By 2007, when Stephanie and I met with Brill and Olson, RT was still moving along, but remained essentially a “cut to the front of the line” benefit without any value added in the background check or changes to the security process at the gate. I had given Stephanie responsibility for RT, but her main priority was fixing issues related Secure Flight, the TSA’s own program, which required passengers to register basic personal information before flying. The info was then matched against the no-fly list, a task previously handled by the airlines.
Even after the meeting at Ted Olson’s office, RT remained on Stephanie’s back burner until she found herself spending more and more time dealing with Steve Brill, who was spending a ton of money to promote Registered Traveler. Brill, Stephanie soon learned, had reached people higher up the food chain throughout the federal government. His connections sometimes made her work difficult, and the constant pressure from senior staff at the DHS, Capitol Hill, and elsewhere made her life miserable. She took comfort in the fact that if the political heat forced her to leave TSA, she could always go back to the private sector and draw a much larger paycheck.
The program’s goal was to get RTs through the checkpoint as easily as possible. The proposal even included a proprietary product, called a ClearCard, that would replace a government-issued ID. But RT ultimately offered zero additional security value. The “background checks” were little more than a marketing point. Though Brill and the program’s other sponsors wouldn’t have known it, virtually all of the serious al-Qaeda operatives involved in major aviation plots would have easily cleared RT-type screening. I wanted the checkpoints to be easier and faster too, but I couldn’t possibly allow RT cardholders to keep their shoes on when I knew that al-Qaeda was training operatives with clean backgrounds and shoe bombs. I also wasn’t crazy about the idea of giving our imprimatur—and therefore, the government’s stamp of approval and public money—for a private-industry “security” venture.
Because Brill was tireless in his lobbying, PR, and media efforts, I suggested ideas to develop the product, like training behavior-detection officers or doing off-airport security screening in midtown Manhattan. He was earnest but uninterested in getting involved in the security process—he saw that as our job. Brill just wanted to get RTs through checkpoints quickly, and preferably wearing their shoes and jackets, with their laptops in their cases. After an excruciating and lengthy process, and tantalizingly close to the holy grail for frequent fliers, Brill finally uncovered a new technology that could have changed the whole picture: a combined biometric card reader and ShoeScanner.
The ShoeScanner was a technology pioneered by GE that would, in theory, allow travelers to walk through a small, floor-based, explosives detection system with their shoes on. It was a great idea. Everybody hated taking their shoes off, and offering this service to travelers would be a huge boon to the ClearCard program. It also encouraged me to get behind RT. But after we had publicly heralded a trial of the device at Orlando International, George Zarur found something in the technology that, in an ironic twist, our much-maligned overly bureaucratic process had missed during the ShoeScanner’s expedited review. For the next month, George tested what the device did, and it was not enough to stay in airports. Instead of partnering with private industry to improve and speed up security, we ended up with egg on our face. But pulling the units was our only choice.
The battle finally culminated in Congress, a body that had long been a booster of the RT program. Secretary Chertoff was good enough to accompany me to the closed-door congressional hearing. “Explain to me,” Chertoff said, “why a member of the American public should send his information to the government, ask us to issue an ID, and then turn around and pay $100 to an outside businessman to go to the head of our line?” Chertoff hammered home the security points with his relentless logic. We never got the improved, expedited security that could have improved our credibility and in the end, the whole saga was just a distraction from what we knew to be active plotting against aviation. But at least the full-court press on Registered Traveler was over.
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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.