Joe Brancatelli wrote in: http://www.zyworld.com/brancatelli/branc.htm

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Tin Stars in the Sky

BY JOE BRANCATELLI
January 15, 2004 -- This has been on my mind a lot since September
11th, but it took the events at Washington/Dulles airport this week to
convince me to put it out in the public domain.

What if everything we're trying to do with airline security is wrong?
I don't mean any particular procedure or an isolated policy. I mean
the basic concept, the entire approach to security.

What if trying to keep the skies safe by proactively pre-screening
passengers before they board a flight is just wrong? Wrong because it
takes too long, annoys too many and misses too much. Wrong because it
costs too much and catches too little. Wrong because, in point of
absolute fact, it just doesn't work.

And what if there is a better way, a tried-and-true way that
law-enforcement officials around the planet use successfully every day
of the week.

Before we get to what I've been thinking about, we need to make sure
we are on the same page with what happened on Tuesday night at Dulles
and on Wednesday morning at London's Heathrow airport, when the
security lapse hit the metaphoric fan. It really is important that we
know--and understand--exactly what happened because it shows all the
flaws of and misconceptions about how we do airline security now.

If the wire-service reports have it right, a 45-year-old Sudanese man
arrived at Dulles Airport on Tuesday evening. We have to assume he
approached the security checkpoint and did what we all do: Took off
his coat, took off his shoes and put his carry-on bag on the belt for
the X-ray machine. We have to assume he passed through the
magnetometer. In fact, there is no reason to assume he didn't clear
all the security regimens that have been so onerous at U.S. airports
in general since 9/11 and at Dulles in particular after a slew of
Dulles-bound flights from London were delayed or cancelled for
security reasons during the year-end holidays.

The Sudanese man boarded Virgin Atlantic Flight 22 and it took off
around 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday evening. He flew uneventfully and arrived
at Heathrow airport at around 7:15 a.m. local time. The Sudanese man
then approached a security station at Heathrow because he was ticketed
to board an Emirates flight to Dubai.

At about 7:40 a.m., however, he was detained at the security
checkpoint and arrested by Scotland Yard. The reason? He was carrying
five bullets. "A quantity of suspected ammunition was found in his
possession," a statement from the Yard explained. "The items are being
forensically examined."

What did we learn from this bizarre incident?

Well, obviously, the first thing we learned is that all of our
security checkpoints and searches are all for naught. Over and over
again--and again on Tuesday evening at Dulles--we have learned that
our proactive pre-screening measures are demonstrably ineffective.

We learned something else: This Sudanese passenger carried dangerous
contraband through security, boarded the plane and flew it across the
Atlantic Ocean without endangering or harming his fellow passengers.
As far as we can tell, he just happened to cross the pond with a
pocket full of ammunition. He had no interest in doing anything but
getting from Washington to London so he could catch a flight to Dubai.
And, at this time, there's no fact or extrapolation of fact to suggest
that he meant any harm to the Emirates flight.

And I think we learned one other thing: It may be time to try
something new, something radical. It may be time to assume that
passengers are innocent until they are seen committing an actual
crime. Forget about what they are carrying and focus instead on making
sure no one is about to harm their fellow travelers.

In fact, it's time that we consider policing airplanes like we police
city streets. Get rid of all the X-ray machines, the magnetometers,
the security checkpoints, the security screeners and all the other
stuff. Put a couple of armed, uniformed marshals on every flight and
let them police a plane like they police a city street.

A radical idea? Yeah, probably. Out there? Absolutely. But
impractical? Maybe not.

Let me ask you a question: When you get up in the morning and leave
your home or your hotel, do you have to pass through a magnetometer to
get onto the street? Do you have to run your briefcase through an
X-ray machine to go onto the sidewalk? Before you jump into your car,
do you have to pack your Swiss Army Knife or your cuticle scissors
into a piece of luggage so you don't have it with you as you cruise to
the shopping mall or the supermarket?

Of course not. In a free society, we assume you are an adult and need
not be searched before you are allowed to go out in public. We let you
carry Swiss Army knives, scissors and even the odd firearm. And we
have uniformed, armed cops on patrol to keep order in case you
misbehave.

So why don't we try it for planes? As our Sudanese friend proved on
Tuesday night, even the stringent security measures at an airport we
are supposedly watching extra carefully will not screen out
everything. Without working very hard, you can get a clutch of bullets
or a knife or god knows what else on a plane. And what our Sudanese
friend also proved is that just because you're carrying bullets or a
Swiss Army Knife or really pointy scissors doesn't mean you're about
to try to hijack a plane.

So why not mothball all the checkpoints and the X-ray machines and the
phalanx of security screeners peering into security monitors? Why not
put two armed, uniformed marshals on every flight and try and get back
to something like the old normal. Have the air cops police the aisles
during every flight just like they walk a beat on the ground.

This tin-stars-in-the-sky approach would undoubtedly be cheaper than
what we're doing now. It would rightfully assume that 99 and 44/100
percent of passengers mean no harm, even if they are carrying a few
bullets or a knife or, heaven forfend, a pointed stick. It would
guarantee that we wouldn't have to strip down in public just to board
a plane.

And, perhaps more to the point, it would guarantee that every plane
would have armed, competent, uniformed peace officers keeping us safe
in the skies. It would guarantee that every flight would be protected
by law-enforcement professionals if some lunatic does try to hijack a
plane--or just gets into a fight over the armrest with the passenger
in the middle seat.

With the best of intentions, we've been trying to proactively
pre-screen airline passengers for more than a generation. It really
hasn't worked all that well. Even after the horrifying events of 9/11,
people can still waltz onto a plane with a pocketful of bullets.

Maybe it's time to switch to the tin-stars-in-the-sky approach. Put
uniformed cops on every plane, assume every aircraft aisle is Main
Street USA and see what happens.