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TSA Dragnet Aims to Block Potential Threats

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 29, 2007

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Like Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, squads of special security agents are fanning out across the country in an effort to stop potential security threats posed by airport and airline employees.

The Transportation Security Administration's dragnet follows the arrest in San Juan of a Florida-based worker who allegedly smuggled drugs and guns onto a Comair flight.

More than 800,000 airline and airport employees have had unrestricted access to planes -- even though the nationwide alert system for aviation has been stuck on orange, or high, since British authorities broke up a plot last August to bomb planes bound for the U.S.

Because of recent problems in the region, the TSA targeted Florida and Puerto Rico airports first, sending out 160 special officers to screen the screeners, as well as others with previously-free access. The list includes mechanics, baggage handlers, and fuel workers, among others.

Although all airport and airline employees must submit to TSA background checks, random screening of such workers started only last year -- five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Such employees need electronic photo ID cards to enter secured areas but have not been required to submit to regular screening. That void is about to close.

In fact, Congress will soon consider a bill that requires the TSA to conduct a six-month test of total screening for employees at five selected airports. Passage is probable, since the absence of screening for workers is a bipartisan issue with strong Congressional support.

Under the TSA's latest action, squads of security officers -- including air marshals, screeners, and special inspectors -- will hone in on particular airports and spend days examining security procedures, screening workers, and even examining passenger cabins of parked planes.

Their presence is expected to have a deterrent effect on potential problems.

Critics of the new plan contend that checking employees as well as passengers will clog screening lines and create massive delays. But the TSA insists that screening of airline and airport workers will be conducted separately and apart from the passenger security areas.

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