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The following is an excerpt from Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA and the Fight for the Future of American Security, by Kip Hawley and Nathan Means(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
One day in 2007 Stephanie Rowe, who was in charge of the identity- based programs at TSA, including Registered Traveler, accompanied me to a meeting with Ted Olson, one of the most respected and powerful lawyers in the country. Stephanie, who normally poured her considerable energies into solving TSA’s mission challenges rather than political issues, had no idea who he was at the time, but one glance at the marble and dark wood accents in Olson’s downtown Washington office told her that she was definitely in one of the preeminent halls of DC power.
We sat down opposite Olson and his client, Steve Brill, the founder of the CourtTV cable channel and American Lawyer magazine. The subject of our meeting was Registered Traveler, a proposed public-private partnership that would allow frequent flyers to submit a background check and pay $100 to move more quickly through airport checkpoints. Brill was a major investor in the program, and while I had green-lighted the program in 2005, it had floundered as companies offering the service had done little other than take the money and let “members” cut to the front of security lines.
Before long, Olson became angry with me, believing I was stonewalling innovation and hiding behind the mantle of “security.” I’m used to taking some heat, and I knew that Steve had him torqued up in anticipation of what I would say, so out of respect for Olson, I took one for the team and listened unperturbed to Ted’s impassioned lambasting.
Stephanie, on the other hand, was outraged. I could feel the steam coming out of her ears as she fidgeted and rattled in the chair next to me. When she got home that night she went on a tirade to her husband, David, about the conversation. After she was done, David said, “You really don’t know who he is, do you?” He gently explained that she had just been in a meeting with the former US Solicitor General, the legal counsel to President Bush’s 2000 campaign, and, on a personal level, a man who had tragically lost his own wife on the American Airlines flight flown into the Pentagon on 9/11. Olson was also a close friend of Secretary Chertoff though he never used that relationship to put further pressure on us.
The idea that the TSA should segment passengers into higher- and lower-risk populations was not a bad concept—indeed, it was part of our original mandate. With 2 million people a day, the TSA could provide better security and quicker lines for everyone if a number of preapproved people went through an expedited security screening.
But it wasn’t until 2003, at the urging of then–secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, that the TSA opened a Registered Traveler program office. Because the TSA leadership was too busy fighting fires, the agency decided to let the private sector figure out the details of Registered Traveler before coming back for approval. By the time I arrived in 2005, RT, as it was known, was concluding a successful technology pilot in DC, Minneapolis, and Orlando. A small population of frequent flyers had been issued biometric RT cards and, after verifying their identity at special card readers, were able to proceed to the front of the security line. Expectations were high. The promise of bypassing long queues and demeaning security treatment fired the imagination of the American frequent flyer.
In October 2005, after a few months on the job, I was invited to a congressional hearing on RT that offered a rare chance for the TSA to score a clear public-relations win and maybe gain a few fans, at least among frequent flyers. Unfortunately, there was a security issue. The so-called vetting for RT members was only an immigration status and terrorist screening database check. Meaning that if you weren’t an illegal alien or already on the FBI’s radar as a terror suspect, you were good to go. Under these criteria, the July 2005 London Underground bombers would all have been eligible for RT cards. So at the hearing I announced that the private sector had to work out a business model to both fund RT and add security value while not inconveniencing the general public and then come back to us for a security evaluation. Then I went back to work on other, more pressing issues.
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5 Comments
Add CommentIt's all a fraud. September 11, the "people who died", "al Qaeda", all of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do they all have ostensible Muslim names? If they wanted to avoid "no fly" lists, one of the first things they would do would be to take Western style names.
If there was a genuine fear of jets being used again, why are small jet carriers, using planes like Learjets, not subject to screening? Becuase they know the rich, who are about the only users of the airlines, won't engage in a protest against the abuse of the Palestinians? Or because they know "terrorism" is a lie?
But, then, there may be something to the idea of not ex[pecting the rich to take up jihad. J.K. Rowling was allowed to carry an unbinspected pouch on board a flight to New York because she said she had the last chapter of "Harry Potter" in it and she didn't want anyone to see any part of it. And because the "reasoning" seems to go, first, big corporate money gets all the privileges, and, second, big corporate money won't suddenly strike out against the system. Not because they see the system as unfair, but because they see it as eminently fair, for them, and they are their only interest. Not the mistreatment of others!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut consider, there was never an attack the magnitidue of September 11 before, and for good reason. It would bring down more of a miltiary reprisal than any "terrorist" organization would want! No genuine, ragtag, dissident "terroist" organization launched September 11. Which means al Qaeda wa not behind it. Consider, too, the technology and supposedly the animosity displayed in staccato high level attacks and plots across the world in the years since September 11 presumably exisated before then, and yet, there were no attacks. The London Underground, Rafik Hariri, Mumbai, Ft. Hood, the "underwear bomber", the "shoe bomber", the Sear Tower plot, Benazir Bhutto, the "Times Square Bomber", the Ft. Dix plot, the plot to mail explosives in printer cartridges to the U.S. A century's worth of major, high profile "terroris" incidents in ten years. Why is everything happening now?
And, if the TSA was so poor in discharging their duty for security, why didn't a "terrorist" get through?
Because there are no "terrorists".
The New World Order had enough of the gullible swindled and they didn't need to enact any more "attacks" on American soil.
Which doesn't mean the U.S. is safe. Whenb enough peoiple start to openly question the "war on 'terror'" and the corporate/governm,ent thugs involved are in danger of being identified and brought to justice for crimes against the people, they'll stage another "attack" to scare enough people silly that whatever good was gained will be in danger of being lost!
The "war on 'terror'" is nothing more than a ploy by the New World Order to mobilize not even everyone, since con jobs don't look to convince everbody, just those too shallow, superifical, feeble minded and insipid to realize they are being played for saps.
You call this a science article? This is just propaganda
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to the above comments - what the heck is wrong with you folks? This is a informative story told by the guy who ran the agency. The "new world order" conspiracy stuff is just sad. We live in a complex world defined by the intersection of many interests, from powerful lawyers to imams reaching for their own kind of power in their particular circumstances. This excerpt sheds some fascinating light on a part of those complexities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe guy shows us how shoot-yourself-in-the-foot stupid our government is being about security and you call it propaganda?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a book excerpt, not an article. Take it up with the author.