[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21647-21649]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 21648]]

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 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;

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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 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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