February 7, 2002 Thursday

Airport Security Revamp In the Works in Boston; Roving Pattern-Recognition Teams Proposed

Pamela Ferdinand, Special to The Washington Post

BOSTON

In the months following Sept. 11, Logan International Airport here was widely assailed for its string of security lapses, for its inept management and, most important, for its status as the origin of the two hijacked jets that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Battered by criticism from the public and the press, the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the airport, decided to bring in the best: the former head of security at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, whose safety record is unrivaled.

The changes proposed so far by Raphael "Rafi" Ron, a former paratrooper and intelligence officer who was hired as a consultant in October, would result in a very different Logan. Ron envisions an airport with more centralized decision-making, led by a director experienced in both security and aviation. He sees it equipped with sophisticated new technology, ranging from biometric devices that can scan fingertips and retinas to computerized automobile ramps that can detect any suspicious weight on a vehicle.

But Ron's most controversial proposal is the creation of teams of roving pattern-recognition experts -- he refuses to call them "profilers" -- who would move throughout the airport and target suspicious travelers for extra security checks. These teams, he said, would not use ethnicity as a factor in seeking potential terrorists, nor would they conduct the kind of lengthy interviews that are done in Israeli airports. Instead, the teams -- some of whom would be uniformed, others undercover -- would interact with passengers to observe their behavior and determine if any merit extra scrutiny.

The recommendation, which is likely to be included in his final report to Massport in March, would make Logan more secure by combining human intelligence with technology, Ron said. That does not mean he thinks Logan is necessarily worse than other U.S. airports; almost all of them used to consider security more as a burdensome expense than a necessity, he said.

"It's very difficult not to criticize what was taking place and, to some extent, what is still taking place," he said. "But in the name of fairness, before Sept. 11, nobody really wanted more serious security in this country -- not the passengers, not the airlines, not even the government."

Here and elsewhere, aviation officials are considering how to enhance security and restore public confidence as airports begin to comply with the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and await the federal takeover of security duties on Feb. 17.

At Logan, Massport directors commissioned an independent security audit last year and expect a draft report soon. They set aside $ 20 million for security upgrades and provided counterterrorism training for employees. In what some observers say is the clearest sign that times have changed, they allowed Massport's interim security chief to fire an ineffective private security firm, Argenbright Security Inc.

And they hired Ron. Even though Ben-Gurion handles roughly one-third of the number of passengers who pass through Logan each year, Massport officials expressed admiration for its multitiered security system and its record: The last time an El Al plane was hijacked was in 1968, and terrorists have never successfully targeted any of the Tel Aviv airport's departing jets.

"The Israelis came to mind immediately because they are world-renowned for their civil aviation security programs," said Thomas J. Kinton Jr., Logan's aviation security chief and acting executive director. "I don't think you can even begin to compare what goes on there on a day-to-day basis versus what we're going to be doing, and that's not what this is about. We need to model our approach based on the threat as we understand it."

A father of two who is married to a granddaughter of the late Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion, Ron, 54, has the international know-how to adapt security plans to American culture, Kinton said.

A native of Israel, he commanded paratroopers by age 19 and served on the front lines of the 1967 Six-Day War. He became one of the first sky marshals for El Al, traveled the world as an intelligence officer, and oversaw security for Israeli officials from Jerusalem to New York and Mexico City. In October, shortly after Ron received a lifetime achievement award at the International Aviation Security Conference in Atlanta, Massport awarded his firm, New Age Aviation Security Ltd., an initial $ 500,000 contract. (Len Limmer, a former Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport security chief, also serves as a consultant.)

Already, Logan has begun mimicking Ben-Gurion's layers of security. Roadblocks for random vehicle checks have been set up on routes leading into the airport. Specially trained K-9 units and officers armed with automatic weapons patrol the terminals, whose exteriors are being hardened with thicker doors and shatterproof glass. National Guardsmen require passengers to show photo identification at security checkpoints. General aviation aircraft are locked when parked to prevent theft. Even clam diggers are banned from the tidal flats on the airport's perimeter.

On the technology side, everything from infrared cameras to electronic fences (an Israeli specialty) is being considered by Ron and his team. Closed-circuit televisions are now installed at most security checkpoints, and Logan is anticipating new baggage screening equipment. Facial recognition technology is being tested at the airport, using an experimental database on about 70 employees. Officials are also trying document verification technology for detecting tampering, while state police officers are using mobile hand-held computers to run instant criminal background checks.

Human intelligence is an equally significant part of the security formula, Ron said. Early on, Israelis figured out that locating a weapon, which can be anything from a knife to an odorless substance, is much more difficult than rooting out suspicious individuals. Given that the hijackers who attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were not carrying obvious weapons, "September 11th is the proof that we were right," he said.

"Profiling" has become a dirty word in the United States, Ron said, only because it has been used improperly. At Ben-Gurion, profiling takes from 90 seconds to 30 minutes, and it is performed by a well-paid cadre of university students who receive special training and have flawless military records. They examine documents, ask probing questions (Do you read Hebrew? Whom did you visit?) and often verify information by phone on the spot.

The typical passenger singled out for a full search is a young backpacker of European descent, and the process lasts an average of one hour, Ron said. Though profiling has come under fire from civil rights groups in Israel, Ron said it is worthwhile. In 1986, for example, Israeli profilers targeted a pregnant young Irish woman whose Palestinian fiance[acute], as it turned out, had hidden plastic explosives and a detonator in one of her suitcases.

"Profiling is not enough. It's profiling that leads to a further check of the individual that makes the powerful formula," Ron said. "Even terrorism has its rules. Even terrorism has its logic."

Ron declined to discuss the specific criteria that might be used by pattern-recognition experts to single out suspicious travelers at Logan. But he said they could help prompt a full search of someone like Richard Reid, who allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his shoes onboard a trans-Atlantic flight in December.

Kinton, Logan's acting executive director, said that while he is wary of profiling per se, he welcomes the idea of a "walk and talk" team that would monitor passenger behavior throughout the airport. He added that he has confidence Ron will customize his security plan to fit Logan, even if it takes time.

"Nobody can expect that the level of security in American aviation will change in a couple of months to the Israeli security level," Ron said. "It took us 30 years."