THE ENEMY WITHIN
AIRJET AIRLINE WORLD NEWS -- AJN 25SEP2001 04:00 UTC

*** UPDATE: SPECIAL REPORT -- Enemy Within, Airline Workers Scrutinized

WASHINGTON - 25JUN2001 (AirlineBiz.Com)

Time Magazine is reporting that there is "new evidence" that the hijackers may have had "accomplices deep within" airport security areas. Time said the help may have come from airline and or other airport employees who work ramp-side and beyond the security check-points. It has been reported that one of the cars impounded at Boston's Logan airport had some sort of airport security pass or I.D. inside. As a result of possible employee involvement the FAA has ordered employees to submit to new criminal background checks.

Airlines will be required to conduct criminal checks and employment histories on workers who have access to airliners and other sterile airport areas. It is not clear why the FAA believes the airlines will show any more competence than they have demonstrated in the past regarding these new checks. The very airlines who politicked against increased security dominate Mineta's new security task force. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Future terrorist attacks may be trumped by the airlines' traditional wariness of the cost of new security measures." However, a spokesman for Mineta said, "The airlines have a strong self-interest in restoring public confidence in aviation security." It was good news to many that Congress agreed that the federal government may have to take over airport security nationwide. In the mean time, it is quite clear that flight crews do not trust the airlines' new and improved security measures. Flight crews and other employees are deplaning passengers they feel are undesirable. A man flying to Pakistan was ordered off a Delta flight in San Antonio. In Orlando, two men were taken off a US Airways flight bound for Baltimore. In Minneapolis, three men were denied boarding on a Northwest flight to SLC. One airline executive said, "The flight crews are extraordinarily edgy and will err on the side of caution." ALPA wants Congress to pass legislation to allow pilots to carry firearms in "fortified" cockpits.

http://www.airlinebiz.com/wire/  (For Full Stories!)

* Our Recommendations for Increased Security (16SEP01)

In addition to the other security measures already taken or planned, we recommend the following:

1. All airport and airline workers must pass through security to gain access to sterile airport areas as most flight crews do now -- Special emphasis on ramp workers!

2. An immediate airport re-badgeing plan which includes a new application process not just a reissue of badges.

3. An intense 10-year background check completed by the FBI (not the airlines) on all airport and airline employees starting with ramp workers!

4. Finger print checks on all airport and airline workers completed by the FBI (not the airlines).

5. All vehicles searched prior to entering the AOA.

6. A separate security screening area for all airport and airline employees who must work on the AOA and in airport sterile areas.

7. A secondary airport re-badgeing plan after finger prints and background checks have been completed.

8. New application process for all airport and airline workers allowed in Customs areas.

9. New applications process for all airport and airline workers allowed to handle U.S. mail.

10. All future new hire background checks completed by the FBI or another responsible U.S. agency.

11. Highly trained and armed Military or Police agencies replace current security screeners.

12. Retraining and special emphasis on ALL aspects of standardized "profile recognition".

14. Exact bag matching including non-revenue travellers.

15. Airport Security is National Security -- The FAA and airline security should be replaced!

Our emphasis is on airline and airport workers.

The "Miami Busts" a couple years ago was symptomatic of a much larger problem at our nation's airports. The days of anybody and everybody being allowed to bypass security just because they have a magnetic airport ID are OVER -- or at least should be. The FAA has demonstrated they can NOT provide security oversight. The ATA and the airlines have been able to politically influence the FAA to a point where security has fallen flat on its face and cost the lives of thousands.

A Canadian Viewpoint - for the Civilized Citizens of the World

Citizens of the state of denial
By Paul Schneidereit

SOME CANADIANS, I'm afraid, still don't quite get it.

Let's go over the facts, once more.

The day that dawned so clear and bright two weeks ago began - seemingly - just like any other.

Millions of people across North America - at offices and schools, in hospitals and factories, on fields and highways - were quickly immersed in the routines of their daily lives.

At airports, jets - those airborne buses that every day shuttle thousands of people, travelling for thousands of reasons - busily thundered off and onto runways.

In Boston, Newark and Washington, more than 250 passengers and crew boarded four jets that sunny Tuesday morning, bound - they thought - on routine transcontinental flights for Los Angeles and San Francisco.

They were a diverse group - in age, sex, nationality and background. A
79-year-old retired teacher's aide and an 11-year-old elementary school student. A university gymnastics coach and a diamond industry salesman. An antiques and collectibles dealer, a spiritual counsellor and a former ballet dancer. A 45-year-old research director and his two children, aged eight and three. A 32-year-old software salesman and his three-year-old daughter.

They were all to die that cloudless morning, victims chosen randomly by terrorists whose grotesque, blind hatred of America suffocated their humanity.

I've flown out of Boston countless times, for both personal and business reasons. Thousands of Canadians have, at one time or another, been passengers on those exact routes. Like it or not, the terror of Sept. 11 was a warning message delivered to both the U.S. and - based on the ideals of democracy and individual liberty that we both share, and our close geographic proximity -
Canada.

The jets hijacked by the terrorists that morning were chosen precisely because they were transcontinental flights. The extra fuel that the planes carried made them, in the warped but impeccable, cold logic of the fanatics, flying bombs that could be detonated at any target of choice - with great destruction of life and property.

Does anyone believe terrorists could not have used Canadian transcontinental flights for the same purpose that day?

Security has been tightened on both sides of the border since Sept. 11, but no one should assume that the skies are now and forever 100 per cent safe.

The terrorists - driven by a harsh, uncompromising ideology that holds secular Western society as the great Satan - have proven they will commit mass murder in the name of the religion they blaspheme.

The U.S. absorbed the first major blow. Only the naive would believe that cities like London, Paris and Berlin - or, for that matter, Toronto, Vancouver or Ottawa - could not also be targets in the future.

There are chilling reports that terrorists had - and may still have - plans for follow-up attacks, using chemical or biological weapons that know no borders.

Yet there are still some Canadians who whine that it's not our fight. Who sanctimoniously say that Americans - for being too big, too rich, too unrepentant for past sins - had it coming. But in their simplified world of black and white, they miss a startlingly obvious truth - that in this fight, we are targets, too.

The passengers and crew of Flight 93, which left 40 minutes late from Newark headed to San Francisco, didn't ask to be torn from routine and thrust into the front lines of a war.

Learning by cellphone the fate of two other hijacked jets - plowing into the World Trade Center in New York - five brave passengers, men who may not have known each other's names, stormed the cockpit, confronting the terrorists.
The plane, heading for Washington, suddenly veered, dove and slammed into a Pennsylvania field.

The last recorded transmission is of someone, likely a hijacker, screaming "Get out of here! Get out of here!" followed by the sounds of grunting, screaming, scuffling and then silence.

It's worth reflecting on what you and I would have done.

E-mail: pauls@herald.ns.ca

 

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