A Boston Globe editorial
August 27, 2003

Insecure cargo

Airline passengers get screened. Their carry-ons and checked baggage get screened. But commercial cargo in the holds of passenger planes does not get screened, and the Bush administration is fighting an attempt by Congress to do something about this. Welcome to the Alice-in-Wonderland world of airline security. At the same time the administration warned of new terrorist hijackings on planes, it was also planning to save money by cutting back on air marshals, a proposal that has since been blocked. Fewer airport screeners are on the job while the administration puts out an alert for extra attention to small electronics devices that could be disguises for weapons or explosives.

The concern about electronic devices comes from evidence US officials have received from confiscated Al Qaeda materials. A captured Al Qaeda operative is also the source of information that the terrorist group is interested in exploiting the huge gap in airline safety represented by unscreened commercial cargo, according to Representative Edward Markey of Malden.

Markey is sponsoring an amendment that would require automated or manual screening of this cargo before it went into the holds of passenger planes. Some goods are now screened, but the Homeland Security Department's only protection for the bulk of the material is something called the known shipper program. Airlines are not supposed to accept cargo from shippers with whom they do not have a past relationship. But there is nothing to stop Al Qaeda from infiltrating a ''known shipper'' with one of its agents. The House approved Markey's amendment, 278-146.

After lobbying by shippers and the administration, the Senate did not approve any equivalent measure. Asa Hutchinson, the undersecretary of homeland security, has criticized the Markey amendment by referring to a 2001 study that said full screening of commercial cargo was not feasible. In the past two years, however, airports have made great strides in installing screeners for checked baggage. The expertise gained should make it possible soon to institute screening of much if not all of the cargo transported in passenger planes.

Requiring this screening and charging shippers for it would ensure that passenger planes were used only for the highest-priority goods, with the rest carried by cargo-only planes or other vehicles. Hutchinson worries about the loss to the airlines of the $3 billion earned by carrying commercial cargo.

With mandatory screening, some of this would be lost. But the airlines -- and the country as a whole -- stand to lose far more if terrorists take advantage of this weak spot in airline security. Members of a House-Senate conference committee will soon be scrutinizing Homeland Security's budget. They should insist on keeping Markey's amendment.

This story ran on page A18 of the Boston Globe on 8/7/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
==========
**NOTICE: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.** ==========