TSA’s sinking ship of fools

The Transportation Security Administration and the FBI pulled out all the stops last week to capture a 20-year-old college student who breached airport security and hid forbidden items aboard two Southwest Airlines aircraft.

This would have been comical if the ramifications weren’t so serious.

It was a repairman in New Orleans, working on a clogged airplane lavatory – not one of the 180,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security – who discovered the bags containing box cutters, bleach, matches and clay molded to simulate plastic explosives. Some five weeks earlier, these items had been hidden behind a panel near the toilet by young Nathaniel Travis Heatwole, a student at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C.

A few hours later, a repairman in Houston came across a similar package on another Southwest Airlines aircraft. These discoveries triggered a search of some 7,000 aircraft – the entire commercial fleet – within 24-hours. The search was completed between flights without any delays to air traffic.

After 9-11, millions of commercial airline travelers just assumed that these searches were routine. Obviously they were not!

Meanwhile, the FBI was combing through passenger manifests and was interviewing anyone who had access to the airplanes such as maintenance workers. They need not have bothered.

All that was necessary was for the Transportation Security Administration to read its e-mail – a task that we are supposed to believe is too daunting.

It seems that on Sept. 15, young Heatwole went to the trouble to e-mail the TSA about his activities, which he said were done “with the aim of improving public safety for the air traveling public.” In fact, he was helpful enough to provide exact dates and flight numbers. Heatwole even left the TSA his name and telephone number. He was respectful, signing his message, “Sincerely, Nat Heatwole.”

The TSA says it receives 5,700 e-mail messages each day. If reading them is too hard, then why does the TSA even bother to have an e-mail address?

After the forbidden items were discovered last Thursday, the TSA managed to find Heatwole’s e-mail in less than 24 hours, which then was forwarded to the FBI.

When the government hauled Heatwole into court Monday, they treated him more like “Osama bin Heatwole” than the concerned, respectful, young college junior that he is. He was charged with carrying concealed weapons on an aircraft, which could get him 10 years in a federal prison. Thomas DiBiagio, the U.S. attorney for Maryland who is handling this case, called Heatwole’s actions “dangerous.”

Let’s get real here! The question is: Dangerous to whom?

The flying public?

Not really. The two airplanes where he stashed these items flew for over a month without incident.

Heatwole’s actions should be dangerous to retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. James Loy, who heads the TSA’s sinking ship of fools.

On the very day Heatwole was charged, the Bush administration announced the federal deficit for 2003 would be a record $374 billion.

I smell an opportunity here. Instead of punishing young Heatwole, reward him for his trouble.

No need to keep paying the incompetents who test the airport screeners. Let the general public do it – as long as they follow the rules: Inform the TSA of your intention, before showing up for a flight. Give exact date and time and flight number of the airplane you plan to board and the items you plan to take through security. Then, if you are caught, there should be no harm, no foul. If you are not, the security personnel responsible for allowing you on the flight lose their jobs.

Of course, we would need to make sure the people responsible for receiving the notices from our “volunteer airport testers” do not tip off airport security personnel in advance.

The week before young Heatwole was discovered, we leaned that New York’s airport screeners were fed answers to dumbed-down written tests and still were not required to identify bombs, guns or other dangerous objects in carry-on luggage in order to pass. How serious is that?

It’s been over two years since the tragic hijackings that killed over 3,000 Americans and did billions of dollars in damage. Despite federalizing airport screeners and the consolidation of 22 federal agencies into the Department of Homeland Security, we still can’t prevent box cutters – the airline terrorists’ weapons of choice – from being taken aboard our commercial planes.

It is time that the heads of Loy and his top officials roll. Only when there is accountability from those at the top can we expect any kind of accountability from those further down the line.

These people must lose their jobs before more Americans lose their lives.