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Congress Must Make Air Travel Safe
NY Daily News
| 11/13/01
| SEN. JOHN KERRY
Posted on 11/13/2001 8:57:53 AM PST by sakic
Wounds still unhealed — particularly in this city that has suffered so much and taught us all lessons in courage — are again rubbed raw. Yesterday's tragic American Airlines crash in New York leaves all our citizens with understandable anxiety and unanswered questions.
But one question that should be answered is precisely what the government is going to do to ensure the safety, security and confidence in flying of the traveling public.
With the busiest travel day of the year fast approaching, and Americans anxious about flying, Congress needs to send the message to the American people that flying in the United States will not just be safer, but as safe as it can be. Security must be the only bottom line. Americans are right to insist that the government's first job is to keep us safe, and we know from history there are some things only the government can do. Maintaining the security of the public is one of them.
That is precisely why we don't contract out to the lowest bidder the security of the President, or allow the Army, Navy or Air Force to be subject to the whims of market forces. It's time to insist on the same high standards of security in every airport in this country. Airport security must now be a part of national security.
To keep terrorists off airplanes requires close coordination between intelligence communities and federal and state law enforcement agencies. Airport security personnel must be full partners in that network. The current system — minimum-wage jobs, nonexistent health benefits, frequent turnover — is one where cost containment drives business. It's just not good enough.
Security requires uniformity — each airport is a link in a chain, and terrorists must never be allowed to find a weak link and exploit it — and that means every worker must be a skilled professional. Ending the days of poorly trained security screeners and replacing them with highly trained, frequently tested, federal employees is part of the answer.
It's also critical to achieve better coordination of intelligence among federal agencies — harnessing technology to give security personnel the latest information on passengers by creating databases and alerting workers at the gate of potentially dangerous travelers.
The screening of checked baggage must be a top priority. Installing more — and more sophisticated — screening equipment quickly will occur only through aggressive funding of federal research and development.
Technology already is available to match names and faces to federal terrorism watch lists through video surveillance and the authentication of identification presented at check-in. A pilot program involving facial-recognition technology will soon begin at Boston's Logan Airport. That and similar technology employing biometrics may help prevent would-be terrorists from entering secure areas like baggage-handling facilities or even the tarmac — and should be deployed nationwide.
Smarter use of technology can help keep potential terrorists off our planes. We know much of what it takes to make America's airports not just safer, but as safe as they can be.
At a time when Americans have so many unanswered questions, let's not leave our ability to respond to our airports' security needs in question. Congress needs to pass, and President Bush should sign, airport security measures that put passenger safety first.
TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
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Why won't Bush make the airports more secure?
1
posted on
11/13/2001 8:57:54 AM PST
by
sakic
To: sakic
Kicking out the muslims would be a good first step.
To: sakic
Sorry John, government programs have a way of not accomplishing their goals.
War On Drugs, War On Poverty, etc etc, but notably the agency charged with aviation safety: the FAA.
To: KirklandJunction
Do you prefer the current system of giving the job to the bidders that have so far been a complete failure?
It's astonishing that people can still carry weapons through airport security considering our supposed "hight alert" state. Something has to be done and soon or the government will be spending millions to bail out all of the air carriers.
4
posted on
11/13/2001 9:10:02 AM PST
by
sakic
To: Clinton's a rapist
Kicking out the Muslims is a separate issue. The time for incompetency in airline security has got to come to an end.
5
posted on
11/13/2001 9:11:12 AM PST
by
sakic
To: sakic
No, I don't prefer the current system.
The FAA isn't doing that part of their job and I wonder if you think they or any other federal agency could?
To: sakic
I want the government to make me secure. I want them to guarantee that I will NEVER DIE. Thanks idiot kerry!
7
posted on
11/13/2001 9:15:07 AM PST
by
lawdude
To: KirklandJunction
I certainly hope that you're not suggesting that the FAA has not accomplished anything contributing to the overall safety of passengers and flight crews. But just like any federal agency (i.e. NASA), the FAA's capability is constrained by their financial disposition. Commercial aviation isn't cheap, unfortunately. If it was, I'd be concerned, as I think you would be too. Regardless, saying that the FAA has failed worse than other federal "wars" is not appropriate. If you do feel that way, I encourage you to recommend your ideas for restructuring the national airspace, addressing the modifications to airports, airspace, nav equipment, noise pollution and airport infrastructure issues due to the introduction sonic commercial transports, increased aircraft density, and of course, the word of the day, security.
8
posted on
11/13/2001 9:16:19 AM PST
by
HaveBlue
To: sakic
Airlines should raise the fares as much as needed to pay for quality security.
Cops and Military personnel should fly for free domestically, and they must be armed..... they also must remain reasonably sober for the duration of the flight.
If those fail, then we must make everyone fly naked and without luggage....JetVeryBlue Airlines. ;o)
9
posted on
11/13/2001 9:19:26 AM PST
by
wheezer
To: sakic
But one question that should be answered is precisely what the government is going to do to ensure the safety, security and confidence in flying of the traveling public. Since they aren't going to do what would actually work (allow people who have demonstrated themselves to be well-trained law-abiding citizens to travel armed), my eyes glaze over when presented with their new seating arrangement for the Titanic.
10
posted on
11/13/2001 9:19:46 AM PST
by
steve-b
To: HaveBlue
I think the debris of WTC is a testimony to FAA aviation safety failure.
In the late '60s the FAA wouldn't consider commercial flight decks with defendable portals.
To: sakic
If there were no muslims here, terrorism would be a non-issue in our lives, below background. Until they are gone, there is nothing we can do to prevent future atrocities that will make 9/11 look like a Sunday outing. We cannot exist in a polity with people whose first political allegiance is other than to the United States of America. That was made clear to earlier generations of immigrants who tried to import their collectivist politics and ethnic rivalries -- the causes which took a hundred million lives on the European continent last century -- and they were successfully assimilated into American society. The stakes are much higher now, because the weapons that are available to terrorists are infinitely more devastating. We need to take action to remove these people, now.
To: steve-b
aw come now, we all must realize that congress is our only true salvation here on earth
Without congress all would cease, ya know?
13
posted on
11/13/2001 9:26:29 AM PST
by
fod
To: sakic
Why won't Bush make the airports more secure? Let's see, an accident is Bush's fault for not going along with your socialist, utopian delusions?
At least wait for the bodies to cool, you bunch of ghouls.
To: KirklandJunction
Freeper Friends: There is a family in Pinellas County, Florida who lost a brother-in-law in WTC and yesterday in Rockaway, this family's home was one burning from the plane crash. I don't know if anyone was hurt up there. The neighborhood here is going to have a benefit. There are so many stories of people who got a double whammy.
I for one am not flying any time soon because I would be going through Minneapolis to get to my destination and I feel that Michigan sleepers have moved to Minnesota and I always have to fly over the Sears Tower. This is not to say that I think latest was terrorism but Jesse Ventura better kick the sleepers out of his state, don't ya know?
To: Clinton's a rapist
Do you really believe:
1. All muslims are terrorists?
2. All terrorists are muslims?
To: sakic
Why do you say the system was "a complete failure". Can you tell me the last time before 9/11 when a U.S. plane was hijacked. There is no system that will satisfy everyone. Live with it!
17
posted on
11/13/2001 9:38:40 AM PST
by
gaspar
To: Clinton's a rapist
Usually I agree with you, but may I please point out that Timothy McVeigh was no Muslim. The burglars just caught in my neighborhood were not Muslim. The doctor who strangled his wife here in our town was not Muslim--though he was an abortionist. I'd be surprised if there IS a Muslim abortionist. The extremist anti-abortion protestors who bomb abortion clinics aren't Muslim. The two gay rednecks who killed that little boy in Arkansas by suffocating him while they raped him were not Muslim. We won't be safer if we get rid of all Muslims--we'll just be more comfortable with over-reaction and with burning down the barn because the horse has escaped.
Now getting rid of all CONGRESSCRITTERS might be more productive.
There are government agencies that do their jobs pretty well. The Secret Service managed to keep x42 and his family from he** in pretty good shape despite a whole lot of RWC, gun-owning, libertarian hatred. The military does well, too. When an agency has a clear mission and a clear body of rules, and a system of internal discipline that makes it pretty easy to get rid of bad apples, it seems to do okay; it's the entrenched bureaucracies that write their own rules as they go along that mainly apply to people OUTSIDE their organization, and whose mission is not so clearly defined, that have problems. I personally think that airport security could follow the Secret Service/military model rather than the OSHA model. I'm not saying this is the option I prefer, of course, but I think you could make a good case for this particular function BEING, Constitutionally speaking, a legitimate use of federal power. If there is anything more fundamentally and more purely interstate commerce than air travel, I don't know what it is. Obviously, something has to be done.
I'd rather see military retirees and senior enlisted/officer active duty travel free and armed. But I'm not too crazy about letting E-1s and E-2s have guns on planes, and the sky marshall program as it exists now is equivalent. Whatever we do about airport security, it has to provide meaningful careers with opportunity for advancement to its workers--it can't be something any kid just fired from McDonald's could walk in and do.
Comment #19 Removed by Moderator
To: KirklandJunction
You're failing to make the distinction between aviation safety and airport and aircraft security. Was it a security failure at the airport? Yes it was. Was it a failure of aircraft security? Not if you look at the economics of it. Stronger doors, more doors, whatever you want to use to protect a cockpit translates to additional weight on an airplane. That additional weight translates to several decreases in aircraft performance: range, passenger load, and efficiency to name a few. The key word here is economics. The FAA has been given insufficient funds to supply aircraft designers to design autoland systems for lower DH's, develop and implement new technology such as ADS-B, regulate day to day aircraft operations, AND maintain security as many people want it. The FAA can't do it all with the budget they have. And the airlines won't stand for soaking up the cost either. They already have airplanes off of the flight line for 60 days at a time while they tear apart and rebuild their engines. And these are just the NORMAL maintenance procedures. The bottom line is that the FAA did the best job that they could with the funds they had. The FAA has preached this budget shortage for years to the government. I stress budget.
20
posted on
11/13/2001 9:47:37 AM PST
by
HaveBlue
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