Showing posts with label El Al security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label El Al security. Show all posts
Monday, December 13, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
How Israelis Secure Airports; Forget the 'porn machines'
Air travelers in the United States are now given two options at the security gate -- be groin-groped by gloved Transportation Security Administration agents, or photographed "naked" in the back-scatter X-ray device that Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic calls "the porn machine."
You can thank failed "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for this one. While armies tragically tend to fight the last war, the TSA looks for the item the most recent terrorist used.
After 9/11, everything sharp -- even tweezers -- was banned. Ever since Richard Reid tried and failed to light his loafers on fire, security agents have forced us to take off our shoes. British authorities rounded up terrorists who planned to bring liquid explosives on board, and we've all been prohibited from carrying shampoo through the gate ever since.
Terrorists have yet to use the same weapon twice, and the TSA isn't even looking for whatever they'll try to use next. I can think of all sorts of things a person could use to wreak havoc on a plane that aren't banned. Security officials should pay less attention to objects, and more attention to people.
The Israelis do. They are, out of dreadful necessity, the world's foremost experts in counterterrorism. And they couldn't care less about what your grandmother brings on a plane. Instead, officials at Ben Gurion International Airport interview everyone in line before they're even allowed to check in.
And Israeli officials profile. They don't profile racially, but they profile. Israeli Arabs breeze through rather quickly, but thanks to the dozens of dubious-looking stamps in my passport -- almost half are from Lebanon and Iraq -- I get pulled off to the side for more questioning every time. And I'm a white, nominally Christian American.
If they pull you aside, you had better tell them the truth. They'll ask you so many wildly unpredictable questions so quickly, you couldn't possibly invent a fake story and keep it all straight. Don't even try. They're highly trained and experienced, and they catch everyone who tries to pull something over on them.
Because I fit one of their profiles, it takes me 15 or 20 minutes longer to get through the first wave of security than it does for most people. The agents make up for it, though, by escorting me to the front of the line at the metal detector. They don't put anyone into a "porn machine." There's no point. Terrorists can't penetrate that deeply into the airport.
The Israeli experience isn't pleasant, exactly, and there's a lot not to like about it. It can be exasperating for those of us who are interrogated more thoroughly.
The system has its advantages, though, aside from the fact that no one looks or reaches into anyone's pants. Israelis don't use security theater to make passengers feel like they're safe. They use real security measures to ensure that travelers actually are safe. Even when suicide bombers exploded themselves almost daily in Israeli cities, not a single one managed to get through that airport.
Michael J. Totten is an indepen dent foreign correspondent. His next book is "The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah and the Iranian War Against Israel."
You can thank failed "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for this one. While armies tragically tend to fight the last war, the TSA looks for the item the most recent terrorist used.
After 9/11, everything sharp -- even tweezers -- was banned. Ever since Richard Reid tried and failed to light his loafers on fire, security agents have forced us to take off our shoes. British authorities rounded up terrorists who planned to bring liquid explosives on board, and we've all been prohibited from carrying shampoo through the gate ever since.
Terrorists have yet to use the same weapon twice, and the TSA isn't even looking for whatever they'll try to use next. I can think of all sorts of things a person could use to wreak havoc on a plane that aren't banned. Security officials should pay less attention to objects, and more attention to people.
The Israelis do. They are, out of dreadful necessity, the world's foremost experts in counterterrorism. And they couldn't care less about what your grandmother brings on a plane. Instead, officials at Ben Gurion International Airport interview everyone in line before they're even allowed to check in.
And Israeli officials profile. They don't profile racially, but they profile. Israeli Arabs breeze through rather quickly, but thanks to the dozens of dubious-looking stamps in my passport -- almost half are from Lebanon and Iraq -- I get pulled off to the side for more questioning every time. And I'm a white, nominally Christian American.
If they pull you aside, you had better tell them the truth. They'll ask you so many wildly unpredictable questions so quickly, you couldn't possibly invent a fake story and keep it all straight. Don't even try. They're highly trained and experienced, and they catch everyone who tries to pull something over on them.
Because I fit one of their profiles, it takes me 15 or 20 minutes longer to get through the first wave of security than it does for most people. The agents make up for it, though, by escorting me to the front of the line at the metal detector. They don't put anyone into a "porn machine." There's no point. Terrorists can't penetrate that deeply into the airport.
The Israeli experience isn't pleasant, exactly, and there's a lot not to like about it. It can be exasperating for those of us who are interrogated more thoroughly.
The system has its advantages, though, aside from the fact that no one looks or reaches into anyone's pants. Israelis don't use security theater to make passengers feel like they're safe. They use real security measures to ensure that travelers actually are safe. Even when suicide bombers exploded themselves almost daily in Israeli cities, not a single one managed to get through that airport.
Michael J. Totten is an indepen dent foreign correspondent. His next book is "The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah and the Iranian War Against Israel."
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
A passengers has his luggage checked by security personnel, inside the Ben Gurion air port terminal near Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. Senior Israeli airport official Nahum Liss said Tuesday screening procedures at airports around the world are inadequate, calling Israel's heavily fortified international airport the best protected in the world
An unmanned vehicle helps secure the runway at Ben Gurion air port near Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. Senior Israeli airport official Nahum Liss said Tuesday screening procedures at airports around the world are inadequate, calling Israel's heavily fortified international airport the best protected in the world
Israeli Airport Gives Rare Glimpse Into Security
Airport security around the world isn't good enough, an Israeli airport official said Tuesday while showing international experts Israel's near-legendary methods as a possible solution.
Israel, which prides itself on airport and airplane security, showed off robots and procedures to keep passengers safe. One method has been condemned in other countries — profiling.
Nahum Liss of the Israeli Airports Authority said Israel's heavily fortified international airport is the most protected in the world, speaking as authorities on three continents were investigating cargo bombs intercepted at airports last week in Britain and Dubai.
A confident Liss told about 50 visiting security experts that security procedures at Ben-Gurion International Airport "are built in order to confront this kind of threat."
Israel is known for its stringent airport security, the result of a string of Palestinian attacks on Israeli planes in the 1970s.
Before approaching the ticket counter, passengers are thoroughly questioned by "selectors" who look for travelers who match a suspicious profile.
"In the U.S., profiling is a bad word," Liss said, but he defended the practice, saying it is done by "intelligent, motivated" university students who served in Israel's military and can identify passengers who could pose a potential risk.
Liss said that heightened screening of passengers and carry-on luggage in international airports has pushed terror organizations to look for other vulnerable areas to attack at airports. He said many of the world's airports do not properly secure their perimeters.
"We need to protect our back door as well," said Liss, offering a look at an advanced technique the Israelis are working on.
The visitors, including experts from the U.S. and Europe, watched as security officers staged a live simulation, stopping three armed "terrorists" who broke through a rear gate.
Then they observed an unmanned vehicle patrolling the airport perimeter by remote control — a technology soon to be introduced at the Israeli airport.
Routine security procedures start far away from the terminal.
Before even entering the airport, all cars are stopped for a security check by armed guards. Cameras scan license plates to match them with a database of suspicious vehicles. Security officials said it's one of the many security filters passengers pass before boarding flights, some of them unknown to the passengers and many others still kept secret.
The Israeli airport's spokesman's unit said the main terminal is equipped with 700 closed-circuit cameras and is fortified against explosions. The large glass wall at the front and even the trash cans inside are bombproof, they said.
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