Tired of airport pat-downs? In late December, responding to hundreds of complaints particularly from women flyers the Transportation Security Administration restricted intensive frisking to cases where the metal detector goes off and made the area between women’s breasts a no-go zone for security personnel.
Yet, pat-downs are still a part of the security routine: “TSA continues to encounter large numbers of prohibited items,” says the agency’s spokesperson. “Two guns per day, for example. But the three main offenders are scissors, pocket knives and mace.”
Soon, however, TSA and other government agencies plan to deploy ingenious and sometimes controversial technologies intended to make American skies safer and frisking less necessary. High-tech security checkpoints, new passports, registered traveler programs and enhanced methods of passenger screening are among the efforts well under way.
High-tech checkpoints
In 2002 at Orlando International Airport, TSA began testing the Advanced Technology Security Checkpoint, a suite of new equipment by various manufacturers designed to apply the most advanced technology to the protection of American aircraft. The various machines comprising the ATSC give a glimpse into the future of aircraft security measures, since many of the components could be installed at most airports within a few years.
Perhaps most controversial of these devices is the “backscatter X-ray,” a new-generation security machine capable of seeing through people’s clothes to reveal weapons, explosives, contraband and a ghostly but quite clear picture of the human body.
“The backscatter technology is still in our technology lab,” says TSA’s spokesperson. “We are still looking at how to best deploy it around the nation. The concern is that it gives a revealing image of the body. We want to produce an image that shows if there are explosives on the body nothing more.”
The advantage of backscatter X-rays is their ability to detect threats and contraband other systems miss. Backscatter technology works by shooting X-rays at a subject and reading those that are reflected back as well as those that penetrate the subject, then converting X-rays into electrical currents proportional to the rays’ intensity. Areas with higher density appear lighter on the monitor, revealing things such as dynamite, ceramics, graphite fibers, plastic, composite weapons, bundled currency and drugs hidden in and under clothing.
But the revealing nature of backscatter X-ray images is sure to raise serious privacy issues with the flying public. “People have the expectation and the right to fly on planes without being subject to a strip search, including a virtual strip search,” says Jay Stanley, communications director for the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The fact is, bored airport screeners aren’t going to abandon their sexuality when they show up to work.”
Stanley adds, “For some, the images are humiliating. In our society, people don’t appear nude to strangers that’s a custom. A family going to Disneyland, or a person headed off to a business meeting doesn’t expect to be subjected to a virtual strip search. In fact, some people don’t want to show a bare ankle, and they deserve to have control over that.”
In Orlando, where scrutiny by the $200,000 backscatter X-ray machine was voluntary, one quarter of passengers refused to participate after seeing a dummy image of a revealing scan.
TSA is reportedly working on an “electronic fig leaf” that will automatically pixilate passengers’ most sensitive parts, and authorities promise all images will be promptly deleted after proper review. Other measures meant to protect travelers’ modesty include screened-off areas where security personnel would be viewing the monitor but not looking at the passengers themselves as they pass through.
CARGO CHECKS
Despite enhancements to airline security, holes remain in the system. For instance, air cargo still represents a glaring point of vulnerability, since checks for explosives are not comprehensive, but random. According to the Center for American Progress, only 5 percent of the 2.8 million tons of cargo carried on U.S. commercial passenger aircraft are currently screened for explosives and other dangerous devices.
The Transportation Security Administration is taking steps to secure cargo, such as creating a database of “known shippers” and running extensive background checks on personnel with access to cargo. In August 2004, TSA launched an experimental six-airport test of the bulk Explosives Detection System to screen “elevated risk” cargo.
Yet, TSA’s Air Cargo Strategies plan does not foresee screening all cargo at any point in the near future. Furthermore, a recommendation by the 9/11 commission that all passenger jets have hardened cargo containers is not part of the current TSA strategy. -- B.M.L.
Trace portal detection
The next gadget in the line of defense at Orlando Airport’s Advanced Technology Security Checkpoint is the Explosives Detection Trace Portal. In fact, trace portal machines already are deployed at a number of other U.S. airports, including T.F. Green State Airport in Providence, R.I.; Greater Rochester (N.Y.); San Diego International Airport; Tampa (Fla.) International Airport; Gulfport-Biloxi (Miss.) International Airport, and New York City’s John F. Kennedy.
The new TSA trace portals, which cost taxpayers about $143,000 each, are manufactured by Pine Brook, N.J.-based Smiths Detection. The devices blow puffs of air over a passenger inside a walk-though gate, then analyze the air for explosives residue that clings to or is absorbed by a person’s body or clothes. Up to 420 people per hour can be processed in such a way.
“The portal has the highest throughput of any scanner and already has been deployed in major nuclear facilities and popular tourist destinations,” says Bill Mawer, president of Smiths Detection of North America.
Other Smiths Detection trace portals can be adjusted to test for 60 types of drug residue, a fact that rankles those who fear security checkpoints might turn into drug enforcement operations.
“There’s no privacy problem with trace portals; they’re an excellent solution so long as they’re only tuned to check for explosives,” says the ACLU’s Jay Stanley. “The legal basis for conducting an airport search is that they are administrative searches to protect for the security of airlines. A search for drugs does not meet that criteria. You need probable cause to search for drugs. To search for explosives, however, these machines pose an excellent alternative to more intrusive techniques like the pat-downs.”
The use of trace detection technology to test passengers for drug residue worries business travel advocates as well. “Anything that is likely to slow down security lines potentially poses a problem for frequent travelers,” says Carol A. Devine, the president and CEO of the National Business Travel Association, based in Alexandria, Va. “If drug screening at airports is put on the table as a serious proposal, we would want a chance to represent the industry’s position on the issue. In the meantime, it doesn’t seem to make sense to implement procedures that will potentially slow down the screening process without making travel any more safe or secure.”
Smarter passports
The U.S. State Department is set to begin issuance of passports that contain a 64 kilobyte computer microchip and an antenna embedded in the passport’s back cover. The passport microchip will employ a souped-up version of RFID an emerging technology already used in transit fare cards and automated highway toll collection systems. (See “It’s in the Badge,” for more on RFID.)
While typical RFID chips usually transmit just a serial number to a reader, the passport’s $8 chip will be designed to send all the printed data in the passport, as well as biometric information (like a photo, a record of facial measurements or fingerprints) that can be compared with the passport-holder in the flesh.
In October, the Government Printing Office awarded contracts to four manufacturers to design the new passports, which then will be tested by the Department of State. By the end of 2005, a few of the high-tech passports will be issued, at first to government employees.
But civil liberties watchdogs such as the ACLU sound alarms over the possibility of widespread identity theft because the passport data will not be encrypted. Indeed, devices capable of reading, or “skimming,” the passport from a few feet away are commercially available. Incredibly, experts say passport holders might prevent ID theft by slipping their passports into an aluminum foil pouch, like a potato chip bag.
“The proposed electronic passport is completely devoid of encryption or other protections,” says the ACLU’s Jay Stanley. “Skimming and outright cloning are real problems. You could skim the passport data and imprint it on another chip, and then use that to make a new passport. The passports do have a digital signature an effective means of ensuring that nobody alters the passport but that does nothing to protect the data inside. So the government gets protection against alteration of its document, but for the consumer’s interest protecting your information from theft we just get tin foil.”
Scrutiny of travel documents like passports will not be purely electronic. The TSA also has fielded a new Explosives Trace Detection Document Scanner at several crucial airports, including Chicago’s O’Hare, New York’s JFK, Washington’s Reagan National and Los Angles International. The machines alert security personnel to explosives residue on documents such as passports, boarding passes and drivers’ licenses.
WHAT'S A PNR?
Under the TSA’s Secure Flight program, airlines must give the government passenger name records (PNRs) for all customers. A PNR is created whenever a traveler books a fight. But a PNR contains much more than a name.
According to Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practical Nomad (Avalon), PNR information can include the names of the traveler, the travel arranger, the travel agent or airline staff person and the person paying for the ticket. Furthermore, credit card numbers, phone numbers, emergency contacts, names of family members or business associates who travel with you, meal preferences, project billing and approval codes for corporate travel and frequent- flyer numbers could be given to the TSA via Secure Flight.
Hotel or car rental information also would be included if those reservations were made along with the flight. The number of bags you check, as well as the weight of those bags, is recorded in the PNR. And, if you don’t show up for your flight, that fact also will make its way into the PNR. -- B.M.L.
Registered travelers
In September, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the Registered Traveler Pilot Program, which is now undergoing testing at airports in Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. Prescreened travelers use a separate security checkpoint lane, where they provide fingerprints and an iris scan. Once identity is established, a traveler still passes through magnetometers and his or her bags will undergo inspection, but intense secondary screening is avoided.
“This type of program has a lot of potential to improve business travel,” says NBTA’s Devine. “Because it’s an opt-in program, Registered Traveler takes away many privacy concerns, and it provides a much faster way to get through the screening process. If it becomes a nationwide program, airport screening will be faster for everyone. Additionally, it will make everyone more secure, because by prescreening registered travelers, TSA can focus its efforts on those who might pose a threat.”
The TSA says the Registered Traveler Pilot Program has met with approval from frequent flyers in those airports where it is being tested. “We have deployed and extended the project at those five airports,” says the TSA’s spokesperson. “On the whole, customer feedback from airlines, airports and flyers have been positive. We had an overwhelming response in Minneapolis, a hub airport for Northwest Airlines.”
The program’s initial popularity notwithstanding, civil libertarians perceive problems with the Registered Traveler program: “The government certifying some of its citizens as trustworthy and others as untrustworthy is very profound,” says the ACLU’s Stanley. “They could pressure almost everyone to get registered, since everyone thinks, ‘I’m not a terrorist,’ and they want the government to know that. It’s a status thing, too nobody wants to be over in the slow line getting their breasts felt up. Are there racial or class biases? What kind of background checks will be done to require admittance to the program, and how much will they cost? These are all unanswered questions at this point.”
Secure flight
A key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission was to improve use of “no-fly” and “automatic selectee” lists. The report states, “This screening function should be performed by TSA, and it should utilize the larger set of watch lists maintained by the federal government. Air carriers should be required to supply the information needed to test and implement this new system.”
In other words, the government must run the prescreening program, not the airlines, as was previously the case.
The TSA first tried to heed the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation with revision of the existing Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System. Called CAPPS II, the program came under heavy criticism from airlines, business travel advocates and civil rights activists for failing to address privacy issues, provide an appeal process for those mistakenly listed, or consider airlines’ costs or delays associated with denied boardings. In addition, CAPPS II drew fire for “mission creep,” whereby it could use credit reports, for instance, in determining passengers’ fitness to fly.
Finally, some argued a terrorist with a fake ID could have easily fooled the system. In July 2004, both TSA and the Department of Homeland Security scrapped the CAPPS II plan.
Now in its place comes the Secure Flight program, which the TSA hopes will supplant the outmoded CAPPS system. According to the TSA, Secure Flight “would compare passenger reservation information for domestic flights, primarily in the form of passenger name records [PNRs], to information maintained by the federal government about individuals known or reasonably suspected of being engaged in terrorist activity.” That means TSA will compile databases from passenger information surrendered by the airlines.
Under Secure Flight, passenger information in the form of PNRs will be compared with names in the Terrorist Screening Database kept by the Terrorist Screening Center, including the TSA’s current “No-Fly” and “Selectee” lists.
“In the law that created the Secure Flight program, Congress mandated that we work with the General Accounting Office to address privacy issues,” says the TSA’s spokesperson. “We addressed those privacy issues and still had a 30-day public comment period.”
Business travel advocates say they’re happier with Secure Flight than CAPPS II: “Secure Flight will take passenger lists and compare them to terrorist watch lists,” says Devine. “As far as NBTA is concerned, that system is preferable to the broad threat assessment approach that was proposed for CAPPS II.”
Unanswered questions
Yet, others express deep concerns: “Our biggest problem is that it’s all for nothing. Even a known, wanted terrorist could sail right through the program by getting another person’s information and putting it on a fake ID,” says the ACLU’s Stanley. “Any old piece of plastic will suffice to get you though Secure Flight if it has the information of someone with a clear record. It appears to be a Maginot Line.”
The TSA says since Secure Flight will automate most watch list comparisons, the result will mean more consistent procedures and improved effectiveness of the lists. Unsatisfied, critics seek greater remedy for wrongly affected passengers, more openness about secret, sometimes flawed government watch lists, and guarantees against such mission creep as using Secure Flight to nab felons or deadbeat dads.
“We’re basically setting up a system whereby Americans will be judged in secret,” Stanley asserts. “There are no meaningful due process procedures and no redress. If you are mistaken for someone on the list, or if you are on the list but don’t think you should be like the singer Cat Stevens there is still no meaningful due process for you to appeal or even know what criteria was used for that decision.”