Aviation Security Enhancements in Place; New Details on Liquid Explosives Plot

Air Safety Week, May 5, 2008

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aims to improve and strengthen aviation security while decreasing the hassle factor for travelers.

Among the improvements, DHS is providing airlines more flexibility to allow passengers to check in remotely who have been unable to do so because they have a name similar to someone on a watch list.

The department also unveiled the Checkpoint Evolution prototype, which is now operational at Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI).

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Each airline will now be able to create a system to verify and securely store a passenger's date of birth to clear up watch list misidentifications. By voluntarily providing this limited biographical data to an airline and verifying that information once at the ticket counter, travelers that were previously inconvenienced on every trip will now be able to check-in online or at remote kiosks.

To illustrate the dimension of the problem, one major air carrier has reported roughly 9,000 false positives every day. If this change is put into effect by that airline, the number of false positives will be reduced to about zero.

"Hassles due to misidentification and the resulting necessity to stand in line to check in at the ticket counter is consistently among the deepest - and most valid - complaints of the traveling public," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"Thousands of passengers are inconvenienced each day, and this change should provide a way to eliminate the vast majority of these situations. This is good for travelers and for security, because as we make the checkpoint environment calmer, it becomes easier to spot individuals with hostile intent,' he added.

DHS is also providing greater clarity on the types of identification that will be accepted at checkpoints in the U.S. Beginning May 26, 2008, federal or state-issued photo ID will be accepted if it contains: name, date of birth, gender, expiration date and a tamper-resistant feature. Standardizing the list of accepted documents better aligns TSA with REAL ID benchmarks.

The BWI prototype includes Millimeter Wave scanners, multi-view X-ray and liquid bottle scanners. These technologies, in conjunction with changes to the checkpoint processes, will be evaluated for operational efficiency over the coming months.

Checkpoint Evolution is located at B Checkpoint, Southwest Terminal at BWI. The layered security elements are both modular and flexible and designed to work individually, as well as part of an integrated package.

Meanwhile, Chertoff used the BWI media event to reveal new information regarding the threat of liquid explosives and the reason why the United States is now limiting the amount of liquid carried aboard commercial transports.

"Now some people may wonder if we still have the kind of threat to aviation that we had on September 11th. If you doubt it, I suggest you follow what's being reported in the news in a trial underway in London where several individuals are being tried for their role in a plot in August 2006 to blow up multiple transatlantic aircraft bound for the United States," he stated.

"I think you'll remember when that plot was disrupted about 18 months ago. We were not able to explain in great detail why we were taking the steps to reconfigure our requirement by reducing the size of liquids to be brought on airplanes and taking other measures to beef up airport security. But now we are finally able to talk about the details of that plot, and those details are chilling.

"The terrorists intended to take sealed sports drink bottles, insert syringes in, drain out the liquids in the bottles and then put in the place of those liquids, liquid explosives, whereupon they would then glue the bottom of the bottle.

"By all appearances, these bottles would look as if they were untouched, unopened, straight-off-the-shelf sports drinks. Instead, they would have had a lethal cocktail inside. The terrorists planned to detonate these bottles by assembling them with detonators when the aircraft were midway over the Atlantic.

"A diabolical element of the scheme was that they were going to wait until it was too far away for the aircraft to begin to turn home to try to find safety. So that as each aircraft blew up over the Atlantic, the crews and perhaps even the passengers in the remaining aircraft would be left to wonder whether they would be next.

"I want you to reflect for a moment on how truly chilling and inhumane it is to visit this kind of terror on people," Chertoff stated.