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American Morning

America Under Attack: Staten Island Reopened; FAA Adding New Security Measures to Airports

Aired September 13, 2001 - 09:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's move now to another burrough of New York City, Staten Island, where CNN's Hillary Lane is standing by, unable, at least at last conversation with her, unable to get on to Staten Island, because authorities there have cordoned off the area.

Hillary, give us an update?

HILLARY LANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, I'm actually on the New Jersey side, where we were turned away from -- one of the bridges going to Staten Island. The reason for that was that the New Jersey Port Authority police have been tracking a vehicle that was suspected of some involvement in the World Trade Center attack, tracking that vehicle on to Staten Island, which one of the of the five burroughs of New York City, an island just like Manhattan. They did locate the car. When they found the car, they found that their had been unfouned.

And what the Port Authority are saying this morning, they know it was an inconvenience to commuters, there was a back up of at least an hour on these different crossings. But they said, at a time like this, and at anytime, they would not compromise the safety of anybody in the region.

Miles, that's what going on, Stanton Island reopened on what turns out to have been a false lead.

Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right. Hillary, I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part. Staten Island is in fact open for business now, so to speak?

LANE: That's right, they are reopening Staten Island. They're saying following up on any leads they can at this point. That is the reason why they shut down the island for about a half hour this morning. But cars are now able to move both on to the island and off of the island, get back to business.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Hillary Lane, who is now on Staten Island, or fast approaching Staten Island.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Miles, I know you mentioned a little bit earlier on that we are awaiting a news conference that is going to be held by the U.S. Department of Transportation. If and when that happens, we will go to it live.

In the meantime, we are now joined by Mary Schiavo, who is former the inspector Department of Transportation inspector general.

Welcome. Thank you for joining us this morning.

MARY SCHIAVO, FMR. DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION INSPECTOR GENERAL: Thank you.

ZAHN: I wanted to get your quick reaction to some of the new guidelines that are going to go into effect at airports across the nation.

I am going to quickly recap some of the new regulations. Among them, no curbside check in. Only ticketed passengers will be allowed through security. No knives of any kind can be brought on board, and higher standards for security personnel, and more federal marshals in place at larger airports. Will any of this prevent the kind of attack that the United States has just endured?

SCHIAVO: No, this is a piecemeal response, and I think it really gives away how shellshocked the FAA is. Many of these recommendations, for example, the tighter and higher standards for security personnel, those have been recommendations for almost a decade, and now we're seeing them in the wake of this terrible terrorist attack on domestic aviation. We have had sky marshals, by the way, very few numbers, but increasing that is definitely an improvement.

What we need is coordinated law enforcement to run our aviation security at our nationwide airports in a coordinated manner, not a civilian FAA piecing it together with, you know, local authorities across the country, and this has pointed up that great shortcoming.

ZAHN: What do you mean by that? That we would have law enforcement agents stationed at every security zone and in an airport? They would be the ones overseeing the checking in of luggage and the handling of hand baggage as you head to your airport gate?

SCHIAVO: No. Actually, it's more pervasive than that. It stems from the very top. Right now, our overall coordination of airport security and our policies and procedures are set by the civilian Federal Aviation Administration, which has been highly criticized for well over a decade at being up able to perform this function.

The law enforcement function overall, setting the policies, running the programs, telling our airports, our almost 400 passenger service airports, how do this, and other countries run by law enforcement, not by the civilian FAA. And also, we see this incredible patchwork quilt of security. We see -- even now, we see the Federal Aviation Administration telling airports one by one to handle various situation. We see local authorities. we see local security and police forces. And what we need is national coordinated federal law enforcement oversight of airports, because we are only a safe as weakest link. If Boston Logan is weak, and you can board a plane at Boston Logan and go compromise Chicago or Columbus, then the entire system points out the fallacy of having it on an airport-by- airport basis.

ZAHN: I understand what you are saying, I hear what you are saying, but if you are to believe that the reports that have been in "The Boston Globe" newspaper, in "The Boston Herald" newspapers, most of those reports recognizing that there have been some security lapses at Logan Airport. The bottom line is, from what we're hearing from sources that some of the men who hijacked these airliners from Boston actually -- the stuff that they carried on them would never have been picked up with security to begin with. They apparently carried razors that were embedded in plastic knives. I mean, how would the law enforcement impact have changed this?

SCHIAVO: Well, for one, we had a spotty policy. It's astonishing that our debate -- part of our debate in the wake of this tragedy is debating what kind of knives were acceptable, and we had screeners unprepared and untrained, you know, literally, given the message that some knives are OK and some aren't. It's a four-inch blade. Are these four inches? Are they not? Do they have ceramic handles? The other problem is, of course, that we now know that at least at one airport, they had ramp access, which is not surprising with a coordinated attack this big as easy as it to get a job at an airport. Many of the jobs are minimum wage, low or no screening. We have had convictions for actually lying about security agencies, or companies actually doing the background checks. That has even been the subject of criminal case in this country. So now we know that the system is compromised from within as well.

And this is a total failure of the system, saying oh, well, OK, some screeners missed it, or some screeners, you know, weren't required to pick it up. We have something far more serious going on than that when we find out they had ramp passes and literally could have compromised the entire system.

ZAHN: But once again, even if you had this plan in effect that you are suggesting, with law enforcement basically running aviation across the country from top to bottom, the fact remains that if it give now martyrdom in some part of the country -- excuse me, in some parts of the world, are honored and promoted, if you want to slam or get on to a plane, you will find a way on the plane, and is there anyone who can stop you from slamming it into a building?

SCHIAVO: Absolutely. And we have to stop it. See, that's the whole point. I think it's the fear that we can't stop them. Of course we can. Remember, we're not talking one; we're talking four. And if we are unable through a minimum-wage employees to stop four airplanes being used as a bomb, because we say, well, we can't pick it up on a metal detector, then the answer is astonishingly simple, don't do it that way. We do not have the ability to screen this out.

You know, I was struck by the fact that people are aghast that they might not be able to carry on the dozen of carry-on bags. You know, if you go into certain department stores, I forget which one it is, in New York, the employees come in with little clear plastic bags. I mean, we're willing to subject employees at department to protect the designer shoes and the employee come in in clear plastic bags. There's way around this, and we have to admit that. ZAHN: Mary, I'm sorry to have to cut you off. We really appreciate the information you've given us today, but we've got to cut in and go to a news conference that the mayor of city of New York is holding right now.

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