[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 152 (Tuesday, November 6, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11481-S11483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AVIATION SECURITY
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I congratulate the Senator from
Louisiana and the ranking Senator from Ohio for their work on the
District of Columbia Appropriations Act. I am pleased to support it,
pleased as a member of the Appropriations Committee to support it.
I intend to support the judge my colleague from Alabama just
described. That judge has a commendable record of public service. I am
pleased to support the President's nomination.
I rise to comment about something that is not in the appropriations
bill. Then I will speak on an amendment I intend to offer. First, on
the issue of aviation security, I believe we are or probably have
appointed conferees from the Commerce Committee on the issue of writing
an aviation security bill in conference between the House and Senate. I
will be one of those conferees.
It is a shame we have had to wait this long. We passed a bill dealing
with aviation security 100-to-0 in the Senate. It wasn't a great
controversy, just judging by the margin of the vote--100-to-0--people
here believing that we needed to improve security of the country's
airlines.
We need to give people a feeling of security that when they board an
airplane their fellow passengers have been properly screened, that we
have made certain there is not a risk that we are going to have
additional hijackings. The airport security bill was very important. We
passed it 100-to-0. The House of Representatives dragged their feet and
waited and waited and didn't act.
Finally, they acted. They passed a piece of legislation that is
deficient. Their concern was that the Senate bill would have
``federalized'' workers at airports who are screening baggage and other
related activities dealing with security.
Let me describe a couple of things about security. Yesterday I was in
Chicago. I came back by commercial air from Chicago to Washington, DC.
As I picked up the newspaper in the Chicago airport, I read about the
events of the previous day, Sunday, at O'Hare Airport. Most people have
now heard of that circumstance on Sunday, but let me describe it for a
moment. It is not an isolated instance.
A fellow named Subash Bahadar Gurung, age 27, was arrested Sunday in
Chicago on charges that the night before he tried to bring knives,
chemical spray, and a stun gun onto an airplane.
Here is the frightening part of all this: This fellow, who according
to news reports is in this country illegally, got through the initial
screening with the X-ray machine and reached the gate to board his
airplane. At the screening they discovered he had two knives. They
confiscated the knives, then let him go to the gate.
At the gate, he went through an expanded screening and they opened
everything he had and discovered he had seven additional knives, a can
of mace, and a stun gun. I don't know if the guy is a terrorist, but I
do know he is stupid. Nine knives, mace, and a stun gun, showing up at
the airport?
There is something else that is wrong: He got all the way to the gate
with seven of his knives, a stun gun, and a can of mace.
The Secretary of Transportation had a lot to say about that
yesterday. But the point is this: We don't have a security system in
place that gives people confidence. Just ask yourself: If someone can
get through O'Hare Airport, one of our largest airports, can get
through the screening process with seven knives and a stun gun and a
can of mace, what kind of confidence does that give people who are
traveling?
Let me give you a couple of other suggested incidents that ought to
give us cause for concern. In Westchester County Airport in New York
last Friday, a woman was arrested on charges of criminal possession of
a weapon
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when she had a palm-size .22-caliber handgun that showed up on an x-ray
of her luggage. So they caught her at the screen.
She said: Well, this gun belonged to a boyfriend and besides, it
hadn't shown up on an earlier flight.
That gives you a lot of security, doesn't it, a real feeling of
security?
She said: It is my boyfriend's gun, but it didn't show up on the
previous flight when I went through.
We can go to Tuesday, a Mississippi man in New Orleans was able to
get through the security checkpoint with a loaded gun in his carry-on
bag, and he was allowed to board a plane at Louis Armstrong
International Airport. He got on the plane with this loaded gun. He
said he didn't realize the handgun was in his briefcase. He discovered
it in the middle of the flight and immediately handed it over to a
flight attendant. He said it was a pure accident.
The question is, How do you get through a checkpoint, a screening
process, with a loaded handgun in your briefcase?
Let me describe the company that was screening at O'Hare Airport in
Chicago this past weekend. Argenbright apparently is the largest
company that employs screeners around the country. They employ
screeners at more than 33 airports in the United States. In fact, I
believe they are an international company that provides services around
the world.
They were fined $1.5 million in October of last year and placed on 3
years probation for making false statements to the FAA concerning
training, testing, and background checks. In other words, they were
hiring people with criminal backgrounds, not training them properly,
doing a lot of things, and lying to the FAA about it, certifying that
in fact things were just great, when in fact they were not. They were
fined $1.5 million and put on probation.
Then last month, they were found in violation of their probation for
continued violations regarding their screening services.
Last weekend, they were still on the job, the same company. Filing
fraudulent statements with the FAA, fined $1.5 million, put on
probation, found in violation of probation, and still working? Would
that happen to people, real people, do you think? I don't think so.
They would lose their job. But not big companies.
Last weekend, this company and its employees allowed a guy to get
through a screening with nine knives--caught two of them, missed
seven--a stun gun and a can of mace. Talk about incompetence; talk
about a story that once again undermines people's confidence in flying
on commercial airlines, this is it.
The question is, Is there an emergency in this Congress to do the
right thing: to pass an aviation security bill and do it the right way,
and do the right thing? You bet your life there is.
What happened was, we saw that process get hijacked in the House of
Representatives by two Congressmen from Texas. Why? Because they said
they didn't want these people to be Federal employees. I don't care
whose employees they are. All I care about is accountability. I care
about making something work. I care about getting something done the
right way.
I say to those people who always denigrate public employees: Why
don't you say that to the families of the firemen who were climbing up
on the 25th and the 35th and the 45th floors as the World Trade Center
was burning and about to come tumbling down on these brave men and
women who served on the firefighters force and the law enforcement
forces who were in those buildings and lost their lives, say to them
that public service doesn't count. Say to them that somehow being a
public employee is a second class citizen. Say it to them or their
families.
The fact is, we have an obligation to do this right. Security is a
responsibility--in this case, at our airports--of ours, of the
Government.
We passed a piece of legislation here that was Hollings-McCain,
Democrat and Republican, a bipartisan piece of legislation that was
supported by 100 Senators and passed 100-to-0. Then we run into this
brick wall--people who object to everything all of their lives. They
get up in the morning cranky and can't find anything right about
anything, and they come up with legislation that doesn't solve a
problem. It is just the same old approach that will put us back in the
same old rut.
So as we tackle this question of airport security, aviation security,
as one member of the conference, I will insist on doing the right thing
right now, not next week or the week after. The American people have a
right to expect we will do the right thing, the responsible thing, that
will improve security at this country's airports.
Madam President, I will mention one other issue, and it deals with
aviation security. Every day, we have aircraft coming into this country
from overseas, commercial airliners that are landing as I speak at some
airport in the United States, carrying passengers who are guests of
ours. They are given a visa to visit our country. They are guests of
our country. We have allowed them to become guests through the visa
process. We have said: You are given a visa and you may come to the
United States.
On most of those flights, the carrier--the airline sending these
guests to the United States--sends us an advance list of their names.
It is called the APIS, advance passenger information system. Do you
know why they do that? Since 1988, they have been doing that in order
that we might check a list of the foreigners coming to the United
States against our list at the FBI, Customs Bureau, and 21 other
Federal agencies, to determine, are these people known or suspected
terrorists, violent criminals, and others who should not be allowed
into our country? Are they? Well, we get the list and we check it
against all of these data bases. It has been a very successful thing to
do.
The problem is we don't get all of the names. We get 85 percent of
the names; 15 percent of the names we don't get. We don't get the names
from airlines from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and we didn't get them
from Kuwait until last week. From Egypt we don't get names, and from
Jordan, and I could go on.
The result is that since the day the President signed the
counterterrorism bill on October 26, 178,000 people have landed in this
country without having their names submitted for preclearance to our
database at the FBI, Customs, and other law enforcement agencies. That
is an approach that would allow us to weed out suspected terrorists and
others.
The Customs Commissioner testified before a committee I chair, and he
said this should be made mandatory. I said: I agree, it should be;
let's ask the airlines not complying to do so. So I offered an
amendment during the counterterrorism bill when it was debated in the
Senate, and the Senate agreed to it unanimously. That was that. That
bill then went to conference, and some people in conference from the
other side said: Gee, I don't know, this is about our committee
jurisdiction; it didn't go through our committee, therefore we reject
it.
They kicked it out of conference. So when President Bush signed that
bill, this provision wasn't there. It means that the counterterrorism
bill, where this was when it left the Senate, did not have a central
provision that is necessary for us to prescreen passengers coming into
this country, especially from countries such as, yes, Pakistan, Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and others.
Somebody said: When you raise these issues about certain countries,
aren't you profiling? The answer clearly is no. We are only interested
in profiling terrorists or suspected terrorists, or those who associate
with them, because we don't want them to come in as guests of our
country. So we do profile people who are either known terrorists or who
associate with terrorists because we want to keep them out of this
country.
Is that selfish? No. That is self-protection. We have every right to
decide we don't want a guest in this country who is going to try to
injure this country. So I included that amendment in the
counterterrorism bill. It got knocked out in conference. I don't like
to use this language, but I said: Of all the boneheaded things for
people to do--to assert committee jurisdiction on an issue of national
importance such as this.
But on the last appropriation bill we passed, earlier today, I
offered this amendment last week. The Senate just passed it again. I
intend to put it on
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this appropriations bill. I am going to offer it on every piece of
legislation until we get people to think more about national security
on the other side than they are thinking about committee jurisdiction,
and until they understand airplanes should not land in this country
unless they have complied with the APIS system, which has been in place
since 1988.
Since September 11, we ought to understand the obligation we have to
be careful about screening those who are guests in our country. You
cannot provide security in this country unless you provide security for
our borders. Part of our border security is to deal with those roughly
70 million, 80 million people a year who come into this country on
commercial airlines as guests, coming from foreign countries. So I
intend to offer that amendment again today. I will offer it to any
other legislation we have on the floor. I know people will say that is
blue slip, or it is this, or it is that. It is none of that. That is
all nonsense.
Mr. BURNS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DORGAN. Yes.
Mr. BURNS. I ask the Senator, we passed the airport security law in
this body and we changed the authority--moving the authority from the
Department of Transportation to the Department of Justice. That was my
amendment. I contended at that time that we really don't have a problem
with the laws; we have trouble with enforcing the law. I would be
interested in seeing what the Senator's thoughts are on keeping the
bright line of authority to the Attorney General rather than leaving it
with the Department of Transportation.
Mr. DORGAN. This particular issue happens to be the Department of
Customs with respect to advance passenger information. They run all of
these names against the Justice Department list, the FBI list, and 21
different Federal agencies that keep lists of undesirable people coming
into the country. That is a separate issue in conference. I think the
Senator from Montana is probably one of the conferees on the aviation
security bill. I am going to be one as well. We can talk about all of
those issues.
All I really care about--going back to the issue of aviation
security--is that we get the job done. The one thing that is clear to
me is companies that have been fined for defrauding the Government--in
effect, companies that have been put on probation and violate their
probation, that hire screeners who leave the company to fry hamburgers
because they get more money to do it, and to let somebody come through
with nine knives, a stun gun, and a can of mace--those are companies I
don't want screening baggage. I want somebody on whom I can rely. All I
care about is accountability and results.
Mr. BURNS. We know there are areas of responsibility. Who best can
have access and be a model for us, without expending a lot of money or
building a new bureaucracy? We know we have to have passenger lists and
we need intelligence. Who best to do that other than the Department of
Justice? We need security at the check-in area and also the gate area.
Who best, other than the Justice Department, knows how to secure
Federal buildings, Federal courts, moving Federal prisoners--all of
these things they already do? Some they do themselves and some they
contract out to companies that have a very good reputation with them.
I think the conference ought to get underway right away. I am
supportive of the Senator's views on that and say we ought to be in the
business of protecting the American public as best we know how, instead
of writing a law and putting it into the hands of the administrative
rule writers, who sometimes write rules for their own benefit and not
for the protection of the people.
Mr. DORGAN. In closing, the issue is not so much the jurisdiction of
which agency. In fact, we do have a law enforcement function and
security functions at DOT. Some say maybe it should be the FAA. But the
fact is, the big dispute, the thing that held up forever was that the
House of Representatives didn't want to have people who were public
employees, Federal employees. So that was the big thing over in the
House of Representatives.
I do not think it was in the Senate. We passed the bill in the Senate
100-0 largely because we believed if we had good training and
accountability, if we hired good people and had guidelines for them to
follow, then we would be able to provide security in our country's
airports.
One thing is very clear from all of these reports: We do not have
good security with the current system. This system needs changing. This
system does not work, and all we need to do is look at O'Hare in
Chicago last Saturday and look at the papers on Sunday and Monday and
understand how bad the system is and why we have to get at this job
now, this week, and get it done.
I yield the floor.
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