[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17166]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            IN SUPPORT OF 100 PERCENT AIRPORT WORK SCREENING

  (Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, America recently got a 
wake-up call when we learned that law enforcement had thwarted a Muslim 
extremist plot to blow up Kennedy Airport and the surrounding 
neighborhoods.
  This is not the first time that we have had our security exposed at 
our airports. In March airport employees at Orlando International 
exploited a loophole in our security and placed a bag with an arsenal 
of weapons on the airplane. As workers, they never had to pass through 
a metal detector or had anyone check their bags or equipment.
  That is why I introduced H.R. 1413 with my good friend Congresswoman 
Nita Lowey from New York to implement a 100 percent worker screening 
pilot program at seven of our airports.
  Listen up, America. It is unacceptable that we spend billions to 
secure our airports and airplanes from dangerous passengers, yet we 
leave the back door open to workers. I would hope that the Homeland 
Security Committee heard this wake-up call and scheduled a full 
committee markup as soon as possible so we can close this dangerous 
loophole.

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