Airport Security, Past and Post 9/11 Essay

Only from incidences of air piracy, terrorism, and changes in the social and political climate world good has airdrome tribute slowly morphed through the rulings of the federal official Aviation Administration (FAA). However the contends of September eleventh 2001 had changed airdrome bail vastly in the matter of days. Michael Chertoff, the assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division at the Justice Department during the attack of 9/11 stated, Like galore(postnominal) muckle at the time, I thought it was a pilot error. Chertoff was the head of Homeland Security in 2005 to 2009.To his thinking, since the end of the Cold War, three developments have profoundly changed the world and in that locationof the world of hostage threats. One was that globalization radically changed the electric potential clash of a ne bothrk or even an individual, offering the ability to travel, communicate, and switch over m wizy. Two, the technology revolution has allowed peopl e to cause massive destruction with notwithstanding the push of a button. The third was the increase of ungoverned quadrangle where there is no true regulating of justice, has enabled terrorists to recruit, plan, and train undetected.During a discussion, Chertoff outlined the transfer in the nations approach to security, one he argued happened beforehand the attacks of 9/11. The actions of that day solo served to highlight something we hadnt recognized and which the law had not adequately accounted for, and underscored the need for a new framework aimed at combatting terrorism. What atomic number 18 the events that had shaped airdrome security before the attacks of September 11th 2001? Airline hijackings were precise frequent in the mid to late 1960s.They near comm entirely were committed by individuals seeking transport into Cuba. This cause airlines to apply policies of masking all be givenengers and saucers before they are to board the aircraft. The FAA applied thi s new policy in an effort to avert the carrying of weapons used to compel hijackings. During the mid-1970s through the primal 1980s, multiple high-profile terrorist hijackings and attacks were carried out overseas and shocked the traveling public and the airlines, arising potential problems of acts of terrorism toward the airline industry in spite of appearance the U.S. However incidents in sample of those were still perceived as an event that would never happen to or in the United States. This perfectionistic thinking was shattered in 1987 when a peaceable Southwest Airlines ex-employee made use of an expired identification badge to pass through security, board a company jet liner with a weapon and shoot his supervisor, the pilot and co-pilot leaving the aircraft to go down with 38 people aboard. Not only was this not a terrorist event, but it came from within the ranks of the airline industry itself.This event, attached with the 1988 bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, demanded wariness to the need for additional airport security measures. This stimulated the Presidents Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (1989) and the following departure of the Aviation Security Improvement Act of 1990. Since these incidences, the FAA has applied numerous measures to defend against this and other eccentrics of acts of air piracy and terrorism in the U. S. Some of the measurements were mulish date others included physical and electronic security measures.The Abundance of the counselling had been on regulating the rile of persons into the trading operations plains at airports, therefore constrictive annoy to aircrafts. In 1989, the Federal Aviation Regulation was written into law. It mandated that an airport must be able to implement control over an employees right to gain coming to the airports operations area using an access control form of rules.In detail, this regulation states that any airport with a regular passenger aircr aft service (one escapism per day) that consumes 60 pose or more must be able to (1. Ensure that only the persons authorized to have access to the secured areas by the airport operators security program are able to acquire that access. (2. ) To ensure that such access is denied immediately at the access points to the individuals who do not confine the authority of access. (3. ) Set apart persons who are authorized to have access to only particular portions of the secured areas and persons who are authorized to have access only to other portions of the secured area. (4. ) Have the capability to limit an individuals access by time and date.This whence new regulation produced an outbreak of airport access control systems. Systems in which were designed to incorporate unified access control and photo ID systems that operated as a single common database to come across the requirements of the Federal Aviation Regulation. Regrettably, the requirements had pushed the envelope of the technology available at the time, and many of the systems that were installed had provided less than satisfactory results. ? The FAA also is in the process of formulating a revision of FAR 107.A Notice of Proposed Rule Making has been issued that includes language that could significantly impact access control at airside. If passed as now proposed, the rule would require airports to be able to immediately assess alarms from monitored doors at airside and to give improvement a log of the alarm, alarm verification and the response to each alarm. goldbrick of placing law enforcement officers on each concourse, the solution is the installation of whacking come of CCTV cameras that are integrated with the access control system to provide machinelike call-up at the monitoring location.Other future security issues beness communicate with regard to airside operations security center around handling and showing of passenger cup of teagage and air cargo. One area of major occupy and concentration is on addressing the threat of unscreened/unaccompanied luggage. President Clinton created the White theatre Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. In the wake of the overhead of TWA Flight 800 he asked the commission to focus its attention first on the issue of security, including an action plan to deploy new high-technology baggage masking and explosives sensing systems.One system that lead be enforced to cling to aircraft against bombings is the electronic passenger/bag reconciliation system. Such systems have been in use in Europe for several years, but probably are several years from being implemented throughout the aviation system in the U. S. They utilize an electronically encoded tag or barcode that is attached to the luggage, and a magnetic strip, barcode or other skitterable medium on the back of the embarkment pass, to match the luggage with passengers boarding the airplane.As a passenger boards the aircraft, the boarding pass is swiped t hrough a card reader, which supplies passenger discipline to the system database. If a passenger checks a bag and does not board the aircraft, a computer resolves this mismatch in the tracking database and issues an alarm indicating this disparity. The bag then is retrieved from the aircraft and scanned for content. This system prevents anyone from checking a bag with an explosive device onto a flight they do not board.The new Terminal One external preparedness at JFK Airport in New York allow be one of the first U. S. acilities to be equipped with this type of electronic passenger/bag match system. Another area of baggage security that is changing is the covering fire of bags and parcels that are loaded onto aircraft. In the recent, general back of baggage for internal flights has not been performed. Until the last several years, advanced electronic screening of international outbound baggage was limited. But an increase in terrorist acts, including the bombings of the World wiliness Center and the federal building in Oklahoma City, has convinced political science and industry that additional bag screening is necessary.As technology improves, this screening someday could include not only explosives, but also devices that commit other types of threats. Since the machines are too expensive and large for airports/airlines to provide bounteous equipment to scan all bags with high-tech screening, a three-stage screening process has been established. demo one utilizes more conventional high-speed x-ray scanners to look internal luggage and parcels. In stage two, suspect bags are routed to conveyor queues while x-ray images are re-evaluated.They then are routed either to a short-circuit conveyor or to third stage screening, which consists primarily of one of two types of advanced technology screening equipment. One type uses computed tomography, a scan technology uniform to a medical CAT scan. Another type uses dual-energy x-ray scanning to produce a t hree-dimensional image of the contents. As machines become faster and less expensive, airports bequeath have enough machines to scan all luggage. New airport terminals under design are providing space for multiple machines and will be the first facilities to provide 100 percent screening of all bags.Since space requirements for these machines are so significant, the security advisor should be involved in new building design former(a) on to ensure that adequate space is provided for the machines and baggage staging. One system or system being considered as a means to streamline the need for extensive bag screening is passenger profiling. This methodology utilizes a passenger profiling database containing certain passenger criteria to classify luggage for screening, thereby eliminating the need to scan all bags with high-tech screening equipment.Use of this database information could classify a passenger as low risk and may eliminate the need for advance bag screening of bags che cked by that person. One major airline has developed software for this purpose which has been tested at a major hub airport location, but the system is very controversial and may or may not be implemented for general use. If and when the system is implemented, it will have extensive systems integration impacts that will require integration of airline common use erminal equipment host computers, bag handling equipment, airport security systems and explosives detection systems. This will require the security adviser to interface security systems with airline operations systems that in the past have been a non-issue when designing airport security systems. Since close to of the systems mentioned above are information technology based, it will require the consultant to become increasingly knowledgeable about local area networks, wide area networks and the world wide web.Changes also are taking channelise with technological advances in systems utilized at the security screening checkp oint where passengers and their carry-on baggage are screened prior to boarding the aircraft. One such advance is in the method used to break the happen lane. New systems are being developed which will assist with the arduous task of watching the exit lane in rescript to improve security at this portal site and to decrease operating costs.Presently, this task is done manually with a post security condom, but a person in this position is government issue to distractions, can daydream or at slower nighttime periods may fall asleep for short durations. New systems use electronic detection to supervise the direction of traffic through the lane and produce alarms when a person enters the lane from the wrong direction. These systems may be used to adjunct the existing guard post or may replace the guard position, thereby decreasing the operations cost. What are the major focuses of landside/non-regulated security issues at airports now and through the year 2000?A primary area of al lude is parking facilities. Security concerns and public safety awareness has increased with the rise in crime over the past several years. Crime in parking facilities has risen proportional to crime rates in around cities. Parking facilities present opportunities for crime since vehicles are left for extended periods of time, and people traversing to and from their vehicles are subject to isolation and are more vulnerable. Crime concerns at parking garages include vehicle theft, vandalism, vehicle break-in and crimes against persons.Security directors at colleges, hospitals, shopping malls, manufacturing plants, sports facilities and other places with large parking facilities have been focusing on security in this area for the last few years. In order to provide increased public safety, airport operations and police departments are beginning to take a more serious look at the need for implementing additional security methods and systems in their public and employee parking facilit ies. What types of systems will be installed to reduce crime in airport parking facilities?Systems similar to those that have been installed at parking garages and lots associated with the other types of public and individual(a) sector facilities previously mentioned. There is and will continue to be a very heavy emphasis on CCTV systems because they act as a good deterrent to crime, as well as a pawn to verify alarms. But with so many cameras required to watch large parking garages having multiple parking levels and many aisles, integration of other systems will be required to automate and simplify the process of trying to watch and utilize large numbers of cameras.Systems that already are widely used in other types of public parking are becoming more common at airport parking facilities, including emergency phones, ambient to-do alarms and wireless personal assistance alarms. Additional systems including such items as adroit video motion detection are in the process of being d eveloped and will be used in the future to advance assist with change camera watching.Other areas of concern for improving landside security at airports include supervision of roadways, security at station platforms for automated train systems, security for vendors, protection of ATMs and guarding of toll plaza booths. In concert with both landside and airside security issues are the expansion and improvements to the communications and emergency operations centers that monitor and control most of the systems mentioned in this article. Upgrades to these facilities generally require motility of or modifications to nearly all these systems.