Seriously, we need investigations into why the recommendations of the FAA's presidential commission on airport security, put together after TWA 800, were rejected.
The FAA chief and Inspector General, and other commission members, think it was because of the contributions given to Gore from the airlines.
Given the record of criminal activities of the previous administration, I am very inclined to believe the FAA.
If we are to investigate every corporate misdeed in our efforts to crack down on terrorism, shouldn't we also investigate government corruption when we find it? This is as blatant an example as it gets, and the price tag of the corruption is beyond reparations.
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Presidential commission
By some accounts, the Gore Commission represents the clearest recent public example of the success that airlines have long had in defeating calls for more oversight.
Formed in the summer 1996, after the explosion that tore apart TWA Flight 800 off Long Island after it departed from Kennedy Airport in New York, the presidential commission eventually issued a report containing numerous recommendations for enhanced security and safety. But the airline industry has used its leverage at the FAA to delay or dilute many recommendations, including the enhanced training for airport screeners.
To be sure, some of the commission's work has borne fruit in improvements such as more bomb-sniffing canine units and the use of sophisticated imaging equipment to detect bombs in luggage, although the GAO has found that the expensive machinery is often operated by security workers with insufficient training.
At the outset, the commission issued an ambitious set of proposals, announcing on Sept. 5, 1996, that it favored measures that included baggage matching. Long used on international flights and on originating domestic flights, that provision would have required that no checked bag, even on a connecting flight, could be loaded unless the ticketholder boarded the flight.
To the airlines, with domestic hub-and-spoke systems that rely on quick connections of both bags and passengers, the proposal meant costly delays and enraged passengers.
According to Vincent, the former FAA security chief, the airlines began a vigorous lobbying campaign aimed at the White House. Two weeks later, Gore retreated from the proposal in a letter to Carol B. Hallett, president of the industry's trade group, the Air Transport Association.
''I want to make it very clear that it is not the intent of this administration or of the commission to create a hardship for the air transportation industry or to cause inconvenience to the traveling public,'' Gore wrote.
To reassure Hallett, Gore added that the FAA would develop ''a draft test concept ... in full partnership with representatives of the airline industry.''
The day after Gore's letter, Trans World Airlines donated $40,000 to the Democratic National Committee. By the time of the presidential election, other airlines had poured large donations into Democratic Party committees: $265,000 from American Airlines, $120,000 from Delta Air Lines, $115,000 from United Air Lines, $87,000 from Northwest Airlines, according to an analysis done for the Globe by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks donations.
In all, the airlines gave the Democratic Party $585,000 in the election's closing weeks. Over the preceding 10-week period, the airlines gave the Democrats less than half that sum.
Elaine Kamarck, the Gore aide who worked with the commission, denied that there was any connection between the donations and the commission's decisions. ''Everyone was giving us money,'' she said. ''When you're winning, everyone gives.''
Fuscus, who was then the Air Transport Association's vice president for communications, said the industry contributes because it is heavily regulated and wants to make sure that its voice is heard.
''But the industry was not buying anything, and the administration was not selling anything,'' he said.
Others disagree. Mary Schiavo, the outspoken former FAA inspector general, said she believes that the contributions helped to ensure that the airlines avoided expensive new requirements, such as the baggage match. Vincent, the former FAA chief, holds the same view.
Two of the commission's members - Kathleen Flynn and Victoria Cummock, both relatives of victims of the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack - also said that they believe political contributions influenced the outcome.
But Flynn also noted that ''the same thing happened under the Republicans.''
Cummock, alone among the commissioners, refused to endorse the final report. Instead, she filed a stinging dissent, charging that the report was tailored to the concerns of the airline industry.
The airlines may have found other pressure points within the commission, according to a January 1997 letter in which one member, Brian M. Jenkins, said he felt that his support for the baggage-matching requirements might hurt his business.
Jenkins - a counterterrorism specialist who was then deputy chairman of Kroll International, a security firm - wrote the commission's staff director to say that he had learned that airline executives considered him ''a hard-line foe of the aviation industry, because, according to their sources, I am the principal member of the commission who is driving the group to adopt unreasonable positions on baggage match and other security measures, and furthermore that this will weigh heavily against Kroll in any future business with the airline industry.''
According to the letter, which the Globe obtained this week, Jenkins described himself instead as ''determined but pragmatic'' and ''not wanting to disrupt the system.''
In an interview, Jenkins acknowledged that there was pressure on the commission from the airlines. But he said that the commission also had to deal with the disparate agendas of organizations representing large and small airlines; cargo carriers; unions representing pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers; and even civil libertarians who successfully fought off what they considered intrusive proposals to use profiling to identify possible terrorists.
Jenkins, who was also involved with the 1990 commission, said that all Washington's major players share responsibility for the airport security system that was so badly compromised a week ago.
''I don't think the airline industry delivered the security it should have,'' he said. ''I don't think the government did enough or enforced the rules. And I don't think the public demanded the level of security we should have had.
''But had we done better, would it have prevented the tragedy on Sept. 11?'' Jenkins said. ''Not necessarily. I just don't know.''
Liz Kowalczyk, Matthew Brelis, and Matt Carroll of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Walter |
