New Aviation Security Requirements Contained in Intelligence Reform Act

Congress requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit a risk-based national strategy for transportation security, to include plans by mode of transport, by April 1, 2005, with annual updates every April 1 thereafter.

The modal security plan for aviation shall (1) establish a damage mitigation and recovery plan for the aviation system in the event of a terrorist attack, and (2) include a threat matrix document outlining each threat to U.S. civil aviation and the corresponding layers of security in place to address such threat.

One of many reports to Congress required by this legislation.

Instead of implementing patchwork programs in reaction to every security incident, Congress is seeking a risk-management approach in order to prioritize aviation security resources. This initiative could be a precursor to more regularized cost-benefit analyses of security initiatives.

Hopefully, this strategy will estimate relative risk magnitudes against the effectiveness of countermeasures.

Guidance on the use of such technology in airport access control systems to be issued no later than march 31, 2005. Guidance to include: technical and performance standards to ensure that the biometric identifier systems are "effective, reliable and secure."

Calls for a biometric travel credential for law enforcement officers (LEOs) within 120 days of legislation's enactment (April 17, 2005), and to begin issuing such identification to federal, state and local law enforcement officers; authorizes them to carry weapons aboard aircraft.

Congress is seeking a major effort to standardize access control across the nation.

The Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) has been tasked to develop security-related airport construction guidelines, another part of this overall standardization effort. The ASAC met last month to kick off this project, and its recommendations are expected in one year.

Carriage and use of loaded weapons and the LEO's potentially perilous interface with anonymous armed Air Marshals during an inflight "event" is unclear (blue-on-blue?).

Requires the TSA to commence testing not later than Jan. 1. This is the system intended to replace the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS).

The replacement system has been dubbed "Secure Flight," to downplay any notion of profiling passengers; nonetheless, "Secure Flight" already has generated controversy and skepticism (see ASW, Oct. 4, 2004).

Within 60 days, issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) allowing comparison of passenger information on international flights to or from the U.S. to be compared against the "consolidated and integrated terrorist watch list" before departure.

Not later than 180 days after testing completed, air carriers to be required to submit passenger information need to begin implementing this second-generation system.

Within 90 days of system implementation, expand its coverage to include charter and lessee operations involving aircraft with a maximum take off weight (MTOW) greater than 12,500 pounds.

It is not clear if this testing will demonstrate that the new screening - which might reduce the number of selectees by more than half - will be more effective than existing screening. Will it be guaranteed that screening will not be decreased for non-selectees?

The requirement to compare passenger information before departure of international flights bound for the U.S. marks a major departure from present procedure, where the comparison occurs en route, after the doors have been closed at the gate before pushback (see the Cat Stevens case, ASW, Oct. 11, 2004).

The U.S. wants passenger manifests before the doors close (which could miss last-minute walk-up passengers). The passenger manifest matching process could involve a major harmonization issue with the European Union (EU) and its strict privacy protection protocols.

By extending prescreening to charter operations, the legislation is clearly seeking to prevent terrorists from chartering an aircraft, or boarding one as passengers.

Expands by orders of magnitude the explosives detection portals for passenger screening at five airports today.

Sec. 4021 of the legislation calls for deploying improved explosive detection system equipment, allocating $100 million to support development.

The advanced systems Congress is seeking may be limited to secondary screening.

Experts say more improvements are needed at screening checkpoints, such as full-body X-ray units and walk-through explosives detector portals - perhaps one for every four screening lines at major U.S. airports.

There have been reports of air marshals being required to wear upscale dress, preboarding the aircraft, and to travel to and from known hotels, thus robbing the marshals of their anonymity.

Some disgruntled air marshals have dubbed their supervisors "suit Nazis" for enforcing the dress code.

Another report to Congress.

Trace detection originally was envisioned as a backup or complement to full-scale explosives detection systems but, in the haste following 9/11, trace detectors assumed a primary means of explosives detection at many airports.

Congress did not address the baggage tracking problem associated with in-line screening. Bar codes represent late 1980s technology. RFID (radio frequency identification) is now the technology of choice and is more effective. The U.S. could be in the vanguard promoting a change to RFID.

Moreover, a properly designed system will integrate the passenger check-in process with baggage screening. Boarding pass with RFID for tracking the passenger through screening, with selectees highlighted for additional screening. Likewise, the associated baggage can be tracked by RFID to ensure PPBM.

In short, a systemic approach is needed and is not reflected in this Act.

In concert with the FAA, TSA to study the suitability for wireless technology to enable cabin crew to discreetly notify the pilots in case of a security breach or safety issue in the cabin.

Congress seeks technology that is "readily available and can be quickly integrated" for cabin-cockpit communication.

This call for wireless technology should not be a technological "show stopper." Some airlines installed wireless technology for smoke/fire detection in Class D cargo holds.

An outgrowth of the locked cockpit "fortress door" and terrorists' awareness of the existing cockpit-cabin interphone system.

The report on the study to be submitted to Congress within 180 days (June 17).

Once again, systemic thinking is needed regarding the entire suite of things to be incorporated into the aircraft's unlawful interference protection, e.g., covert closed circuit television (CCTV) in all areas of the cabin, excluding toilets, to enable viewing by the cockpit crew. Transmission of CCTV imagery to ground stations at crew's discretion (see ASW, July 12, 2004).

TSA is directed to develop standards for determining aviation security staffing for all airports at which screening is required.

Comptroller General (Government Accountability Office) to review the TSA standards on an "expedited basis" and report its assessment to Congress regarding their effectiveness, ease of compliance, ease of administering, and consistency with the requirements of existing law.

Another required report to Congress, due 90 days after enactment (March 17).

While calling for a report from TSA, Congress is seeking a "second opinion" from the GAO as to what the TSA develops and recommends.

The legislation contains nearly four full pages of detailed requirements regarding the MANPADS threat to commercial aviation. Briefly, the legislation requires:

• Pursuit on "an urgent basis" of a program to limit the proliferation of MANPADS. As soon as practicable, the FAA to establish a process for certifying the airworthiness of MANPADS defense systems for installation on commercial aircraft; as part of this process, the FAA will accept Dept. of Homeland Security certification that the system is "effective and functional" to defend commercial aircraft.
• The President to provide Congress within 180 days a "detailed description" of programs being pursued to counter the proliferation of MANPADS, with annual reports to follow until counter-proliferation programs are no longer needed.
• Secretary of Homeland Security to submit within one year a report to Congress describing his plans to secure airports and arriving/departing aircraft against MANPADS attacks. The report to include: ways to improve intelligence sharing on the MANPADS threat, and contingency plans upon receipt of intelligence indicating a high threat of MANPADS attack on aircraft at or near U.S. airports.

Requires a report to Congress within 180 days (June 17) on the status of efforts to counter the proliferation of MANPADS.

Requires a report to Congress 90 days after the FAA issues its first missile defense system certification, and annually thereafter until Dec. 31, 2008, a detailed description of every such missile defense system certified for commercial aircraft.

Sec. 6902 declares any person involved in producing, acquiring, importing, exporting, possessing or threatening to use MANPADS faces potential criminal penalties of 25 years to life in prison and $2 million in fines.

The cost-benefit of MANPADS defense deployment is a deep mystery. TSA officials have refused to say whether this multimillion dollar defense systems development effort has been justified on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis.

Report to Congress due in six months (June 17). Some carriers, such as United Airlines [UALAQ] already are installing secondary barriers (see ASW, Sept. 27, 2004, and Oct. 25).

If United can do so two years into bankruptcy, is a six-month study really necessary?

Establishes a pilot program for blast-resistant cargo containers, with financial incentives for operators to participate (thereby offsetting the costs associated with the greater weight of the blast-resistant containers).

Requires TSA to develop improved means of identifying, screening and tracking air cargo, providing $600 million over three years to support the effort.

Provides $300 million over three years for R&D on next-generation cargo security to support "exploration of alternative technologies for minimizing the potential effects of detonation of an explosive device on cargo and passenger aircraft."

Requires TSA to publish within 240 days (8 months) the final rule on its security initiative for all-cargo aircraft published Nov. 10, 2004, for public comment (see ASW, Nov. 22, 2004).

The FAA has been quietly exploring hardening and design changes to minimize the effects of an explosion on board an aircraft. Blast-resistant overhead bins have been tested successfully.

Design changes under consideration involve increased segregation and separation of vital flight control systems, up to 5 ft., to minimize total loss of control in the event of a terrorist bomb blast (see ASW, July 29, 2002).

As for hardened cargo containers, they take a real beating in service and can lose their ballistics integrity in a few days. It has been reported that these hardened containers would only be used for "suspicious" bags or shipments. Anything deemed "suspicious" should never be put on an airplane.

"Not later than one year after the enactment of this Act, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center" shall submit to Congress unclassified and classified versions of a strategy for combining terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement into a cohesive effort to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility domestically and internationally."

The strategy is to address, inter alia, the feasibility of digitally transmitting suspect passenger information to a central cadre of experts.

"The current lack of a single convention for translating Arabic names enabled some of the 19 hijackers of aircraft [9/11] to vary the spelling of their names to defeat name-based terrorist watch list systems."

"It is the sense of the Congress that the President should enter into an international agreement to modernize and improve standards for the transliteration of names into the Roman alphabet in order to ensure one common spelling for such names for international travel documents and name-based watch list systems."

The problem is not as simple as spelling. Arab names tend to be lengthy, show lineage and in their full version might have a genealogical stem that may (or may not) be included in all documentation (e.g. Bassam el-Saif bin Abdul Aziz abu Bakir el-Wahabbi). In some areas it may be commonplace for different individuals to carry essentially the same name, whether or not they are in a familial lineage.

In other cases, many persons have four or more names, and each of the names can be spelled in different ways. The perturbation is obvious (4x4x4x4 = 256).

This section of the Act suggests that someone did not understand the full nature of the problem.

Ignores the problem of the "sleeper" terrorist, who assimilates into society and attains registered traveler status to lull authorities.

Some security experts point out that the U.S. has no profile of Al Qaeda terrorists. (Cont'd on p. 8)

However, a single design to which all states must conform is prohibited. In addition, Sec. 7214 of this Act prohibits the use of social security account numbers on drivers' licenses or other ID.

The legislation has been written in such a way as to downplay the controversial notion of a national ID card (see ASW, Oct. 4, 2004).

The legislation does not require a biometric to enable verification of the identity of the individual in possession of the license.