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TSA Head Questions Full Plane Cargo Inspections
Legislation to require inspections of all passenger airplane cargo would create “a very small, incremental benefit for security” while possibly creating vulnerabilities in other sectors of airport protection, the head of the Transportation Security Administration said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 10). Focusing airport personnel on cargo checks might mean less emphasis on screening airport employees, checking passenger documents and monitoring potentially suspicious travelers, said TSA chief Kim Hawley. “If you spend all your resources opening boxes and not applying your resources more generally, that opens up vulnerability,” he told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Aviation Subcommittee. “The adaptive terrorist will go there.” A small percentage of the 6 billion tons of cargo now carried annually on passenger planes undergoes inspection by bomb-detecting technology or dogs, USA Today reported. The House of Representatives last week approved a homeland security bill that calls for cargo to undergo the same full inspections given to passenger luggage by October 2009. It is not clear in the bill if the responsibility would fall on the agency or airlines. Senate legislation is expected to be less demanding. Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he believes the agency should have flexibility in handling cargo security improvements, a spokeswoman told The agency has already added dog teams for cargo inspection and requires that packages brought to airports for shipping to go through bomb detection machines, Hawley said. It also sets security requirements on firms that use passenger flights to move goods (Thomas Frank, USA Today, Jan. 18).
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