new Under Secretary will

find this, again, unprecedented rulemaking authority critical, but

I am convinced that just by getting the right technology in place

and the standards set for screeners—again high standards we have

been seeking for many years—will have made great progress in

making our transportation system much more secure and making

the traveling public much more confident.

I hope today that your subcommittee will examine carefully the

torturous and time-consuming process required to pass simple rules

related to security requirements. On September 11th, above all

else, the rulemaking process failed. It failed to allow new rules for

technology approval and deployment. It failed to identify new security risks and adopt new standards by expedited rulemaking. We

cannot as a matter of normal course of our conduct of business of

government allow red tape and bureaucratic delays to hinder the

rulemaking process, particularly when it comes to matters of national and aviation security.

Finally, let me just say one thing, and it is not in this prepared

statement. But the rules and even laws need to be realistic, and

they need to be flexible. We did put provisions in this law that we

just passed, unfortunately, that I believe are not realistic. The 60-

day baggage screening provision which we put by law is not realistic, and I think today or shortly the administration will announce

that they can’t meet that provision that we, in fact, put in law. So

our rules, even if they are expedited and put into place on an unprecedented, cut-through-the-red-tape basis as we’ve provided for,

have to be realistic; and, second, they need to be flexible, flexible

enough that we don’t tie the hands of those who are deploying the

latest technology, those who are deploying the most highly skilled

workforce, those that are involved in putting again these other necessary procedures in place that we give them flexibility.

With those comments, I will be glad to answer any questions.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Mica. I appreciate your coming. I know

that you worked hard on this bill.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]

9

10

11

Mr. OSE. I have a couple of questions I would like to followup

on. Before I do, I would like to recognize Congressman Shays.

Thank you for joining us. I appreciate your coming.

On the issue of the rulemaking process at DOT, there was a law

that we passed in 2000 mandating the FAA to come forward with

some new requirements, and you have correctly highlighted that

inability to finalize these rules. In the context of what FAA was required to do, would that have had an effect on anything that occurred on September 11th?

Mr. MICA. Well, I believe it probably would have. I think in my

testimony I pointed out that you have to adopt rules or regulations

that can identify, for example, in the aviation security area the

most vulnerable risks and then be able to act on them. We are so

bogged down in bureaucratic red tape. It takes us so long to get

in place even standards for a screening company, that the larger

picture is lost in this.

One of the first things I did in February when I took over the

Aviation Subcommittee was bring in the new head of security for

FAA. We tried to talk about the big picture, but FAA spends most

of its time mired in trying to pass these rules in this torturous

process that we have described. And you lose sight of the big picture. You lose sight of where the risks may be.

Could the events of September 11th been prevented? Possibly.

We have equipment; we have technology that has been tested that

will, in fact, identify plastic weapons, and we believe knives were

used. There was no rule in place to ban box cutters. If someone had

looked at the potential risk, possibly we could have had an expedited rule that would have banned box cutters or looked again at

the larger picture, but we certainly could have had equipment in

place on September 11th that would detect the type of weapons

that were used. But, again, the torturous process of getting this deployed, and you get everybody and their brother involved in this

process.

Even a few weeks ago the ACLU was protesting the possibility

of us getting some of this technology deployed that is very high in

its definition and felt it was a personal intrusion into passengers

or citizens.

Mr. OSE. The gentleman from El Al who will testify later, having

reviewed his remarks, indicated that the two questions that are

typically asked of a traveler right now, did you pack your bag and

were they——

Mr. MICA. Totally, totally useless. I just had them asked of me

as I got on a plane on the way here. I think you will have a representative from El Al, and they testified before our subcommittee.

I don’t know who came up with that particular provision, but it

doesn’t do the job. They need to ask more specific questions, probably on a limited basis and maybe on a profile basis.

My God, little old ladies in a wheelchair I just saw that are being

wanded are not taking down airplanes. We know specifically the

types that are taking down airplanes. So we spend all this time

being politically correct in trying to get even basic rules in place

which have been impossible. It sounds a little bit like we are selfdefeating.

12

Mr. OSE. In that same testimony there were comments highlighting the fact that we match baggage to passengers, for instance, on

planes in Europe coming to the United States or, as El Al does,

matching bags to passengers on every flight. Does that——

Mr. MICA. We have done most of that in the past restricted to

international flights. But the events of September 11th indicate

that we are in a new ball game. When someone is willing to take

down a plane and be on the plane and direct a plane into a target,

whether you match the bag or not is sort of a moot point. So we

may be wasting a lot of money. We tried to shy away in our legislation from requiring matched baggage, but some people think that

matched baggage is the answer to security problems. Personally, I

don’t think it is.

Mr. OSE. One of the themes that I discern from your comments

is that there is a tradeoff here between security and perhaps some

loss of privacy. Does the law that we have just passed give the Secretary the ability to issue regulations that implement that tradeoff?

Mr. MICA. Well, we are so accustomed to personal freedoms and

trying to keep government out of our lives and out of our business

or personal affairs and that is appropriate. When it comes to issues

of national security, when you have someone that is willing, again,

to die to take down a plane and passengers and thousands of people on the ground, we have to balance that with our security needs.

So we have to protect privacy, and we tried to do that in the legislation that we passed.

But again this new Under Secretary transportation czar, I

could—the only one I can think of that has the power that individual has in any provisions of law would be the President of the

United States.

Now, the rulemaking ability of the new transportation czar is

very narrow. It is confined to transportation security and aviation

security. So he or she is not going to be out doing all these kinds

of things that will invade people’s privacy. I hope they will be respected. And we do have a check-off in the bill that we passed with

a panel made up of our chief law enforcement agencies, one representative from the Attorney General’s Office, the Department of

the Treasury and others involved in law enforcement where a rule

could be overridden by this panel. So we have some protections in

there, but it is something that we always have to be on guard.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

Gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. TIERNEY. I have no questions. Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. OSE. The gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing

and thank you, ranking member.

Mr. Mica, I have been very impressed as have your other colleagues with the job you have done in airport security.

I am puzzled by one provision. In the amendment that we put

in the House on checking baggage for explosives, there we had it

at the end of the year 2003 because we knew there would be a task

of getting equipment and also having space for some of the equipment. And in the House bill I was pleased that it was moved up

to the end of year 2002. I am unclear as to the provision that says

13

deadline for all checked baggage to be screened by some method

within 60 days. Explain that provision—— Mr. MICA. Well, again, that provision was put in the legislation

trying to get deployed. As you may know, in the past after each of

these incidents and tragedies, we tried to cobble together legislative provisions or attack the problem. After TWA 800 and also

Oklahoma City, all the emphasis was placed on explosive detection

devices. We went out and bought $443 million worth of explosive

detection devices. Some of that equipment was good and worked.

Some of it didn’t work. Some of it was deployed. Some of it was not

deployed.

In the past, the airlines had the responsibility before the President signed the law on November 19th of actually conducting the

security procedures. They employed the personnel, the screeners,

and the people who also did the work with these explosive detection devices.

In fact, the security chief who came in and talked to me said that

some of the airlines told him basically to go take a hike; they

weren’t going to use this equipment. It slowed things down. It cost

money. They didn’t want to do it. But, we have no way of enforcing

that they used it.

So the provision we put in the law was basically to deploy any

of the equipment that is sitting idle, to put in place by any means

possible. Drug-sniffing dogs could do probably as good a job as

some of the equipment or other equipment or it may be some spotchecked baggage. So that was a directive to try to get these things

in place.

Can it be done in 60 days? I don’t think so. I think—— Mr. SHAYS. Can I just—— Mr. MICA. The intent was good, but I don’t think—— Mr. SHAYS. See, I am not even understanding the intent. Let me

just be clear. By the end of 2002—— Mr. MICA. Well, 2002 is a different date—— Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask my question so that I can structure it.

You know so much about this bill, you want to tell me more than

what I want to know. I want to know, by the end of 2002, they

have to be totally complete, all baggage will be screened for explosives; is that correct?

Mr. MICA. That is right.

Mr. SHAYS. The 60 days—there is a news account that says Secretary Mineta said it is unlikely to meet the toughest deadline in

the aviation security law President Bush just signed that all

checked and carry-on baggage should be screened for explosives in

60 days. We don’t require that all baggage be screened for explosives in 60 days, do we?

Mr. MICA. We do not now, no. And we won’t be able to do it in

60 days. We tried to explain this to some of our colleagues, too——

Mr. SHAYS. But are you saying we have a 60-day requirement

that all luggage has to——

Mr. MICA. Yes. Well, the intent was to deploy everything we

have, every means we have possible, technology that we have possible, dogs, some searches, maybe using the National Guard—— Mr. SHAYS. I just want you to define the 60 days. Technically,

the bill requires it——

14

Mr. MICA. Technically, the bill requires it. Practically—and that

is part of what I spoke at the end of my testimony—we need to be

realistic, and we need to be flexible. Whether it is a law or whether

it is a rule—— Mr. SHAYS. I don’t mind being realistic. I want us to be realistic.

I just want us to understand, and I want you to put it in clear

terms. You are saying that, basically, the bill has a contradiction,

that we say 60 days all explosives, and we say 2 years all explosives?

Mr. MICA. Well, again, it started out as an intent to try everything, deploy everything possible within 60 days and take every

provision we could or take every action we could to ensure that as

much baggage that was checked was screened. And then it turned

into more of a mandate without flexibility. The true mandate in

there is the one that you worked on that was originally 2003 and

got moved to December 2002. That is in the bill. It is achievable.

There are some problems even with that requirement, and you will

hear that either from other witnesses or people who are involved

in producing the technology.

Mr. SHAYS. I will try to track down the language on the 60 days

before we have our next panel. I just want to be clear on this one

point.

Mr. OSE. Would the gentleman yield? I have the language.

Mr. SHAYS. Pardon me?

Mr. OSE. I have the language.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Do you want to read it to me?

Mr. OSE. The language on the 60-day requirement is, a system

must be in operation to screen all checked baggage at all airports

in the United States as soon as practicable but not later than the

60th day following the date of enactment of the Aviation and

Transportation Security Act.

Mr. SHAYS. It doesn’t say all explosives there. It just says check

all baggage; correct?

Mr. OSE. Correct. And there is an insert on page 49 that relates

to explosive detection systems that says, explosive detection systems are deployed as soon as possible to ensure that all U.S. airports described in Section 44903(c) have sufficient explosive detection systems to screen all checked baggage no later than December

31, 2002, and that as soon as such systems are in place at an airport, all checked baggage at the airport is screened——

Mr. SHAYS. So when I am hearing this language, it says, explosives by the end of 2002, a system that checks for all; and then in

60 days it says, all baggage will be checked. It doesn’t specifically

highlight the issue of explosives; correct?

Mr. MICA. Well, again, it is a directive. Is it possible to put systems in place? Yes. Will the systems work to cover 100 percent?

No, not in 60 days. No way, Jose.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand. It does not say explosives in 60 days.

That is all I am saying. I mean——

Mr. MICA. The other problem we had in testifying before us, Mr.

Shays and members of the panel, is that even by the time we deploy some of the technology that can detect explosive devices, the

material that is used for explosives is changing. So if we gave them

2 years to deploy technology, the material that can be used as exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
15

plosive may change and we may not have available in place the

technology that can, in fact, detect these new explosives by changing the chemical composition or the makeup of the bomb device or

explosive device.

Mr. SHAYS. I will——

Mr. MICA. That is the scary part about all of this.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, the bottom line is, if we can’t check for explosives in the belly of an aircraft, we can’t say that airline travel is

safe.

Mr. MICA. But again——

Mr. SHAYS. So it is important that we begin this task immediately. It will not be foolproof. But I did not read in the legislation

that we are supposed to have in place within 60 days a system to

check for all explosive material, but I do read in the legislation that

by the end of the year 2002 we must do it. Obviously the administration is going to work overtime to accomplish that task, and it

may have to come back and say we are meeting it or not meeting

it. But in the course of trying to reach that deadline, I make an

assumption that 6 months into this a good number of the bags will

be screened for explosive devices, not all. I realize that we don’t

want to buy equipment that doesn’t work, but I just want to reemphasize the 60 days is not explosive material, as the story seems

to imply, and I am kind of disappointed it has become an issue so

quickly with Mineta saying we can’t do it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

Do you have anything else?

Mr. Mica, thank you for joining us.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish you well, and we

have staff here who are listening to the proceedings. We appreciate

your conducting complete oversight again on this most important

issue and encourage you to continue this process, and we will work

with your subcommittee.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. OSE. We will have the second panel join us now.

The second panel comprises of Isaac Yeffet, Edward Merlis, and

Todd Hauptli.

Gentleman, in this subcommittee we swear all our witnesses. So

if you would please rise.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. OSE. Let the record show the witnesses all answered in the

affirmative.

Our first witness on the second panel is Isaac Yeffet. He is the

former director of security for El Al Airline. Welcome.

I want to caution the witnesses we have your written statements,

and I know that everybody up here has read them. I have a heavy

gavel at 5 minutes. The green light shows you are in the first 4

minutes, the yellow light shows you are in the last minute, and the

red light means that trap-door underneath your chair opens and

you are finished.

So, for 5 minutes, Mr. Yeffet.

16

STATEMENTS OF ISAAC YEFFET, FORMER DIRECTOR OF SECURITY, El Al AIRLINE; EDWARD A. MERLIS, SENIOR VICE

PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,

AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA INC.; AND TODD

HAUPTLI, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS,

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF AIRPORT EXECUTIVES

Mr. YEFFET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I

would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify

here about the aviation security of the United States of America

and especially the changes that should be made to upgrade the

level of security to a degree where any enemy who would try in the

future to hijack or to blow up any aircraft of our country, of American air carriers, will fail. This is in the air and on the ground. If

they will come to attack and to kill our passengers on the ground

at any terminal in the world, and especially this country, we have

to make sure that the enemy will get the answer from our guys in

a second and they will pay with their life and not any more American people.

For this, changes—there are a few conditions that in my belief

we cannot reach this goal if we don’t change the system and the

concept of the FAA. We cannot continue so many years to rely only

on technology, on machinery. This technology failed so many times,

whether by the test that the FAA made, the enemies, or by mistakes when passengers were carrying guns and nothing stopped

them at the security checkpoint. It is time to understand that machinery can help the qualified and well-trained human being and

not to replace them.

Since September 11th we are witnesses to so many times that we

fail in our security checkpoints when statement after statement

was made that now we have a very high level of security and it

is safe to fly with American air carriers when, in reality, nothing

has been changed. I flew enough times since September 11th. I

didn’t see any changes, and I cannot tell the American people, yes,

we are safe when we are not safe.

This morning I took a flight from Newark airport to Reagan airport. The ticket agent behind the counter asked me two questions

without looking at my eyes when I am answering the questions. I

decided to talk to her to tell her that I am a security expert of an

airline and why did you ask me these two silly questions when you

didn’t even pay attention to my answers? She said we never were

trained what to do. We only were told to ask questions, and whatever you answer me, you answer me, sir.

I said, don’t you think that you are making a joke out of security? She looked at me and she said, you know, I was hired to do

my job as a ticket agent, not as security. I’m not an expert in security.

When we boarded aircraft, we heard an announcement that we

have to remain seated on our seat from gate to gate and we cannot

move during the flight. This is a result of failures when it comes

to the aviation security of our country. Passengers should not suffer because of the lack of security. It’s in our hands to change this

system. The FAA charged millions of dollars every year to the airline for so many times the security people at the security checkVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
17

point failed, but they never said stop here. Money’s important. Life

is more important, and, therefore, we want to know why so many

times our system fails time after time and why we still keep this

security company running the security at our airports.

We know about security. A year ago, a huge company hired security people with criminal records. They were caught, and they

made a settlement. Pay us a fine, $1.6 million, and don’t do it

again. Recently, they were caught again—— Mr. OSE. Mr. Yeffet, we’re going to come back to your testimony

here because I think you have got such a wealth of knowledge—— Mr. YEFFET. Can you allow me one more sentence, please?

Mr. OSE. Yes.

Mr. YEFFET. OK. My last sentence is, if we want to succeed having a high level of security, we must match the passenger with his

luggage at the terminal before he is headed to the check-in. We

must interview every passenger by qualified and well-trained security people. American people and permanent residents with green

cards, they have to come with the government ID. All others that

are noncitizens and are not permanent residents, they must come

with passports.

Every tourist should come with his passport, and the security

people will check the passport to find out from what nationality the

man is, what kind of visa he has. Is the visa that he has expired?

Is this a fake or real passport that he is carrying? Based on this,

we can build enough security questions to determine if this passenger is suspicious or bona fide.

But by the fact that I’ve heard from Mr. Mica that he doesn’t believe that to match the luggage to the passenger will help us, this

will not help us if we will not interview the passengers, and we

need to do it because through the passengers we come to the explosives and to the weapons inside the luggage. The luggage cannot

talk, cannot tell us what is the contents inside the luggage. The

passenger will give us the answer, and, if we are professionals and

we know how to ask the right questions and we look at the eyes

of the passenger, we can determine who is bona fide and who is

not.

Thank you very much.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Yeffet.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yeffet follows:]

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

Mr. OSE. Mr. Merlis, 5 minutes.

Mr. MERLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee.

I am Edward Merlis, senior vice president of the Air Transport

Association of America.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the transition regulations flowing from last week’s enactment

of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. We are very

pleased that Congress and the administration have reached consensus on this legislation that will place the Federal Government in

control of aviation security, a position we’ve advocated since at

least 1973.

We’ve long felt that airlines do not belong in the security and law

enforcement business. We move passengers and goods efficiently,

and we should focus on that job. Government, on the other hand,

not only has the authority but also the societal responsibility to

provide security protection for our customers, our airlines, and the

Nation they serve.

Why have we felt that government has absolute preeminence in

aviation security? Simply stated, aviation security and the fight

against terrorism starts with the deployment of our Nation’s intelligence gathering and analysis resources. Once our intelligence apparatus determines where the threat lies, we must utilize the proper tools to combat terrorism.

Fundamentally, there are six tools that can be used to remedy

the problems identified by our intelligence assets. The tools are diplomacy, economic sanctions, military intervention, covert action,

law enforcement and countermeasures.

The first five are exclusively governmental authorities, functions

far beyond this industry or any industry’s abilities. In these areas,

we need the full-scale participation of the FBI, the CIA, and a host

of other government agencies which have the wherewithal to fulfill

those obligations.

Unfortunately, for too long the airlines have been delegated by

the government to take charge of aviation security. The airline industry does not have the expertise, much less the right, to engage

in any of the essential activities necessary to combat terrorism.

Airlines are not law enforcement or national defense agencies. As

a result, too much of our aviation security effort was devoted to

countermeasures, the last line of defense, an important line of defense, no less, but in concert only with the preceding five authorities once they have been deployed. In essence, we have been essentially ignoring the best lines of defense and relying only on the last.

Thus, we review last week’s enactment of the Aviation and

Transportation Security Act as the fulfillment of what should have

been done long ago, putting the government in full control of aviation security.

Mr. Chairman, the hearing focuses on regulatory requirements

emanating from the enactment of the Aviation and Transportation

Security Act, and I’ve enumerated five different provisions in the

act which we feel are particularly important as they apply to the

airline industry.

We’re committed to working with the Transportation Security

Administration in implementing these requirements so that the viVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
34

sion of the Congress can become a reality. In each case we have

some measure of experience and offer that up for the TSA’s consideration. But we recognize that, in the end, the TSA is the responsible party that must issue the regulations and implement a comprehensive aviation security program.

One area I’d like to focus on briefly is the use of intelligence

data. Much of the attention in the legislation is focused on looking

for things among the billions of bags, packages and people we

carry. We would hope that, in the interest of erecting a better aviation security barrier, much more is done to utilize existing resources of data to, in effect, look at the people involved and decide

on that basis where to focus our screening efforts. That ‘‘needle in

the haystack’’ can be found if the haystack is small enough but not

so long as the haystack stretches beyond the horizon.

We believe that better utilization of intelligence and law enforcement resources is the key to that goal as well as to the specific requirements of Section 138, the background check provision. What

we envision is a dynamic process through which real time communication of our reservations systems and the government’s data

bases are put to best use. Airlines do not need to know who is on

the government list, but the government surely needs to know that

people on their hot lists are planning to travel. Through the efficient use of these data, security attention can be focused on where

it can be of highest utility.

Aviation security is the process of finding the one person out of

hundreds of millions of passengers who intends to do harm. Government can best do that, and we are prepared to work with Government to ensure that it is accomplished.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Merlis.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Merlis follows:]

35

36

37

38

Mr. OSE. Our third witness is Todd Hauptli, who is the senior

vice president for legislative affairs for the American Association of

Airport Executives and the Airports Council International-North

America.

Welcome. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is good to be with you

again, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Shays.

I have four points that I would like to try to make in my oral

testimony. First is, talk about funding; the second, talk about the

new Transportation Security Administration; the third, talk about

screeners; and then, finally, the use of technology.

On the issue of the funding, airports in the immediate aftermath

of the events of September 11th were required by the FAA to deploy additional law enforcement personnel throughout the airports.

That has been something that airports have done. It has been an

extremely expensive requirement, an extremely expensive Federal

mandate. The legislation that Congress enacted authorizes but

does not appropriate funds for reimbursement for law enforcement

officials. That is something that we will continue to work on.

Mr. Chairman, I picked a very random airport to illustrate the

point. I just grabbed one out of the hat, and it happened to be Sacramento.

In that instance—— Mr. OSE. Your testimony says Cedar Rapids.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Well, we modified that for the oral presentation,

Mr. Chairman.

In Sacramento, we spent $3 million on additional law enforcement officers at the same time that the Sacramento airport will

lose $5 million in revenues from lost concession revenues, parking

revenues, and the like.

Mr. Tierney, another semi-random example, at Boston Logan Airport they will spend an additional $10 million this year for law

enforcement requirements and lose probably $75 million in revenues.

Additionally, airports are going to need help with the capital requirements of terminal redesign, and we are going to have to look

at how we queue passengers in screening lines, where we are going

to put them, where we are going to put these explosive detection

systems. They are heavy pieces of equipment that need reinforcement in the infrastructure. All of that is going to cause us to need

additional resources.

With the creation of the Transportation Security Administration,

that will require government and industry to work cooperatively

like they have never done before. The legislation is replete with requirements for the TSA to come up with new things in 60 days, 90

days, 120 days, 180 days, within 2 years, within 1 year. We need

to make sure that government and industry are working together.

While we recognize the point Mr. Mica made earlier about the

vast authority given the Under Secretary to promulgate rules without comment from outside groups, we hope that vast power is used

sparingly. We believe it is necessary to work with the government

in the promulgation of those rules.

Third point, on screeners. The airport groups were relatively agnostic during this debate as to who should sign the paycheck,

39

whether that be a Federal employee or not. But we felt very strongly, and do to this day, that there needs to be improved screening,

improved training, improved proficiency for those screeners. We

think that the provision in the law that allows airports to opt out

of the Federal screeners after a 2-year period, combined with the

fact that class of Federal employees may be removed or fired, gives

airports important leverage that we don’t have now, say, with INS

or with Customs or with Agriculture inspectors.

That puts pressure on the TSA and on the screeners to make

sure that they are doing a good job because they may lose their

jobs if they don’t, and we think that is an important provision that

Congress put in.

Finally, on the use of technology, the legislation calls for a pilot

program on access control for up to 20 airports. We believe that is

important so that we can experiment with different biometric models to determine what might be the best course to take in the future.

Also, I think it is important to explore the possibility of using

smart credentials, smart cards, the possibility of using passports.

There are 65 million passports in the system today. That may

jumpstart us in our ability to, as Mr. Merlis pointed out, take that

haystack and make it smaller. If you have to find the needle in the

haystack, the best way of doing that is making the haystack smaller.

El Al uses a system, a trusted traveler system, where you are

subjected to interviews and background checks initially if you are

a frequent traveler; and, if you obtain a card, you are allowed to

essentially bypass a portion of the screening process that takes the

security screening time down from several hours in many instances

down to as little as 15 to 20 minutes.

That is something that we should explore in the future, using

technology to help some of the problems that we have experienced

to date.

With that, I will yield back and respond to questions.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Hauptli.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hauptli follows:]

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

Mr. OSE. I want to go through a series of questions here. I am

going to ask each of you for your response. Brevity is appreciated.

Mr. Yeffet, from your standpoint, from your experience, the interview process is integral to establishing security. Is that correct?

Mr. YEFFET. That’s correct.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Merlis, does the ATA agree with that?

Mr. MERLIS. Absolutely. We want to look for people, not things.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hauptli.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Interviews are very important, yes.

Mr. OSE. Second question. Is there a tradeoff that is necessary

to be made and accepted here in America between providing an

adequate level of security and being able to fly? In other words,

should the American people just come to expect that one of the consequences of providing security is that they may be asked a series

of questions that some might consider intrusive? Is that a necessary tradeoff?

Mr. YEFFET. Mr. Chairman, I interviewed, during the last 15

years in this country, so many passengers, and we discussed together about their convenience, if we can ask them the question

and they will give us the answer for their safety.

The problem is how we approach the passenger, to explain to

him why we have to ask the security questions. This is for your

safety. You take the flight. We stay on the ground. And, therefore,

please cooperate with us so that we will make sure that you will

fly safe and secure.

Not even one told me, I don’t care, I don’t want to answer any

questions, I don’t care about my life or my childrens’ lives. Everybody said, please do it.

No. 2, after September 11th, Mr. Chairman, the world has been

changed, not only United States of America, and everyone will love

to cooperate with the security instead of being tortured when he

goes to a security checkpoint or where he takes a flight.

I flew to Denver, and I told my colleagues I want to make sure

now that I will make the alarm go off. I want to see what will happen. I did it.

First step, I was told take off your shoes. I said, why do you want

my shoes? We think we found what you have, what we are looking

for. I said, take my shoes. Like me, other 15 passengers were waiting without shoes for 10 minutes until they came to us and they

gave us back the shoes. But they forgot from which part of my body

the alarm went off. This was not important. The shoes have to be

taken off.

In Newark, announcement of the security people at checkpoint,

they said, everyone that the alarm will go off, he has to take off

his shoes. So help me God, people next to me with boots were

afraid to death. They took off their shoes, and they placed it on the

x-ray machine.

This is not the security that we want. We cannot be paranoid.

We cannot be in panic. We cannot overreact.

After September 11th, the FAA eliminated the skycap. Two

weeks later, they are back.

This is not a system. This is not a concept. The American people

will love to cooperate if they understand, and they are convinced

that we do it for their safety.

56

Mr. OSE. Does the ATA share that?

Mr. MERLIS. Absolutely. As I said, we keep doing what I call one

step removed from harassment, instead of focusing on people who

are potential hazards and dangers to us. We take knitting needles

away from grandmothers when in the history of terrorism there

has never been a female terrorist over a certain age—and not using

those efforts in time and energy to focus on the potential terrorists

and doing a strip search if necessary of that individual.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hauptli, how about the airport executives and the

airport operators?

Mr. HAUPTLI. On the continuum between absolute safety and absolute convenience, clearly our mark has moved since September

11th; and I think everyone would agree that additional questions

are just fine at this point.

Mr. OSE. So, if I could synthesize your comments, you are all in

agreement that the regulations that might be adopted on an interim or emergency basis should provide for the opportunity to do

interviews?

Mr. MERLIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. YEFFET. Yes, sir. This is best opportunity for the security

people to check passports of non-American citizens and permanent

residents with green cards to see who is coming to take the flight

with us. What kind of passport does he have? Is he legal in the

country or is he illegal in the country? Is the passport real or fake?

This is the best opportunity for the country, not only for airline security, to find out if there are any passengers that are illegal here,

that are suspicious, that gave any suspicious sign from the ticket

office and reservation department of the airlines.

And, I am very sorry to say that I am not happy with the new

law that was signed by the President, because I don’t believe that

we have to release the airlines from the responsibility of their security. They run the flight, every flight they are responsible for their

operation from A to Z.

Mr. OSE. OK. We are going to come back to that question.

Mr. Hauptli.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to make

one point.

I agreed that, yes, interviews were important. I think it is also

important to remember that in the system of ours with 700 million

passengers it is not likely that we are going to be able to interview

every passenger every time and have that work with the current

system that we have in terms of moving people through in an efficient fashion. So there needs to be some balance in how we approach that, which is why I earlier addressed the notion of, for frequent travelers, the idea of getting a smart card or some kind of

traveler card where you would be subjected to rigorous interviews

initially, go through background checks, and then be able to go

through an expedited process for frequent travelers, and then for

the occasional travelers go through a more involved process.

We need to do something like that to use technology, because we

move in 2 days the number of passengers that El Al moves in an

entire year.

Mr. OSE. We will come back to the level of tolerance that we

might be willing to accept.

57

Mr. Tierney for 5 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Let me just start by saying that today’s frequent traveler that is

trusted may be tomorrow’s compromised traveler. At some other

point we can talk about how you get over that, what everybody

talks about, making somebody special and putting them to the

front of the line. I wonder what makes them special forever. Because things do change. People get compromised.

But, Mr. Merlis, you indicated that the airline industry has said

that they have always wanted security to be a government responsibility. But how can you give us an assurance that the industry

is going to abandon what I think has been its historical reluctance,

if not its outright opposition, to putting security really ahead of the

convenience of the passenger or the customer? Because I really

think that that has been a key to a lot of things whether it is

matching the bags, or whether it is asking the right questions, or

whether it is completing a baggage check—I think that the airlines

have had for a long time historically been reluctant to really do

that to the extent it ought to be done. And, now I see them all

jumping over to have the government take over on that.

But what assurance, if the government takes it over, that you

are not just going to abandon any responsibility or any efforts on

the part of the airline industry itself?

Mr. MERLIS. Let me say, first, that the questions are asked not

because we wanted to. The government prescribed them. Second, if

we pursued those questions, we might run severe risk of violating

civil liberties. There have been certain airlines which have been

sued repeatedly when they were suspicious of people and did not

have proper cause because they are not law enforcement.

Mr. TIERNEY. Are you aware of any provisions that the airlines

would have implemented but for their fear that the government

would have disallowed their implementation?

Mr. MERLIS. Well, going back 8, 10 years, carriers asked certain

questions, treated people sometimes differently, and got sued, so

they said we will just ask what we are asked to.

Mr. TIERNEY. That was whether or not they won or lost the suit?

Did they win or lose those suits?

Mr. MERLIS. I believe they settled. They were human rights or

civil rights suits in New York City after the Gulf war. You just settle those. You don’t go all the way through litigation. You don’t go

all the way to trial.

Mr. TIERNEY. What stopped them from checking baggage? What

stopped them from matching bags? What stopped them from doing

all of the things that make common sense in light of September

11th?

Mr. MERLIS. Well, in light of September 11th, we do not believe

that 100 percent bag match is the right way. We think you should

screen 100 percent of the bags. I think that is far more efficient.

Mr. TIERNEY. Why wouldn’t you also want to match the bags?

You are assuming then that only suicidal people are the ones that

we are concerned about?

Mr. MERLIS. No. I think that the way to do security is a layered

approach. You use a lot of different things, not the same thing on

every single person. If you have something that does the same

58

thing on every single person, sooner or later your adversary is

going to figure it out and figure out a way to pierce it. What you

want to have is a variety of different kinds of tools that you use

so that they never know what you are up to.

Mr. TIERNEY. Why didn’t the airlines do that before September

11th?

Mr. MERLIS. Airlines did do some of those things.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, they didn’t do them all, and they didn’t do

it well enough, right?

Mr. MERLIS. Well, certainly there was nothing about any of those

individuals who got through who violated any security requirement. Yet, at the same time, we know that many of those names

were in government intelligence files and had never been provided

to the airlines. That gets to Mr. Yeffet’s question. If the government has the information and says, look for Joe, we will look for

him. But we don’t know who Joe is.

And I think that is the first step in the process. Once you identify who the person is, then let’s do everything possible with those

people to ensure that they are not a threat.

Maybe what you do with those people, after you search their

bags and do a strip search, then you do a bag match on those people, or maybe you don’t even let them fly on the flight that they

have scheduled, just because they are suspect.

But I think that the question you asked is, will we abandon anything? We will do what is required under the law, and what is required under the law is CAPPS and bag match. We are relieved of

screening. We are not supposed to do screening subsequent to the

90-day provision. But we do whatever we are asked to do by the

Government in this case.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Hauptli, just to clarify one thing. You made mention of some

of the additional personnel that have been placed at airports.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess, as a one-time cost, I can see your point.

But if these are things that should have been done as security

measures for which the airports were responsible at any rate, am

I correct in saying that you are not asking for the Federal Government to pick up the ongoing cost on a regular basis, you just want

them to pick up the one-time cost for the fact that it wasn’t done

and all of a sudden it had to be done, it wasn’t accounted for?

Mr. HAUPTLI. That is right. We are looking for reimbursement

for the security costs that airports had to assume as a result of

FAA mandates, new security.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am assuming, though, that you want it for that

one time, that you, on your own right—whether you be an airport

authority, or whether you be a State that runs the airport, or municipality or whatever—are going to change their level of security

personnel anyway and then be responsible for that themselves?

Mr. HAUPTLI. Yes, sir. In the future, we are also looking to try

and figure out how to pay for some of these increased ongoing

costs. That is a story for another day.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK.

Mr. Yeffet, let me just ask you. I would assume that you are not

happy with the check-in people of the airlines not looking you in

59

your eye when you are talking, and you have a rather low opinion

of the new computer check-in system, where you get to punch a

number that says the answer to those two questions, and maybe

the money would be better spent just training those personnel as

opposed to computerizing and putting those computer systems in.

Do you see any future use at all for those computer check-in machines?

Mr. YEFFET. I don’t know why we have to use them at all.

Let’s assume that I am terrorist, and the computer will ask me

the question when I buy the electronic ticket, and I will punch that

I am terrorist. What would happen? It is a shame that we still,

after so many times that we suffered and we lost thousands of lives

of innocent people, we still are working with the concept that it is

totally wrong and that we don’t stop it.

The FAA eliminated the skycap, but they kept the electronic ticket to be operated. If the skycaps were dangerous, why pull them

back after 2 weeks? If they are not dangerous, why kick them out?

They need to eat. They need to work. Keep them. Tell them, do not

deal with security. Help the passenger bring the luggage to the

check-in, to the security people, whoever, but don’t eliminate them.

The problem with the FAA, unfortunately, and I see it since

1986, we act and then we think. I remember 1986, U.S. Air aircraft

flew from L.A. to San Diego. At that time the FAA decided all air

crew members and airline employees with uniforms can bypass the

security checkpoint. Why? Because, they wanted this.

A guy who used to work for U.S. Air stole money from the company and he was caught; he was fired. No one took from him the

badge and the uniform. He asked for compensation, and he was ignored. He said in his letter to his boss, I am a drug user. I am an

alcoholic. Help me with the money. He was ignored.

One day he found out that his boss is taking the flight from L.A.

to San Diego. He took a gun, he put on his uniform with the badge,

he bought a ticket, he bypassed the security checkpoint. Close to

San Diego he wrote a note to his boss, I left with nothing, you will

have nothing, and opened fire. And, the aircraft was crashed and

all of the passengers were killed.

I was hired to do the investigation at the time. I asked the FAA,

what happened? Why? It was a mistake. Now we change it.

Before September 11th, a knife of 4 inches that you can kill a

cow with it, it was legal to board the aircraft. And suddenly after

September 11th, nail clippers are illegal. Where we are going to?

Let’s use our brain and not our emotion.

If people cannot decide traveling when it comes to life of American people, they should not stay in their position. The American

people trust us. Do not disappoint them. And, don’t do mistake

after mistake.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t use this word very often. I don’t like to think

that I get frustrated. But I am listening to this testimony, and I

am getting more frustrated than I ever thought that I would. Because, Mr. Yeffet, you bring your world to this. It is different than

what I think my world is. And, each of you have your own different

perspective.

60

I don’t see how the damn system works. I don’t see how the system works where I would want to fly for a whole host of reasons.

I want safety. I care about cost somewhat, and I don’t want to wait

in an airport for 3 hours to go on a 2-hour trip. I mean, I might

as well walk.

So I am thinking to myself, well, I am pretty sure of one thing.

Maybe it is not a bad thing. I don’t think that airline traffic is

going to double in the next 10 years like we thought. So I don’t

think that we have to worry about congestion in the airports.

Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe we need to think about using

some other mode of transportation.

But of these 19 terrorists, 17 were legal. They got into the country legally. They were legal. And, I want to know, would all of the

19 have been interviewed by you, Mr. Yeffet? Under your system,

would all of them have been interviewed?

Mr. YEFFET. Mr. Congressman—— Mr. SHAYS. I don’t want a long answer. I want to know if you

would interview them. Are you advocating that we have a system

where all of those 19 would have been interviewed?

Mr. YEFFET. Yes. Sure.

Mr. SHAYS. So every passenger is going to be interviewed?

Mr. YEFFET. Every passenger. One passenger will be interviewed

for 2 minutes. One passenger would be interviewed and be

searched for more than 20 minutes. Yes, we would do it because

I don’t think that we can allow ourselves—— Mr. SHAYS. I am not going to disagree, because I don’t have the

expertise. I just know, if that happens, I am not flying. Because I

don’t want to wait an hour and a half to 2 hours.

I think you bring to this world, you know, mostly international

travel, and so I can see it. But I don’t see how a system works

where when people are going from Boston to New York or New

York to Washington they are going to fly. I guess we take the train.

I mean, is that one of the outcomes of what you think you are

proposing, that basically short flights disappear?

Mr. YEFFET. Sir, today the American people are not flying not because they don’t like the airlines—— Mr. SHAYS. You are not answering the question, though. You

have so much to share, but I just want you to answer the question.

I am trying to visualize the world—and maybe you are right. I

mean, I am frustrated, not because I disagree ultimately with your

conclusion. I happen to believe that you and I agree on one thing.

Tell the American people the truth, whatever the hell the truth is.

Whatever it is. And if airline travel isn’t safe, then let’s just say

it is not safe. If it is not going to be safe for a while, let’s just say

it is not going to be safe for a while.

My view was, I don’t want a terrorist or anyone in the cockpit,

so I figure if you lock the darn cockpit up so no one can go in, that

is a good thing. And, if we can make sure that there aren’t bombs

on planes and weapons on planes, that is a good thing.

If a terrorist is in the body of the airplane and he gets in a fight

with someone else and causes harm, that is not a good thing, but

it is not going to bring the plane down. So, in my own mind, I was

thinking, well, at least if we can get explosives and cockpits—respond to that.

61

Mr. YEFFET. Mr. Congressman, if I understood you well, you are

looking for your convenience. And, my answer to this is very simple. You said an hour and a half you are not ready to wait——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me interrupt you. Then, you will get your chance.

The reason why I take an airplane is convenience. If an airplane

is no longer convenient, I am not taking it. That is all right. I

mean, I will drive or I will take a train. When you say my thing

is convenience, I just want to be realistic about why I take a plane

in the first place. And, if what you do suggests I won’t take a

plane, then I accept that.

I will let you answer. But do you understand it is not just convenience? It is understanding why I take a plane in the first place.

Mr. YEFFET. First of all, you can drive a few hours. But if you

have to go from Washington, DC, to L.A., how many times can you

drive, sir?

Mr. SHAYS. No, that I agree with.

Mr. YEFFET. This is No. 1. No. 2, you are talking about your convenience, which I like to fly with maximum convenience. But the

question, very simply today, convenience by knowing that I am

risking my life or inconvenience by knowing that I am gaining my

life? I think, Mr. Congressman, the answer is very clear. We cannot

have the stick from both sides. We love to fly with no one to bother

us. I don’t like to be asked any questions. I don’t like to be

searched.

I hate—but if I know that we have to pass through this system

for our safety, I want to land alive and not dead, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I understand that.

You and I agree. None of us wants to be killed, and we don’t

want our passengers to be killed and we don’t want our constituents to be killed. I understand that. I am just trying to understand

the implications of what I think is an impractical proposal in one

way. It is practical for the long flight, because frankly I will only

fly by plane.

But it seems to me, and you are an honest man; I am asking for

an honest answer. Are the short flights basically going to be impractical because the short flights will take as long to check as the

long flights but you are only going a short distance?

And do you see under your proposal that the short flights kind

of disappear?

Mr. YEFFET. The answer is very simple. There is no compromise

in security. But if, in the short flight from LaGuardia to Reagan

Airport in Washington, DC, we want to make it faster, we just

have to increase the qualified security people to do the interview.

Instead of four or five people, let’s take 10 or 15 people and then

you will have it faster, only a question of money.

If we are ready to spend the money, we will do it. The problem

in this country is that we never accept that wee need to spend

money on security. This is why the airlines signed a contract and

hired the security company that offered the lowest bid; and to

make the profit, we know whom they hired and what they paid

them and how they trained them. This is why the FAA failed in

their system. We have to change it.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

62

Mr. OSE. Will the gentleman yield for a minute? I want to go to

that one point. If I understand correctly, prior to September 11th

and including the day of September 11th, the people at the screening stations in the terminals did exactly what the FAA guidelines

laid out as their duty.

Am I correct in that? Mr. Merlis.

Mr. MERLIS. Yes, at least insofar as we know, there is nothing

that they did that violated any FAA rule.

Mr. OSE. Is that your understanding also, Mr. Hauptli?

Mr. HAUPTLI. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Now, Mr. Yeffet, I understand what you are saying,

that what they did was inadequate, clearly. But the fact of the

matter is that they are not the ones who screwed up here, because

they did exactly what they were assigned to do by Federal regulation, which is what Mr. Mica’s point was earlier in terms of updating the regulations accordingly.

I know what you are going to say. I want to be clear that those

folks at those stations did what they were assigned to do. If we

change the assignment, then their success rate will hopefully

change also.

Mr. YEFFET. It is a shame what kind of security system and level

we had in this country.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. My time is up. But let me, with your permission, just

ask this followup.

How many of the 19 terrorists would your interview have

caught?

Mr. YEFFET. I cannot answer the question because I didn’t interview any of them, or my guys. But, for sure, I can tell you, sir, that

the FBI, they had part of the names of these 19 terrorists. And,

if we know about these, my question: Why did these names not go

to the airlines? If any of these names appeared during the screening process, these passengers should have been stopped immediately and the FBI notified in order to arrest them.

And then we could avoid even the interviews.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. OSE. The gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the panel here. I would like to

followup on some questions that my good friend, Mr. Shays, was

asking of Mr. Yeffet.

Take me through an interview of a prospective passenger on El

Al. I present myself to you. I have my luggage. What do you do?

Just let’s go through it.

Mr. YEFFET. I will try to do it in few sentences, because I can

give a speech about it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Show me how it would work.

Mr. YEFFET. OK. First of all, qualified people should interview

you. I approach you, and I am telling you that I am the security

man of your flight; and I have to ask you, sir, a few security questions for your safety.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Ask me the questions.

Mr. YEFFET. Can I see, first of all, your passport?

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Here is my passport.

63

Mr. YEFFET. I check your passport. Let’s assume now that you

are an American passenger, so I don’t have problems with or questions of your passport. But if you are from Iraq or today Afghanistan or Syria, then you already turn on the red light to me as a

passenger.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Let’s say we——

Mr. YEFFET. Let’s assume that you are not suspicious yet. All

documents are OK. So my question will be the basic questions that

I have to ask the passengers that are not suspicious, are not foreign; they don’t have problems with them.

The question is: To whom does this luggage belong?

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. It is mine.

Mr. YEFFET. I don’t want answers that will be Yes or No, like

the FAA. I want words to you to use. Who packed your luggage,

sir?

Mr. KUCINICH. I did.

Mr. YEFFET. When did you pack it?

Mr. KUCINICH. A week ago.

Mr. YEFFET. Where did you pack it?

Mr. KUCINICH. My home.

Mr. YEFFET. How long was the luggage left at your home or any

other place?

Mr. KUCINICH. It has been with me all of the time.

Mr. YEFFET. Did you take the luggage with you to work?

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, it was in the trunk of my car.

Mr. YEFFET. In your car? Who drove your car except you, sir?

Mr. KUCINICH. Just me.

Mr. YEFFET. Just you.

What is the contents of your luggage, sir?

Mr. KUCINICH. Just clothes and some toiletries.

Mr. YEFFET. Can you describe——

Mr. KUCINICH. Copies of the Congressional Record.

Mr. OSE. He is very dangerous. You watch him.

Mr. YEFFET. Now, the point is that I have to look at your eyes

close. And, once you answer me, when you lie to me, physiological

changes will be seen in your face, believe me. And, whenever you

lie to me, we can see that something is wrong with your answer.

And, then we will stick on this point until we will make sure that

I have no problem with the lie that you gave to me.

Mr. KUCINICH. So the screeners then are not simply asking questions; they are studying the people while the people are giving the

answers?

Mr. YEFFET. Sure.

Mr. KUCINICH. Have you ever done any research to determine

anyone who is denied boarding, whether they are being denied

boarding with justification based on evidence that was found subsequently, or do you just deny people boarding and they go away?

Mr. YEFFET. No. What happens, some cases, were that people at

the last minute had a call, what we call—they decided that they

are not taking the flight. They were afraid. One that happens to

us was at last minute sick, and ambulance had to take him. But

just something—because I decided not to take the flight and disappeared, didn’t happen.

64

Mr. KUCINICH. So your position then is that, if you subject passengers to greater scrutiny, there will be less of a chance that

someone would slip in who might want to do harm?

Mr. YEFFET. That’s correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. Your view is, it is not simply a matter of electronics; it is people to people?

Mr. YEFFET. That’s correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Mr. YEFFET. Because I like to hear you and not the luggage.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you let me on your plane?

Mr. YEFFET. As a Congressman, with pleasure.

Mr. OSE. Thank you. I have actually flown El Al and been subjected to the interview. The reason I was subjected to the interview

of the lengthy type was that my connecting-leg plane was late.

When my wife and I rushed up, a young woman, maybe 23 or

24, came and interviewed us, and it was extensive and it was exactly the questions Mr. Yeffet just went through.

Obviously we passed the interview, because we went on. But it

was very interesting and it was very professional.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would guess that given

that level of scrutiny, if someone was engaged in something that

was irregular, they would probably be tripped up, you would imagine. I guess that is what it is about. You obviously are—your safety

record has been very strong.

Mr. OSE. I want to followup on Mr. Kucinich’s items. We are

going to have another round here.

For El Al, you have government oversight of a private company

and employees of the private company; if they are determined to

be performing unsatisfactorily, they can be summarily dismissed.

Prior to being employed, they receive extensive training. It is not

40 hours or 60 hours. How much is it?

Mr. YEFFET. At least a week in the classroom. And, then on-thejob training. Now, in the classroom, we have to train them about

the terrorist organizations. Do you want me to repeat all?

Mr. OSE. I can multitask. I heard your answer.

Mr. YEFFET. No.

Mr. OSE. Keep going.

Mr. YEFFET. We have to train them about the terrorist organizations. We have to train them about countries that support terrorists. We have to train them about the acts of the terrorists against

the airlines around the world, why they succeeded to blow up aircraft, why they succeeded to hijack, what was wrong with the security system and what should be done so that this won’t happen to

us.

And, then to train them how to read a passport, how to approach

the passenger, how to ask the right questions, how to phrase the

question in a way that it should be so clear that I want the passenger to answer me immediately and not to let him think and to

tell me that I didn’t understand you two, three, four times. In the

meantime, he can think of what answer to give.

I prefer to see an interviewer that is asking the questions, and,

if he can bring the passenger to answer me spontaneously so I can

determine if he is lying.

65

Mr. OSE. Now, the personnel that I interviewed with, both on the

leg to Israel and the way back, they were young, 25, 30 at the

most. Is there some career profile for folks who do this kind of

interviewing? How do you collect people? How long do you keep

them? What characteristics do you look for on the interviewing

site?

Mr. YEFFET. Normally we hire people to be security after the

service in the Israeli army; and they have experience, and they

know how vulnerable is the country and the airlines when it comes

to security.

Now, we train them, as I mentioned, and we test them. When I

was the head of security for El Al, I used to do thousands of tests

every year. When I was a diplomat in this country, I used to take

the people from the FBI from Washington, to and from New York,

Friday night at 10 at night, running an exercise, when one of my

group used to be the terrorists that attack the passengers and our

group was the defender of the airlines. And, we did so many exercises, in order not to wait for something real to happen, any test

that we used to do, so our people for them, real or test, should be

the same, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. Who paid for the training process that includes these

tests?

Mr. YEFFET. Part is the Government of Israel and part the airline.

Mr. OSE. So there is a passenger charge in part and a contribution from the Federal Government?

Mr. YEFFET. No. We did not charge the passengers for this, but

they charge the passengers for airport fee; this included, I think,

the security expense.

Mr. OSE. OK. Now, you indicate you have the interviewer. The

reason I am exploring this is, I wanted to make sure that the people who can’t join us today get this stuff into the record so that

they can at least think about it.

You have the interviewer at the terminal. You have a second

layer that checks everything at the gate, too, because I remember,

and when I got there, panting, the guy took me through another

series of questions. That person is part of the security process.

You also indicate that you have people that are trained on the

plane for situations. That is part of the security process. These are

all interwoven, if you will, as part of an overall package.

Mr. YEFFET. The security are trained to do everything from A to

Z; if it is to interview passengers, to be in the baggage room, to

search the aircraft, to search unattended luggage, or to open even

an ashtray to look to see if somebody replaced anything or planted

anything there, except the armed people that we have.

This is when I was testifying in the beginning today, I emphasized that we have to change the system, even on the ground, especially out of this country.

When the enemy will find out that you cannot hurt us in the air,

he will try to kill us on ground. In security, in our aviation security, we have to make sure that we cover every single point from

A to Z, including the catering, the duty free, the cargo, and so on,

and so on.

66

Now, we cannot allow ourselves to keep the one weak hole in the

system because we are dealing with a sophisticated enemy. They

will definitely do enough studying to find out our true weak points,

so they can have the access to hurt us.

Mr. OSE. You have testified in favor of matching baggage to passengers. So there is some element to the passenger standing there

with the bag. That is part and parcel of the security process. Do

you think that the DOT should mandate that or put it in its rules

for domestic flights here in the United States?

Mr. YEFFET. Yes, sir.

Mr. MERLIS. No, absolutely not. We think it should be part of the

overall screening process, but not 100 percent.

Mr. OSE. So you would use some means of sorting that—put a

portion of the people through a baggage check process?

Mr. MERLIS. No. All passengers’ checked baggage would be

screened, but only some of the checked bags would be subject to the

100 percent bag match process.

Mr. OSE. Is that what is done on international flights?

Mr. MERLIS. In the international flights right now it is 100 percent bag match. But we are dealing with two totally different situations. Internationally we have 1,000 and domestically we have

20,000 flights a day.

Second, we have seen from the nature of the terrorist threat of

September 11th that 100 percent baggage match is not good

enough, so our view is that if you have baggage match as part of

an overall screening process; a 100 percent screening process, you

will be more likely to pick up the terrorist, suicidal terrorist, which

you would not pick up on a 100 percent baggage match.

Mr. OSE. As it relates to September 11th, you are saying that the

baggage match is irrelevant?

Mr. MERLIS. Absolutely.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Basically go with what Mr. Merlis indicated, and

again, until we can get technology to the point where we can use

it to try to slim down some of these times, 100 percent baggage

match in all circumstances would grind the system pretty well

down to a halt.

Mr. OSE. So what level of tolerance, coming back to this tolerance

question, what level of tolerance should Congress be willing to accept? Mr. Yeffet says zero.

If I am on a plane, I have got to tell you, I am for zero. If my

family is on a plane, I am for zero.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Again, if you want absolutely total safety in the

system, you just never take off.

I mean—so that is one end of the continuum absolute safety, and

the other end of the continuum is absolute convenience. Up until

September 11th, we as a government, as an industry, as a people,

demanded and selected one point on that continuum; it was closer

to absolute convenience than it should have been. We have now

shifted to a point that is more toward absolute security, recognizing

that, as a practical matter, you are never going to get all of the

way to absolute security. Where is the right spot, where that is the

sweet spot, if you will.

That is a good question. It is a question that I think is going to

be trial and error to see what the American people will tolerate in

67

terms of increased security measures, while still allowing for freedom of movement through the country.

Mr. OSE. I won’t ask you to define what trial and error means.

Mr. MERLIS. All I would say, sir, is that there is a role for 100

percent—for baggage match in this process, if you focus on the people and you identify and sort out those people who need additional

scrutiny from those who, because they have got clean NCIC and

Customs records, they have Federal security clearances, they meet

a host of criteria.

Let the government pick the criteria. You may have 200 million

people out of our citizens who fit it. Maybe for those 200 million,

you don’t need a bag match. For the other 65 million people, and

I am talking only about citizens, but for the other 65 million people

who can’t meet that test you do need bag match for; and one of the

reasons, sir, is, as this statute is written, if you had a 100 percent

bag match, and there was a misconnect, we know from our test in

1997 that 1 out of every 70 people at a hub does not meet his connection.

That means, first of all, you have got to pull that one bag off

every single plane because every plane has more than 70 passengers. How do you ever get the bag to the owner? You can’t put

it on a plane unless the passenger is on it, so we are talking about

passenger inconvenience without necessarily the concomitant increase in security, as proven September 11th. If the guy is suspicious, bag match for the guy; if he is not suspicious, then screen

his bag.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Yeffet, I know that you have a 4 o’clock commitment. And I don’t want you to miss your flight. One series of questions, if I might.

In terms of the folks we hire either for interviews or for the

screening or what have you, what level of tolerance should we accept for their performance? Mr. Yeffet.

Mr. YEFFET. Zero tolerance. There is a difference between performance of a security man or woman that passed all of the training, and they have to run the security, and we rely on them. If they

cannot pass the test, and they fail for us, the terrorists succeed;

and, therefore, we cannot replace the life of anyone and the one

who failed has to go home.

During the training, if the students, if I may call them, that fail

in the test, they are still in the responsibility of the trainers and

the security managers.

Maybe something goes wrong with the trainers, and therefore,

we will retrain them to make sure that we did the maximum. If,

after we did the maximum, the one here or one there will fail, he

has to leave and to go home.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Merlis, do you share that opinion?

Mr. MERLIS. Well, I think when you do a layered approach, you

don’t have to have 100 percent. Your layers add up to 100 percent.

So, if you have several requirements in this process—if one person

doesn’t ask all of the questions correctly, but the next one finds

whatever the bad stuff is, then you have accomplished your goal of

preventing someone from piercing the security system.

I think that 100 percent is not for every single person. Every single time is not accomplishable; it is not going to happen. So what

68

we have to do is recognize we need a system with appropriate

redundancies. So, if at 98 or 99 percent, you know you get that 1

or 2 in 100 failure, then there is a backup there who—just look at

the math of it. The likelihood is, the second one isn’t going to have

a failure on that same person. If you had a third layer the likelihood is you aren’t going to have a failure on that same person.

I just don’t think it is doable to have 100 percent for every single

person every single time that they ask a question.

Mr. OSE. I understand the redundancies question. If you have

someone who is not performing his particular layer of inspection,

do you keep him or do you replace him?

Mr. MERLIS. I think you replace them, but if a person was diligent, I don’t think you fire him. You retrain him and make sure

that he does it the right way. I mean, a person may not say the

10 words he is supposed to say. He might cut his sentence off. Now

he has violated the rule. The requirement cannot be so rigid that

discretion isn’t used, as long as the totality of the system is 100

percent, which I think is the goal.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Yeffet, in your experience, how have you dealt with

that? If you have someone out on the line who does not perform

satisfactorily under your management, how do you handle that?

Mr. YEFFET. I fired the director of security in Paris when—he

had family with children in school. When I found out that he didn’t

perform properly in the level that we expect him to do it, I had to

fly over there to make sure that my deputy was right with his evaluation. Once I was convinced, I fired him.

Now, what my colleague says here, that if the man was not

trained well and made a mistake, so we have to retrain him. If he

was not trained well, I would fire the trainer and the director of

security that assigned him to do the job.

But, if he were trained well and passed all of the tests, and I am

talking about testing, not this question or other question, if he

failed in tests, he cannot remain in the security company.

Mr. MERLIS. If I can respond, I would agree. The fact is, I was

referring to the practice that is now going on that if someone

misses an object even now, is the person fired? Mr. Yeffet said

questions should not be asked in any given way, which means yes/

no, only if a person asks 10 questions. Under the theory that we

have in place today, if a person asks 10 questions and inadvertently asks one which is a yes/no, has he failed and therefore is

fired?

I am against that. I think that it is the overall performance, for

which if there is a failure then you fire him.

Mr. OSE. The question of redundancy—Todd, we are going to get

to you. The question of redundancy is a very good question, because

we had an incident in Atlanta or Chicago where somebody got

through the first level, and they got caught at the random screen

at the gate.

The system worked. The redundancy worked. My question is, if

that first screen keeps missing, I mean, there is a problem with either the training or the person, and it has to be fixed. I don’t know

how in an issue of this importance, you can even look past that for

a moment. I mean, I have to tell Mr. Yeffet’s perspective on the

level of tolerance is a lot closer to mine than the two of yours.

69

Mr. MERLIS. Just if I may, sir. I am not disagreeing. I agree with

him. I was talking about the context that we have today wherein

if somebody asked a question wrong, he would be fired. I think that

is excessive. One question asked wrong, not that the person

breached security, but he asked the question wrong.

If his overall performance is deficient, he should be fired. If his

performance means he let things through that shouldn’t be let

through, that should be grounds for doing it. But 100 percent, as

it has been explained to me, means you do nothing, you do not deviate one iota ever. And I think that is a standard which is not

going to be achievable. I mean it may be achievable for some people

most of the time, but under that standard, you say a question

wrong once in an 8-hour day, you are fired, that is wrong.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hauptli, from the operator’s and the airport’s

standpoint?

Mr. HAUPTLI. I think I forgot the question.

Mr. OSE. The question had to do with to what degree do you accept less than satisfactory performance by your security personnel?

Mr. HAUPTLI. The answer to that is, you don’t. The legislation

provides the Under Secretary of the Transportation Security Administration the ability to fire personnel that are not performing.

Mr. OSE. I want to thank the panel. Mr. Yeffet, Mr. Merlis, Mr.

Hauptli, your testimony today was compelling and highly informative. I am sure the next panel is going to be just as good. I have

to tell you that as a Member of Congress, I have a zero level of tolerance. There is no way to recover from a fatal mistake here. I

mean, I am hoping that the rules and regulations incorporate that.

I can’t quantify for you today what that means in terms of operations, and I am willing to take that risk. But, I would rather

spend a couple of hours in an airport than what may well be the

alternative.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Just make sure that you buy things when you are

in the airport, sir.

Mr. OSE. I do regularly. I feel like I live in an airport. So thank

you all for coming.

Mr. YEFFET. Thank you very much.

Mr. OSE. We are back from the recess. I will introduce our next

panel.

John O’Brien is the director of engineering and air safety for the

Airline Pilots Association, International. We have Patricia Friend,

who is the president of the Association of Flight Attendants. We

have Mark Roth, who is the general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, and joining us shortly will be

Paul Hudson, who is the executive director for the Aviation Consumer Action Project.

Lady and gentlemen, I apologize for the length of time it has

taken to get to this panel. That was, I thought, a compelling previous panel. I appreciate your patience. We have read your testimony. To the extent you can summarize, it would be appreciated.

Mr. O’Brien for 5 minutes.

70

STATEMENTS OF JOHN O’BRIEN, DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING

AND AIR SAFETY, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL; PATRICIA FRIEND, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS; MARK ROTH, GENERAL COUNSEL,

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES;

AND PAUL HUDSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AVIATION CONSUMER ACTION PROJECT

Mr. O’BRIEN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I am John O’Brien,

director of the Engineering and Air Safety Department for the Air

Line Pilots Association. ALPA represents 67,000 airline pilots who

fly for 47 U.S. and Canadian airlines. We sincerely appreciate this

opportunity to appear before the subcommittee to present our views

on the important subject of aviation security regulation.

ALPA has been in the forefront of efforts to create a more secure

airline system. We are pleased, therefore, that the President last

week signed into law the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.

Mr. OSE. Mr. O’Brien, would you halt for a moment? I made a

rookie mistake here. I need to have you all rise and swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. OSE. Let the record show that the witnesses all answered in

the affirmative and now we’re going to go back to Mr. O’Brien.

Mr. O’BRIEN. This hearing is quite timely because it concerns the

implication of that law’s numerous provisions and other initiatives.

Congress’ oversight role will be a critical, important part of any effort to prevent a repeat of some of the regulatory adventures that

have occurred in the past. An example of such an adventure was

the 10-year odyssey that FAA embarked upon to revise some provisions of security, FAR 107 and 108, which were finally published

this summer. We are hopeful that the new DOT Under Secretary’s

office will produce regulatory proposals and final rules in a more

expeditious fashion.

I’d like to emphasize that ALPA strongly promotes one level of

security in the implementation of Federal security regulations. A

terrorist guided missile in the form of a fully loaded airliner can

take off from any commercial airport in the country and wreak

havoc on unsuspecting innocents virtually anywhere below. The

type of operation is also not a discriminator. There is no difference

between a fully loaded cargo airplane and a fully loaded passenger

airplane in terms of their use as guided missiles. Each of our recommendations is made in this context.

ALPA has been promoting positive electronic verification of identity and electronic airport access control systems since 1987. This

is primarily as a result of the PSA accident that was mentioned

earlier this afternoon. This accident was caused by an armed, disgruntled former airline employee and in effect was a mass murderer of 43 passengers and crew members and bears striking similarities to the hijackings of September 11th. This accident was attributable in large measure to the identity verification inadequacies

that are yet to be addressed 14 years later. On the heels of that

tragedy FAA revised airport security regulations to require that

many airports install computerized access control systems. In the

mid-’90’s Congress provided 2 million for testing and implementing

a transient employee security system that came to be known as the

71

Universal Access System [UAS]. For all practical purposes, those

funds were wasted.

Even though ALPA completed successful UAS tests and standards were finalized for the system in 1998, there has been no implementation of the system. This failure came as a result of the

FAA policy to leave UAS implementation to the sole discretion of

the airlines. In the meantime, technology has moved on and the

standards devised for UAS are no longer current. FAA has now finished a report on smart card systems for identifying armed law enforcement officers who are using or supporting our air transportation system. The private sector is developing proposals based on

that and other advanced technologies such as biometric readers.

The new Aviation Security Act provides for pilot programs in no

fewer than 20 airports to test and evaluate new and emerging technology for access control and other security requirements.

While we wholeheartedly endorse testing new technologies, there

also must be requirements to install them or testing is for naught.

Therefore, we recommend the standards be immediately developed

and made regulatory for the creation of a UAS that could use the

best technologies available. The tests at the 20-plus airports should

be used to validate technologies designed to meet the new standard, and in addition to providing positive access control for employees. The UAS must also be used to facilitate employee screening at

checkpoints in order to reduce delays for passengers, verify the

identity of jump seat riders and it could be used as a media for digital pilot licensing or certificate information.

ALPA is also very supportive of efforts to perform voluntary

checks on trusted passengers so that the amount of time spent at

screening checkpoints is reduced. The UAS system could be used

for that purpose and perhaps others that have not yet been considered.

I’d like to turn your attention to a new Security Act provision to

require security screening of all checked bags and the screening of

cargo and mail in cargo aircraft. We agree with these provisions as

far as they go because the potential for carrying a bomb laden bag

onto an aircraft is very real and needs to be addressed as soon as

possible. However, the new security law provides the DOT Under

Secretary with a 1-year study period for reporting on the screening

requirements applicable to aircraft with 60 or fewer passenger

seats used in scheduled passenger service.

We thought we had rid ourselves of dual regulatory standards

with a successful one level of safety campaign but, apparently, that

isn’t so. We recommend that the airline security regulations be

amended to require one level of security through security screening

of all passengers and their baggage. Such action would be consistent with the precedents established by DOT and FAA under the

1995 one level of safety regulatory initiatives.

There are a number of issues surrounding the strengthening of

cockpits that are deserving of congressional attention. We’re encouraged by the rapid move toward full voluntary passenger fleet

compliance with special Federal regulations on cockpit door hardening that the FAA recently issued. However, some important debates are now underway on how best to make longer term aircraft

flight deck security improvements. Everyone understands the basic

72

concept of installing stronger flight deck doors to keep terrorists

out of the cockpit. What may not be as readily apparent is the need

for strengthening of cockpit floor as well as the bulkhead to which

the door is attached. A strong door offers little protection if it’s connected to a weak frame.

Another question is whether cockpit door hardening and other related security enhancements should be made for cargo aircraft. We

believe that they should because cargo aircraft have been the target of security breaches in the past and they could be used as terrorist guided missiles like a passenger-carrying aircraft.

FAA has recently enacted special regulations to encourage cockpit door strengthening, including allocation of Federal funds for

doors for passenger aircraft; however, they did not specify cargo

aircraft; so these aircraft are not being retrofitted in spite of the

fact that DOT’s Rapid Response Team for Aircraft Security recommended retrofits for the entire U.S. fleet.

Mr. OSE. Mr. O’Brien, are you about finished there?

Mr. O’BRIEN. I’m just about. I’ll skip the last one here and just

say thank you, and I will be pleased to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Brien follows:]

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

Mr. OSE. That is an excellent wrap up. Thank you, Mr. O’Brien.

Ms. Friend.

Ms. FRIEND. Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and

members of the subcommittee. My name is Patricia Friend, and I’m

the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants.

We very much appreciate the opportunity to testify today.

The American people have made it clear that they expect the

government to correct fundamental problems in our air security

system before they will resume normal travel patterns. Our Nation’s flight attendants have not had the luxury of picking and

choosing when we fly. We went right back to work after September

11th. Flight attendants continue to comfort anxious passengers

while we cope with not only our own concerns and fears about our

personal safety, but our grief for fellow flight attendants who lost

their lives.

I speak to you today from the perspective of the more than

50,000 flight attendants at 26 U.S. airlines represented by the Association of Flight Attendants. The Aviation and Transportation

Security Act of 2001, signed into law last week by President Bush,

makes crucial improvements in the security of our aviation system,

but there’s still more to do. Federalizing airport security screening

and creating a new Transportation Security Agency separate from

the Federal Aviation Administration was a vital improvement in

securing our skies. We support Secretary Mineta’s goal of a new security agency that focuses solely on security, and we support the

hiring of a qualified candidate from law enforcement or the military to head that agency.

Just as important, we welcome the increased presence of air marshals, strengthened cockpit doors and the new training that we will

receive. We welcome the screening of everything and everyone with

access to secure areas of airports and enhanced identification of

airport personnel through the use of new technologies. Yet, there

are gaps still in our aviation security system and we are counting

on you to provide the flight attendants with the tools that we need

to protect our passengers and ourselves in the event of a future attack.

As we have tragically seen, once a security threat in the cabin

compromises the flight deck, the aircraft and lives on the ground

are in jeopardy. Securing cockpit doors and providing pilots with a

defensive device are key to ensuring that terrorists will not in the

future be able to use our planes as missiles. But the new law fails

to require flight attendant access to non-lethal devices in the cabin.

The flight attendants have become the first and last line of defense for passengers. We are responsible for ensuring that a security threat doesn’t reach the cockpit. To effectively meet that responsibility, we must be given the means to defend ourselves, our

passengers, and the flight deck from intruders. You can accomplish

this by ensuring that flight attendants will be trained and qualified

in the use of an appropriate non-lethal weapon stored in a sealed

or locked compartment somewhere on the aircraft.

At some level, government licenses automobile drivers, teachers,

contractors, plumbers, nurses, doctors, a variety of other citizens

and professionals. These licenses are issued in order to control and

ascertain a level of proficiency.

84

Flight attendants are trained in the emergency, safety, and security operations on board an aircraft, but currently the Federal

Aviation Administration does not license flight attendants. In virtually every in-flight situation, emergency or otherwise, flight attendants are the only trained professionals present to provide first

aid to passengers, fight in-flight cabin fires, provide guidance during a decompression or turbulence, handle unruly passengers who

might endanger the safety of other passengers on the flight, and

even help passengers out of an airplane after a crash.

Now with the passage of a new law and the additional security

training that will be provided to flight attendants, it’s time for the

public and other aviation workers to be given the assurance that

flight attendants have been trained and are qualified to perform

their duties. The best way to accomplish this is by the FAA’s licensing flight attendants.

The size and amount of carry-on baggage directly affects the job

of security screeners and the potential for a weapon to be brought

on board the aircraft. Currently an FAA directive exists that limits

carry-on baggage to one bag plus one personal item per passenger.

The new security law includes a sense of Congress that the FAA

should maintain its current restrictions on carry-on bags. The government now needs to go a step further and codify this limitation

in its security regulations in order to avoid the possibility that the

current FAA security directive could be changed or eliminated at

any time.

The new security law states that, where baggage screening machines are not available, alternatives to screening checked baggage,

such as a bag match program, are required, but regrettably it does

not require 100 percent baggage/passenger match. Nothing short of

100 percent bag match and 100 percent evaluation of all passengers will close this loophole in the aviation security system.

The last issue I’ll bring to your attention is currently one of the

most controversial for flight attendants at many of our U.S. carriers. Recent security directives have required that each aircraft

cabin be thoroughly searched before the first flight of the day. Secretary Mineta’s Rapid Response Team on Aircraft Security reported

that current procedures allow inadequately trained personnel to

conduct these searches for dangerous items hidden on board the

aircraft. The DOT team also reported that insufficient time is given

to assigned personnel in order to conduct a thorough search. We

agree with the Rapid Response Team, which made specific recommendations that security searches be assigned to trained experts and not to cockpit or cabin crew members.

Currently, cabin security searches are being done by airline staff,

including flight attendants, at 14 AFA-represented carriers. Airline

management further compromises security by forcing flight attendants to complete a review of their safety equipment and a thorough

security search of the aircraft in as little as 5 minutes, all in order

to ensure an on-time departure. While these policies are within the

current FAA directive, they guarantee that inadequate searches

are performed, making them in effect a sham. Security searches, as

I’m sure you will agree, are important tasks that belong in the

hands of trained security personnel who are part of the new TransVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
85

portation Security Administration at the Department of Transportation.

Overall we are pleased with the new security law and we believe

that many security loopholes will now be closed once all the provisions of the new law are put into effect. It is essential, however,

to move swiftly on the additional security enhancements to correct

continuing flaws in our aviation security system. Hundreds of millions of U.S. passengers and crew fly each year. We deserve a truly

safe and a secure environment.

Thank you for allowing me to testify, and I welcome any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Friend follows:]

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Ms. Friend.

Mr. Roth, from the American Federation of Government Employees, take 5 minutes.

Mr. ROTH. On behalf of the 600,000 government workers represented by AFGE, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity

to offer our views focused on potential employee concerns regarding

the implementation of the Aviation and Transportation Security

Act.

Regardless of the issue of Federalization, I believe we all can

agree that screening will not improve if the job status of screeners

is not improved through better pay, better benefits, and real job

protections. Ultimately, there is no other way to recruit the best

employees and to keep them on the job.

Regarding job protections, the act gives unfettered discretion to

the Secretary to summarily dismiss any Federal employee screeners regardless of tenure or proven cause. AFGE firmly believes that

such unprecedented discretion is unnecessary, and we wish to point

out that already during the lengthy 1-year probationary period a

Federal employee may be immediately fired for virtually any or no

reason. In the context of these particular inspection jobs, competent, focused supervisors should be able to easily weed out the

bad actors within a very short time.

Following the probationary period in a nonsecurity context,

under 5 U.S.C. 4303, a Federal employee can be fired or demoted

with 30 days notice. In accordance with elementary notions of due

process, that employee can then appeal his or her case. However,

according to the Office of Personnel Management, a very small

number of dismissals and demotions are reversed through such appeals, and it is also important to point out that the employee is off

the Federal payroll. They are off the Federal payroll while the appeal is pending.

More importantly here, where airport security is now a national

security issue, under 5 U.S.C. 7532 an employee may be suspended

without notice and then removed after such investigation and review as considered necessary by the agency in the interest of national security. In that context the agency need not provide the employee the rationale for dismissal, and the agency’s decision to dismiss that employee is not subject to appeal.

Thus, in the context of airport screeners and airport security, we

believe these existing Title 5 management authorities to remove

these workers are already extremely broad and sufficient.

The new law also gives the Secretary unprecedented discretion to

determine the compensation packages and job protections of the

Federal employee screeners, ‘‘notwithstanding any other law.’’

AFGE believes here, too, that such unlimited discretion is unnecessary and actually counterproductive to maintaining a high quality

work force. There is simply no reason for Federal employee screeners to be treated differently than other Federal employees with respect to their pay, benefits, and after the fact job protections.

The report language to the conference report encourages the Secretary to ensure that screeners have access to Federal health life

insurance, retirement benefits, and whistleblower protections. We

believe, though, that fixing terms and conditions of employment in

statute would ensure that the lowest bid mentality that so underVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
95

mined contractor airport screening will not be repeated after Federalization of the function. Therefore, AFGE urges the Congress to

revisit the issue to expressly provide Federal employee airport

screeners with the same compensation packages and job protections as other Federal employees.

It is clearly not in the interest of any American who values her

or his freedom to fly to undermine the Federal Government’s ability to recruit and retain the best airport screeners by making them

second class Federal employees. AFGE does not believe it is the intention of either law makers or administration officials to allow

such a scenario to unfold.

AFGE looks forward to ensuring that Federal employee screeners

are treated equitably vis-a-vis other Federal employees with respect to issues like pay, health insurance, EEO rights, life insurance, retirement benefits, the right to organize and be represented

by unions and whistleblower protections. The rights of Federal employees to organize and bargain collectively in particular serve as

a check against the office politics and the pressures not to disclose

safety violations identified by the whistleblower group, Government

Accountability Project, and its argument in favor of whistleblower

protections for airport screeners.

With respect to matters concerning public safety, it often falls to

rank and file Federal employees to alert the Congress. At will employees like these screeners will not risk coming forward. Such

warnings are most likely to be encouraged when the employees

with the relevant information can go safely, even anonymously to

their union that will protect them from arbitrary retaliation. Thus,

it promotes the interest of the millions of American air travelers

if the screener work force is free of coercion and free to organize.

Finally, there is no plausible rationale for denying Federal employee screeners the right to organize. AFGE is proud to represent

tens of thousands of other Federal employees engaged in public

safety, such as Bureau of Prisons correctional officers, DOD police,

law enforcement officers throughout every agency, INS employees,

and firefighters. Moreover, today airport customs officials are represented by unions, as are the skilled machinists, the baggage handlers, the mechanics, the air traffic controllers and those in the

front lines, the flight attendants and pilots. There is no reason to

treat a Federal employee screener’s right to organize any differently. AFGE will work with the administration to ensure that

Federal employee airport screeners have the right, if the workers

so elect, to be represented by a union.

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding an important and

timely hearing. I look forward to answering any questions that you

and your colleagues may wish to ask.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roth follows:]

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Roth.

Our final witness is Paul Hudson, who is the executive director

of the Aviation Consumer Action Project. Thank you for joining us

today. For 5 minutes.

Mr. HUDSON. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Congressman Tierney.

My name is Paul Hudson. I’m executive director of the Aviation

Consumer Action Project [ACAP], which is a nonprofit organization

that since 1971 has acted as a voice and ear for the public on major

aviation issues. ACAP has been a national advocate for strengthened aviation security measures since the 1980’s and has been a

member representing the public on the FAA’s Aviation Security Advisory Committee and its Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee since 1991. In 1998, I co-chaired the security group’s Working

Group for Public Education, and since 1989 I’ve testified about a

dozen times before Congress and two Presidential commissions on

the subject.

Since September 11th, I served on the FAA’s Ad Hoc Aviation Security Subcommittee, which was evaluating new aviation security

technologies and procedures, and was on the team evaluating airport screening.

I would like to thank you very much for holding this hearing

today. With the enactment of legislation last week, this is a very

timely and very important next step. What are the details, what

are the regulations going to be? Before getting into that, though,

I need to mention the goals that we need to keep in mind.

First, obviously is to prevent a repeat of the September 11th attacks or any variation thereof whereby U.S. civilian aircraft are

used as weapons of mass destruction. Second, to protect airport

transportation, which is an important part of the Nation’s infrastructure and our way of life.

As we go through the process of regulation, we also need to keep

in mind a unique feature in this type of regulation; that is, that

the details of security regulations, unlike other types of regulation,

are secret. This means that the level of congressional oversight

must be at a higher level and also you must have a new aviation—

excuse me—a new Transportation Security Advisory Committee

that has highly effective public members because there is no peer

review, there is no public comment process, there is no public scrutiny that normally applies in this field. Otherwise, we fear that the

egregious policies of the past, some of which contributed to the success of September 11th, could potentially even be repeated, obviously not to the same thing but different ones in the same vein.

Moreover, the FAA practice of granting largely unrestricted waiver and exemptions to air carriers, airports, and others would be

also likely to continue, we feel. The first test of the new system is

going to be who the people the administration appoints to lead the

effort. The second test will be what those people do, particularly in

the key areas of security regulations and standards. The third test

will be the performance of the new agency in the coming months,

and the final test will be whether additional large scale aviation

and transportation terrorism is prevented.

Congress needs to be kept up-to-date and needs to have appropriate oversight in each of these areas. With regard to transportation security personnel hiring criteria, in addition to the things

103

that are mandated in the act, we feel there should be national security background checks. And with the pay and benefits having

been effectively tripled for screeners, hiring can and should be on

a competitive basis, with only the best being hired for training,

those who meet the high standards, surviving training and only

those who pass a probationary period being retained.

Concerning employee training, there should be a minimum of 30

days training for all security personnel, or 175 hours. This is the

same or less than what we have in many other areas of security.

Proficiency tests and occasional spot testing are inadequate. The

current system fosters boredom, constant small talk and a general

lack of seriousness.

I’ve indicated in my testimony we need a universal in-depth

screening system, and I would refer you to my written testimony

for the details of that.

We also feel that cockpits need to be triple sealed and secured.

In my testimony before the House and Senate, our first point was

you must secure the cockpits. That’s only been partially done to

this point. There needs to be a reduction in carry-on luggage to levels that the screening system will be able to detect reliably at least

95 percent of prohibited items. We need frequent testing of screening with test objects as exercises as well as winner take all type

gotcha tests we have now. And, since most screeners will never face

a terrorist, unlike law enforcement officers, we need to utilize military-type exercises and gaming techniques. Otherwise, people will

not maintain the level of alertness no matter how in principle they

may be motivated.

With regard to where we start, I think a model aviation security

program and training facility needs to be established at Reagan

National Airport. It has all the ingredients needed for that and, if

we’re going to have a national uniform standard, we need to have

a center, especially to start out with.

Regarding employee and passenger identification, the industry is

heavily pushing ‘‘smart cards.’’ These things would have fingerprint

aspects to them. Face recognition is another technology that’s being

pushed. We feel they have a role to play, particularly for access of

employees to sensitive areas, but they should not be issued to enable passengers to bypass or avoid standard security checks. Smart

terrorists will be able to obtain them. And, even trusted employees,

there is always a danger of them going to the dark side. If you look

at the profiles which are outlined in my testimony of smart terrorists, most of them would be able to obtain these smart cards.

Now, there’s often confusion about reducing the risk of aviation

bombings. The things that need to be done in that area are not the

same for the most part as anti-hijacking measures. Installing hardened cargo and baggage containers would be a very important first

step. Passenger bag matching still is valid. None of the historical

aviation bombings have involved suicide bombings and many involve dupes.

Explosive detection equipment for screening of checked baggage,

this needs to be expedited, with regulations if necessary, to ensure

that we have the equipment in the legislative timeframes. There is

presently only one manufacturer that makes the stuff and we’re

104

going to have to do something to change that if we want to have

the congressional mandates met.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson, the red light went off because I turned it

off, but if you—— Mr. HUDSON. I’m not going to go through the rest of it, but I

would just conclude by saying that the challenges and terrorist

threats we now face, especially in aviation security, are immense,

but the resources of this Nation are also enormous. The Federal

Government needs to place its full power and energies to secure

the skies over America, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hudson follows:]

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Hudson. I want to preface my questions

by conveying to Ms. Friend and Mr. O’Brien the sentiment of the

Congress regarding your colleagues who aren’t with us today and

to Mr. Hudson for your loss. We’re going to try to do everything we

can to prevent that from repeating itself, and I thank you all for

coming here today to talk about it.

I want to go to a question we dealt with in the last panel having

to do with the level of tolerance to accept, whether in terms of what

gets through or performance in the screening process. Mr.

O’Brien—were all of you here for the previous panel’s testimony so

you heard the body of the conversation? Do you have any thoughts

on, as we set this system up, with these rules and regulations, the

issue of zero tolerance, where should we be on that spectrum as it

relates to either the interview screening process or the performance

level of the folks in that process?

Mr. O’BRIEN. Obviously, in the interviewing-screening process,

applicants should be held to the highest standards, of course. This

is similar to people or personnel who are involved in safety critical

endeavors as well. However, as far as disciplinary or firing situations, I would suggest that there may be some value in looking at

the safety programs that are currently in effect. We have programs

now that apply to certain safety disciplines where, if there is a deliberate violation of a regulation or a deliberate act that compromises safety or a criminal act, then there is no recourse for the

individual.

However, if the act or situation is not deliberate or inadvertent

and an individual reports on him or herself, then there is an investigation undertaken jointly by the oversight responsibility, in this

case maybe the FAA or TSA, the employer and, if the union is involved, a union representative. Corrective action is identified. FAA

has veto power over whether that corrective action is appropriate

or not when agreed appropriate action is taken.

So, I think something like that might be considered for compliance with security procedures. No matter how good the procedures

are, there may be faults with the procedure development itself. If

employees recognize those faults through self use and report on

those faults and they’re analyzed properly, then I think disciplinary action in that particular case is not warranted.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Friend.

Ms. FRIEND. We believe that aviation security has to be a series

of layers and the first line of defense must be on the ground. Training today, is to keep the aggression off from the aircraft. So, to that

extent we strongly support the most comprehensive and inviolate

as possible first line of defense on the ground, but, having said

that, we also advocate on behalf of our members the concept of

trained to proficiency. We believe strongly that a person who interviews and is qualified for the job deserves the best possible training

and that a failure is most often attributable to a failure in the

training process, not in the individual.

However, we also support Mr. O’Brien’s position that someone

who deliberately compromises aviation security clearly falls outside

the realm of a training issue. Part of my oral testimony that I left

out in order to meet the 5-minute limit really did focus on the projected training for the security screeners. There’s been some talk

116

of a minimum number of hours. We think it’s premature to set a

minimum number of hours. We believe that an expert in aviation

security should develop a comprehensive training program and

then tell us how many hours that will take to offer to the new Federalized security screening force.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Roth.

Mr. ROTH. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to say very clearly

for the record that AFGE is not in the business of defending poor

performers, people who could not do competent airport screening.

The purpose of my testimony was to let you know that there are

current tools in existing law which are extremely broad that are

not used properly by supervisors, such as probationary periods and

such as 7532 of title 5. I don’t know how many of you are familiar

with that provision on national security. It’s very broad. If someone

is on the lines and they are deemed a national security problem,

they are gone immediately. They don’t even find out why.

The other thing is there’s a difference between zero tolerance and

no right of an appeal after the fact. It is counterproductive if you

give these people no rights. Where a workplace may be very arbitrary, there may be arbitrary conduct that the workplace—sometimes there are politics, with a small ‘‘p,’’ at a small workplace, and

a supervisor can be allowed to run rampant and can be allowed to

coerce, terrorize, or actually, you know, put fear in a workplace so

that they will not come forward with safety violations. They have

no union, they have nowhere to go. They will leave. You know,

there are environments where you have hostile supervisors and

you’ve got to go along to get along. You must have some balance

in the system, and we think the after-the-fact appeal, because mistakes are made, although in most cases employees lose, let’s face

it, 80 percent, that means that, in 20 percent of the cases, there

was a mistake made, bad supervision, improper motive on the supervisor. But, to be able to just say that an employee is not meeting a standard where there’s no right of an appeal to show that you

did meet the standard I think goes way too far.

So, we’re not in business to protect a poor performer, someone

who has proven to be a poor performer, but also not to have a counterproductive set of rules that has people leave the agencies as

soon as they’re trained and go off to Customs, INS, where they are

strongly unionized and these types of small ‘‘p’’ politics and games

are not played.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson.

Mr. HUDSON. With respect to this discipline approach, we would

say, for any serious infraction, you should remove the person first

and then have the due process follow. It’s a similar process that’s

used with air traffic controllers. We also support, however, having

whistleblower protection for these people. We think that’s very important as a preventative against corruption or other abuses. With

regard to minor things, poor performance, there should be penalties

for poor performance and the approach that has been taken in the

existing system, which, as I see, is in some of the legislation—I’m

not sure whether it got into the final bill—is that you can fail a

proficiency test and you get some remedial training and you go

back. No one who fails proficiency tests should go back until they

pass the proficiency test.

117

Thank you.

Mr. OSE. We up here have the red lights too. I want to make

sure I just synthesize. None of you has objection to removal of

someone from the front line, so to speak. It’s the summary dismissal issue absent retraining or an appeal process, the ‘‘due process’’ I think was the phrase that you used, Mr. Roth. You think that

protection should remain in the rules and regulations; is that accurate, Mr. O’Brien?

Mr. O’BRIEN. That is correct.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Friend.

Ms. FRIEND. Correct.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Roth.

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. I would make one more point on whistleblower protection. It’s very rare to have an individual whistleblower. It’s much more common to have a whistleblower go through

a union or another group. So just to say we’re going to give you

a whistleblower right, that is not going to get it done. People—the

experience, the studies even from special counsel, people are too

afraid to put themselves forward alone.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson, did I synthesize your remarks accurately?

Mr. HUDSON. Yes.

Mr. OSE. My time has expired. We’ll have another round. Mr.

Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Mr. Roth, I think the problem that

some people had, you hit right on the head that with this legislation some people objected to having the security issue Federalized

because they didn’t want it unionized and that was it, and I think

Mr. Mica, without putting words in his mouth, raised at least part

of that reservation when he made the comment in his testimony

that it takes 31⁄2 years to discipline a Federal employee. Would you

address that for us?

Mr. ROTH. I have some problems with that because they throw

out that number and there may be a case and there may be an

EEO process, but in most cases, like I told you, during the first

year they’re gone immediately and there are no appeal rights. After

that, you have 30 days and then, you know, you have a right to

respond. Under this law, you don’t even have a right to notice and

respond, and it may not even be Constitutional in that regard.

There are some cases on that. However, in most cases you have 30

days, you have a right to respond, and then you’re gone and you

have a case. You have a day of hearing.

Now, it may go on appeal to some other Federal agency for

months and months where you would never hear about it and no

one works on it, but that doesn’t mean the employee is not gone.

There’s no paycheck, they have to move on. So, on paper, you may

have a case, but that person’s gone within about 30 days.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I think it was helpful to clarify that.

Ms. Friend, you indicated that you thought flight attendants

should have access to non-lethal means of protection on a flight.

Can you give me some specifics of examples of what you mean by

that?

Ms. FRIEND. I sat on the Secretary’s Rapid Response Team for

Aircraft Security, and we specifically recommended a list and an

evaluation of a list of non-lethal devices, including stun guns,

118

tasers, mace, pepper spray. We have asked for really four areas of

defense in the cabin. Now that we have fortified the cockpit doors,

which we absolutely support, it’s important to change the procedures to say that the pilots will not compromise the security of the

cockpit by coming out to assist in any disturbance no matter how

difficult. We have asked for additional training, including upgraded

security training, personal defense training. We’ve asked for an

emergency means of notification to notify the cockpit that a hijacking was in progress, and we’ve asked for access to a non-lethal defense weapon.

None of these things are intended in any way to suggest that

flight attendants could somehow overpower any violent hijacker,

but they are intended to buy us time in the cabin, to buy our passengers time in order to allow the pilots to get the aircraft on the

ground safely, which is where the only real help in that situation

is.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I would like each of you to address the

issue of a trusted passenger concept, if you would. I’ve heard it

mentioned several times, the apparent insinuation being that there

are some people that could be screened once rigorously and after

that they have got some special passage onto the plane without

going through the customary and every occasion flight review.

Share with me your feelings on that concept, starting with Mr.

O’Brien, and we’ll work from my left to my right.

Mr. O’BRIEN. Conceptually the proposal has some merit. I have

not seen any specific details of how it actually would be employed,

what kind of screening would be required in order to make you a

so-called trusted passenger, or what kind of identification system

would be set up and how the trusted passengers would actually be

handled. In concept, though, it has been offered as a means of expediting the flow of traffic through the checkpoints, and for that

purpose it has merit. Until we see some more details on exactly

how it would be employed, we just sort of view it as a potential

means of expediting the flow through checkpoints but with some

reservations.

Ms. FRIEND. We actually strongly object. We’re very concerned

that it creates a section of our aviation security that could be easily

compromised. It’s entirely inconceivable to me that some sort of

identification could be created that could not be forged, that is not

subject to fraud. In addition, you have to ask yourself once this is

issued, is this a lifetime pass or does the person have to subject

themselves to repeated security in order to renew their sort of license to bypass security? So we have grave reservations and in fact

object to the concept.

Mr. ROTH. Well, of course I’m unqualified, let me say it upfront.

I’m just an air traveler. However, when you talk about

something——

Mr. TIERNEY. Then somebody should gag you and go on——

Mr. ROTH [continuing]. And with Mr. Yeffet here before, I think

there are other places I would rather have been, but when you talk

about a system needing zero tolerance, that is a system that would

need zero tolerance. As an air traveler, I would be concerned that

you would have the system and they would be not inconvenienced

119

but how would you have the zero tolerance in place. Again that’s

as a nonprofessional.

Mr. HUDSON. We’re strongly opposed to this concept as well as

the proposals that I’ve seen. Not only can smart terrorists probably

and undoubtedly will get these cards, and some proponents have

talked about prescreening as many as 50 million Americans, but

you have to remember that we’re dealing with very smart terrorists

today. They are professionals at identity theft. A number of the

September 11th terrorists used that method, document forgery, creation of fictitious identities, and when you get one of these smart

cards, as they’re called, they’re only as good as the initial establishment of identity.

So for instance, the leader of the September 11th attacks had a

graduate degree in city planning, and a number of the other terrorists have either had pilot’s licenses or pilot training, other master

terrorists have had engineering backgrounds, many of them have

frequent flier cards, and they have the full panoply of ID that we

expect of a normal American traveler. In order to screen out that

sort of thing, you would have to engage in some very legally questionable profiling involving not only national origin, religion, a

whole host of things that I think would cause serious problems.

The airlines that I’ve heard their proposals of anyway are not talking about any kind of negative profiling with respect to this. It

would be nondiscriminatory and probably not restricted even to

Americans.

The other big problem with it is that it’s in effect reverse or positive profiling and instead of saying this is a group that we need to

give extra attention to because there could be a higher correlation

of them being a terrorist, we’re going to say, well, this group are

good guys and we don’t have to worry so much about them or we

don’t have to worry about them at all.

Profiling historically has been a failure in aviation security. If we

go back to the original anti-hijacking profile system in the 1960’s,

before metal detectors, before x-ray machines, we were up to almost one hijacking a week and we had a profiling system, essentially an eyeball profiling system at that time. Profiling has had its

successes, but it’s also had dramatic failures. They tried to profile

the Unabomber for 6 years. It failed. And, in the case of the CAP

system, which is the current profiling system, that obviously failed

to check or detect any of the 19 hijackers on September 11th, even

though apparently six or seven of them should have been flagged.

So profiling, whether it’s negative or positive, has major problems. It is necessary to do it, but it’s not something you can rely

on over a universal system.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Tierney. I want to followup on a couple

specific questions. Mr. O’Brien, you heard Mr. Yeffet’s testimony

about the personal interviews. Do you support that as part and

parcel of our security processes?

Mr. O’BRIEN. Yes, indeed. It is an important element in our overall systems approach to security.

Mr. OSE. 100 percent or a select portion of the passenger load?

Mr. O’BRIEN. I’m not sure that we heard 100 percent requirement, even though we’ve vacillated around that. We talked about

a mini set of questions, and depending on how that mini set of

120

questions went, then you went into more detailed questioning. So

it was sort of a domino-type system depending on the initial reaction. So if you take it from that perspective, everybody would get

some initial questioning. So it would be 100 percent from that perspective. The detailed questioning would entirely depend upon

what kind of response you got from the initial questions.

Mr. OSE. But the initial questions, the 2-minute drill, so to

speak, you would support that?

Mr. O’BRIEN. Some version of that, and again that would depend

upon the other components of the total systems approach to doing

business.

Mr. OSE. The third and the fourth and the fifth layers, so to

speak?

Mr. O’BRIEN. Exactly. We spend a lot of time talking about the

events of September 11th and these 19 individuals and what would

and would not have worked. There’s no guarantee that we’re going

to ever face that scenario again, so that speaks highly to a systems

approach that takes a much broader view of potential terrorists

threats. Some that we’ve already experienced, some that we know

about but have not experienced yet. So we really do need a systems

approach. Everything from the 100 percent bag matching to you

name it, many of the things that we haven’t talked about today

that are included in some of the testimony I’ve read.

Mr. OSE. You support something more than the present two

questions?

Mr. O’BRIEN. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Friend, how about the flight attendants?

Ms. FRIEND. We do, and it may be as simple as just changing the

way you ask a question so it’s no longer a ‘‘yes or no’’ question, but

I think the real issue here is who is asking the question. It’s not

unlike our testimony on the airlines using flight attendants to do

aircraft security sweeps. We are now asking overworked airline

ticket agents to ask these questions while they’re also trying to

check bags and assign seats and check connections.

It should be a function of a newly created Transportation Security Agency and those personnel to ask these questions. Their only

job is security.

Mr. OSE. OK. You guys deal with this every day. Mr. Roth and

I are probably occasional travelers. Mr. Roth, your opinion on

the——

Mr. ROTH. I will tell you that the last time I traveled, which was

about a month ago, I got asked the questions by the person at the

baggage counter, and I had to keep pushing my driver’s license to

them. They were more concerned about someone not being on the

shift, and, therefore, the line piling up and I was like begging, you

know, don’t you want to see it.

Mr. OSE. Your point, take that off the guy at the gate or the

counter.

Mr. ROTH. I agree with taking it off. They’re not paying attention

to it. And it’s silly to ask the question if you’re not going to look

at the person and take it seriously.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson.

Mr. HUDSON. I would agree that we need to take questioning

away from the airline personnel and give it to the new security perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00124 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
121

sonnel. I think a few questions for everyone are appropriate. And,

as I’ve indicated in my written testimony, certain people should, in

effect, get an interrogation.

Mr. OSE. Let me work backward from my right to the left. Mr.

Hudson, you support a match between the passengers and the baggage, 100 percent, if I understand your testimony.

Mr. HUDSON. Yes. The reason for that and why it’s so important

initially is we don’t have the screening equipment, we don’t have

the bomb detectors in place. If we had 100 percent screening of

baggage with bomb detectors as well as machines to detect weapons for the carry-ons, that would not be so important.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Mr. Roth.

Mr. ROTH. I’m going to have to pass on that one.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Friend.

Ms. FRIEND. Yes, we support it. Initially it may be the only

means we have to improve the security of our checked baggage because there aren’t enough of the explosive detectors to do 100 percent screening. But even after we have sufficient equipment to do

100 percent screening, those machines are not absolutely guaranteed 100 percent accurate either. And so, the continued use of passenger baggage match adds another layer of security.

There was a study done—MIT participated in it—in the past few

years on baggage match in the domestic market. And, it is not impossible. That has been the position of the industry all along that

it would bring the entire system grinding to a halt. This study

proved that, in fact, that is not true. That it could be implemented

domestically and be integrated into the system without a great deal

of trouble. They simply don’t want to do it.

Mr. OSE. Mr. O’Brien, how do the pilots feel?

Mr. O’BRIEN. We support 100 percent screening and 100 bag

match. I disagree entirely with the opinions I heard earlier today

that it would grind the system to a halt. We have seen technology

that obviously is in the prototype stage now that would make passenger bag matching a very simple process. It could be used far beyond just the matching process. So it’s a matter of time to get all

this implemented, but we should have or continue to have a goal

of 100 percent screening and matching.

Mr. OSE. All right. I just want to summarize. You all support the

initial questioning something more than yes or no. You support,

those who responded, passenger baggage match. My time has expired.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I just want to ask, I think, Ms. Friend

and Mr. Roth, and maybe Mr. O’Brien has some people that his organization represents that might be affected. Is there any reason

that any of you see that people that were laid off as a result of the

events of September 11th, a significant number of people that are

associated with the airline industry, could not be re-employed as

part of the security operation with the proper physicals and training?

Ms. FRIEND. None that I’m aware of.

122

Mr. O’BRIEN. I think that several of the people who have been

laid off could make very valuable contributions to what we’re trying

to do in the security sense.

Mr. ROTH. AFGE would agree with that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ms. Friend, you also agree?

Ms. FRIEND. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. It’s something that a number of us have been advocating. I assume that you would have some reason if you didn’t

agree with us, that’s why I asked the question. The last question

I have is basically a throw-away question out of curiosity. Mr.

O’Brien, is there a valid reason why people flying from New York

or Boston to Washington on the shuttle cannot get out of their seat

in the last half hour of the flight?

Ms. FRIEND. It’s only to National.

Mr. O’BRIEN. As I understand, as Ms. Friend just said, it’s going

into National.

Ms. FRIEND. It’s only into National Airport, and that’s because

Reagan National is guaranteed the gold standard of aviation security, unlike the rest of the airports in this country, which apparently are only guaranteed second rate aviation security. I can tell

you in case you want to know what happens if you do get up

because—— Mr. OSE. Tell us.

Mr. TIERNEY. Why is it that you can’t get up?

Ms. FRIEND. I can only assume that they somehow think that

adds to the security. But—— Mr. TIERNEY. As representative of the flight attendants, do you

think it adds to the security?

Ms. FRIEND. No, it’s window dressing.

Mr. O’BRIEN. It obviously is a first step in a profile that has been

developed, a scenario of events that leads to a particular situation.

And those who are very anxious from a security perspective to prevent that sequence of events from ever occurring—— Mr. TIERNEY. The sequence of events we have profiled from September 11th is you get up early in the flight where there’s still a

lot of fuel on board, not in the last half hour when you’re drained

out.

Mr. O’BRIEN. Absolutely true. But there are other—without getting into details, there are other scenarios other than September

11th. I only remind you that we should not be concentrating—— Mr. TIERNEY. I agree with you fully on that. It’s a rule that on

its face without some further explanation doesn’t seem to be helpful. But I’m willing to admit that it may well be. We may just be

thinking of all the possibilities.

Ms. FRIEND. It’s also true on takeoff out of Reagan National,

you’re not allowed out of your seat during the first 30 minutes after

departure, the first 30 minutes inbound. Theoretically that somehow makes people feel more comfortable if no one is up moving

around.

The fact is, Mr. O’Brien can speak to this better than I can, but

I think the flying distance between Dulles and the Capitol building,

if you will, is maybe 3 minutes as opposed to 1 minute from National. So I’m not sure why National is treated differently.

Mr. TIERNEY. What’s good for one is good for the others in that.

123

Mr. O’BRIEN. Maybe it has something to do with perception.

Ms. FRIEND. Window dressing, John.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you all very, very much for your testimony.

Mr. OSE. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes.

Mr. OSE. She offered to tell us what happened if you do get out

of your seat.

Ms. FRIEND. Oh, you don’t know.

Mr. OSE. I stay in my seat.

Ms. FRIEND. We had an incident a couple of weeks ago where

someone got up and ignored the direction to sit down. He was tackled and handcuffed by two air marshals who held him with guns

drawn while the aircraft diverted to Dulles.

Mr. OSE. The plane diverts to Dulles and you’re under arrest.

Ms. FRIEND. You’re under arrest, right. And, all of your fellow

travelers are greatly inconvenienced and will never forget your face

as long as they live, I’m sure.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson, you had something you were going to add

there when Mr. Tierney was questioning.

Mr. HUDSON. I just think that it doesn’t take too much imagination to understand why they have that rule now, particularly coming in and out of Reagan National Airport.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess the imagination would be if you have secured the cockpit, then it takes a little more imagination to figure

why it is important for the last half hour, the last 45 minutes, the

last hour, the first 45 minutes, the first hour.

Mr. HUDSON. I would remind you we had another incident of a

plane coming to Chicago where an individual got up and charged

the cockpit door and crashed into the cockpit and was subdued by

passengers. Although we have some more bars on the doors, we, by

no means, have fully secure cockpits at this time. Having a lot of

people standing up at the bathroom next to the cockpit or other

places is viewed by many as a would-be potential security risk.

Mr. OSE. I have a couple more questions, if I might. There’s no

provision in the law addressing the non-medical, non-firemen, nonEMT person who is asked by a flight attendant or otherwise assumes a responsibility to act in a situation—where’s that chart? If

I understand, under the voluntary emergency help, there is no liability for police, firemen or EMTs in terms of providing that assistance to crews in an emergency. What happens if there are no

police, firemen, or EMTs and a passenger is asked, for instance, as

they would be in an exit row? Is that something that needs to be

covered in rules and regulations in terms of some sort of a buffer

from liability when properly asked?

Mr. O’BRIEN. I think in our testimony we suggested expanding

the types or numbers of individuals that would be covered. But certainly it’s an issue that needs to be looked at. I’ll just give you an

example. There are some organizations who have people travel

quite a bit and are connected with the aviation industry. And,

those people let themselves be identified to the crew or to the cabin

staff as people who will assist if called upon.

Mr. OSE. PWAs, people like that?

Mr. O’BRIEN. Many. Right. And that kind of assistance in today’s

environment, I think, is appreciated. So those kind of individuals

124

we would hope would not be exposed to some kind of liability as

a result of being the good samaritan.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Friend, would the flight attendants agree?

Ms. FRIEND. Exactly. I think it’s unrealistic to expect that after

the events of September 11th, any passenger is going to just sit

quietly as told in a situation like that. And certainly people who

are willing to come forward and help and offer their assistance

should not be punished. They should not be subject to some liability.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Roth, any observations?

Mr. ROTH. I couldn’t agree more. As a passenger, I’ve been, you

know, flying and in a row when we’ve all said to each other anything happens, you know, we’re going for him. So yes, I think there

should be some sort of immunity, some good faith immunity built

into the statute or the regulations.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson.

Mr. HUDSON. Yes, we would support good samaritan type laws

in that area.

Mr. OSE. These would be rules and regulations at this point.

So, the other issue that I was checking into the red eye flight last

night, which I was just fascinated by, was the new carry-on language. I’ll read it to you. It says each passenger is allowed one

carry-on bag. Exception: one personal item, such as a purse or

laptop, a briefcase, a diaper bag, a camera case, or a small backpack.

In addition, a food item, an assistive device, one duty-free bag,

a child-restraint device, a coat/jacket or an umbrella. The maximum free bag allowance is three bags. You can check 2 and carry

on 1. You can check 3 and no carry-ons. It would seem to me that—

I mean, it just seems very simple to me that the less baggage you

put through the terminal-based screening process and into the

cabin, the less your challenges from a carry-on security issue and

the quicker you can get the people seated and the plane out.

Now, this was effective October 9th. Do the regulations that the

Department of Transportation is going to consider need to look at

this again and more clearly define what may be taken on both in

terms of size and number? I mean, I’ve seen people they walk down

the—what’s the thing that goes out to the plane?

Ms. FRIEND. Jetway.

Mr. OSE. They walk down the jetway, they have a young child,

they leave the child restraint device, you know they’re carriage or

whatever, they take the baby seat inside, they put the thing down.

I understand that one. But beyond that, I don’t understand why—

boy, I’m going to get in trouble on this one, I don’t understand why

someone needs a suitcase, a clothes carry bag, a briefcase. Am I

missing something here?

Mr. O’BRIEN. No, you’re not missing anything at all. Beyond security, there are many safety implications associated with the

carry-on baggage. I think that Pat can probably speak more closely

to the problems in the cabin itself with carry-on baggage. I know

that our organization, as many as 15 years ago, had petitioned the

FAA to limit the number of carry-on bags and the size of the bags

for operational safety concerns.

125

I’m not talking about things flying about the cabin. We’re concerned about weight and balance. There was one major airline that

almost lost a couple of airplanes taking off out of a high altitude

airport in South America, it turned out, when they weighed the

carry-on baggage, they were several thousand pounds overweight

because of the carry-on baggage.

The normal dispatch requirements today give you a basic number that you allocate to each carry-on bag that you assume is going

to come on. It bears no resemblance to surveys that have been conducted weighing actual bags in busy terminals. People have done

this; universities have done some studies; students have done doctorate and masters theses on it.

There are some very good papers written about the situation

from a safety perspective. Couple that to the point you’re making.

Mr. OSE. They didn’t need to kill all those trees and write all

those papers to do the common sense thing here.

Ms. FRIEND. John is right. This is not a problem that was created

by the events of September 11th. In fact, we have a petition that’s

been pending for some time with the FAA asking them to issue a

carry on baggage rule, a single bag and with a specific size so that

there isn’t all that interpretation. They have not responded to our

petition. However, in response to the events of September 11th,

they did issue a security directive with this so-called one plus. That

security directive could be amended, eliminated at any time. We

absolutely believe that a carry-on bag limitation and a size limitation on that baggage must go into the regulations in order to ensure that we don’t go back to business as usual as soon as the FAA

gets a chance.

Mr. OSE. I do think this speaks directly to the efficacy by which

we process people who are getting ready to board on planes. I

mean, it just—— Ms. FRIEND. We don’t tell them what they need to know. We

leave them up in the air.

Mr. OSE. Then they argue with the gate agent.

Ms. FRIEND. That’s right. The industry has resisted it as well because, of course, they don’t want to inconvenience or have disagreements with their passengers. But, we noted in their testimony

today that even they recognize the fact that if you’re looking for a

needle in a haystack, if you reduce the size of the haystack, your

chances are better of finding the needle. We think that supports

our carry-on baggage argument completely.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hudson, anything?

Mr. Roth.

Mr. HUDSON. I think you should know the background for an

issue which predates September 11th. Most surveys have been

done of particularly frequent travelers find that one of the No. 1

things they want more of is more space for carry-on luggage. Now,

there’s a couple reasons for that. One is convenience and one is security. Not security of the airplanes, but security of the baggage.

Statistic is 1 out of 200 bags is presently mishandled by the airlines, damaged, lost, delayed, whatever. Most passengers have gone

through that once, don’t want to have it repeated.

So there has been a great increase over the years of use of carryons. The other reason is convenience. It takes generally at least anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Jan 06, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00129 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82548.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
126

other 20 minutes if you check your bag, and now, in the current

environment, it’s going to take you probably somewhere between

an hour and 2 hours extra if you check your bag versus go to carryon.

On the other hand, we have changed our position from supporting the prior two-bag limit, and we now favor going to one small

bag that can be hand-searched, which is more stringent than what

we have now. And, we also feel that people should voluntarily reduce their carry-ons. And we suggested that for a large airport,

perhaps you should have a line for no carry-on luggage that would

go faster and would encourage people further to go to checking luggage.

Mr. OSE. Not like the 10 items or less where you get people with

12 items but no carry-on?

Mr. HUDSON. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Thank you. I have no further questions. We’re going to

leave the record open for 10 days. We may have questions we’d like

to direct to you in writing. We would appreciate your response. Today’s hearing did show how much work we have to do on this issue

to ensure smooth implementation of this new law. I encourage DOT

to reflect on these panels’ combined wisdom in terms of implementing these recommendations. Our witnesses, including the four of

you, truly have given us compelling testimony and you are experts

in your field. We appreciate your coming here.

I just want to repeat what I said in my first remarks, we are

talking about people’s lives here. And, from my perspective, we

have no room for error. I may not agree with some of your comments about how to get to zero tolerance, but I’m hopeful that, in

the course of the testimony today, we were able to give the agencies that are going to issue these regulations some sense of what

we’re doing.

My compliments to your people, Mr. O’Brien, Ms. Friend. Mr.

Roth, thank you for coming. Mr. Hudson, I can’t even imagine what

it must be like to do what you do. You have our thoughts and prayers. Thank you all for coming.

[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

Æ