HumanEvents

Eighty Per Cent of Dulles Baggage Screeners Not American By Timothy P. Carney The Week of October 1, 2001

Kenneth Mead, inspector general of the Department of Transportation, testified in Congress last week that 80%, or more, of the security screeners at Dulles International Airport in nearby northern Virginia are not U.S. citizens.

The hijacked American Airlines flight that smashed into the Pentagon on September 11 originated at Dulles.

At a September 20 hearing, when asked the citizenship status of the screeners at Dulles, Mead said that "a substantial percentage of them are not U.S. citizens."

"What per cent?" asked Rep. Harold Rogers (R.-Ky.).

"I think it’s about 80%. It may be somewhat more," said Mead.

"Eighty per cent of the people checking for terrorists at Dulles Airport are not American citizens?" asked Rogers in disbelief.

"I believe that’s so, sir," said Mead.

"What is wrong with this picture?" commented Rogers.

Federal law requires that such workers be either citizens or legal residents.

Argenbright Security, a subsidiary of the British company Securicor, holds contracts at 46 U.S. airports and provides about 40% of all U.S. airport security personnel. Before September 11, according to a report in the Washington Times, the FAA fined Argenbright $1 million and placed the firm on 36 months probation for "failing to conduct background checks on its airport-security employees in Philadelphia."

Argenbright did not return calls from Human Events.

The FBI reportedly found knives hidden between seat cushions on planes grounded on September 11. Those knives, and the weapons actually used by the terrorists who seized the flights that day, could well have been planted by baggage handlers or other airport workers with access to planes.

Since September 14, Mead testified, the government has "arrested 12 non-U.S. citizens who illegally obtained security badges necessary to gain admittance to secure areas at another major U.S. airport."

The Government Accounting Office found in a report issued last week that the yearly turnover for baggage screeners exceeded 100% at most large airports. This means that the average baggage screener has very little experience, and that the firms that employ these workers have to hire new ones before they have had much time to check their backgrounds.

The Airport Security Improvement Act of 2000 requires FBI criminal checks for certain employees. This law is already in effect at larger airports, but is not scheduled to go fully into effect at smaller airports until the end of 2003. It does not require checks on current employees, only new hires.

Mead testified that it may not be feasible to do good background checks on immigrants who have not been in this country for long. He said the government should consider requiring credit checks and proof of citizenship and employ "an automated profiling system that takes into consideration factors including an individual’s place of birth."

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001

Answers

"Eighty Per Cent of Dulles Baggage Screeners Not American"

I think you could have said about the same for software programmers doing government y2k remediation, and presumably there wasn't time to follow security protocols.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001

say, Brooks, maybe that was how they managed to get the info on code words at the whitehouse on Sept 11. y2k work on the machines in the whitehouse...a backdoor...some minimal programming...

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2001

Could have been one of the minimum wage cleaners or waiters or whatever, too. Didn't have to be a foreigner.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2001