Commentary
The Daily Oregonian...
On security, airheads at loggerheads
11/09/01
DAVID SARASOHN
T he real question about Wednesday's congressional talks on airline security, of course, is why Subash Gurung wasn't invited.
Gurung, you may remember, is the Nepalese man on an expired visa who made it through a security checkpoint at Chicago's O'Hare Airport last week with a carry-on bag containing seven knives, a stun gun and a tear gas container.
Possibly he had strong feelings about the in-flight meal.
Possibly he had strong feelings about something else.
Gurung -- along with the sharp drop in airline passenger traffic -- reminds us that almost two months after the quadruple hijacking of Sept. 11, the United States still doesn't have an airline security system that makes anybody feel secure. What we have, instead, is skies that are still too friendly.
Especially if you're carrying seven knives and a stun gun.
Fairly quickly -- at least by Washington standards -- the Senate passed a bill to overhaul the airport security system, making security staff members federal employees working for the Justice Department. The Senate passed the bill 100-0.
Pause a minute and think about the Senate passing a major bill 100-0 -- Majority Leader Tom Daschle joining with Minority Leader Trent Lott; Jesse Helms voting with Hillary Clinton.
It's enough to, um, stun you.
Some time later, the House Republican leaders, twisting every arm in sight, managed to get the House to reject the Senate bill, 216-214. Instead, the House passed legislation to retain the private companies that now provide security, but with new oversight by the Transportation Department. GOP leaders warned that the Senate bill would create 28,000 new unionized federal workers.
Some people have a greater fear of terrorists, some of unionists.
It didn't take long for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to point out that America's new heroes, New York's firemen and police, are unionized public employees.
And Wednesday afternoon, when 13 senators met eight House members to try to resolve the differences between the two bills -- differences that wouldn't exist if the House had passed the Senate bill, which the president had agreed to sign -- McCain and the other senators didn't take long to show minimal interest in backing down.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a House member of the conference committee who supports the Senate version, offers his own compromise: "We should have the airports divided up. In some concourses, airlines would (use) their own private security force" -- the one used now. "In other concourses, there would be a federal work force, and we'd let the free market decide."
One thing that might help flyers' decisions, he thinks, is that the private companies have been repeatedly fined for security lapses and for hiring felons -- and that in the Chicago airport where Gurung made it through the checkpoint, the private company in charge of the checkpoints has hired at least one known gang member.
And that after Gurung was finally kept off the plane -- someone thought to give him another check at the gate -- his baggage, unexamined, went on the flight without him.
"We're pretty full up with examples of a system that couldn't be failing to any greater extent," says DeFazio. "But there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency."
Airline traffic, in an industry that may be facing total collapse, is now down 25 percent. Congress, after weeks of missing the plane, is now within sight of failing to find a fix before the Thanksgiving holiday, the beginning of the industry's busiest and most lucrative part of the year.
"We can only string this out so long," says DeFazio, "and then it's not going to happen."
But if House and Senate negotiators still can't agree on just how to fix airline security, at least they can agree on some reasons why Gurung didn't show up at their conference committee meeting. He didn't have one of those neat congressional ID buttons, and he is at the moment in jail.
And House and Senate buildings have their security checkpoints watched by federal employees. David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com. |
