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CNN Live At Daybreak

Ashcroft Says Security Sweeps in Washington Area Should be a Wake-Up Call For Airports

Aired April 24, 2002 - 06:09   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Attorney General John Ashcroft says security sweeps in the Washington area should be a wake-up call for airports nationwide. Federal authorities have arrested more than 100 workers at airports in the D.C. area.

Reporter Alissa Parenti of CNN affiliate WJLA joins us live from Reagan National Airport with more. Who were these workers who were arrested, and what were they arrested for?

ALISSA PARENTI, CNN AFFILIATE WJLA REPORTER: Well, Carol, there were a lot of food service employees, some screeners, different people who had access to a lot of secure areas at the airports. And again, there are three airports involved here: Dulles, here at Reagan National and also BWI.

The charges they are faced in what they are calling Operation Tarmac, they are accused of fraudulently obtaining airport security badges, again, allowing them access to some of the most secure areas.

Now, we also wanted to let you know that some of those charges specifically include falsifying social security applications, violating immigration laws and lying about past felony criminal records, including drug charges and assaults.

Now, as disturbing as some of these arrests are, and we talked with some of the passengers, they are clearly concerned. We want to point out that none of these people who have been charged had any ties to any terrorist -- known terrorist criminals or anything. There was nothing in the works per se. It's just a concern that they had lied about their background.

Some of the things that the attorney general talked about, the reviews that were done on these various security employees were done piecemeal by airlines, contractors, airports and private security companies. Too often, apparently, immigrants and previous felons were able to slip through the cracks.

Now, as you mentioned, similar raids of this nature have occurred in other cities. The problem here in D.C., as you know all too well, Carol, its close proximity of all of these airports, particularly right here where we are standing in Reagan National Airport, close proximity to the White House, the Capitol and of course, the Pentagon.

Live out here at Reagan National, Alissa Parenti -- back to you.

COSTELLO: Well, Alissa, I want to ask you this. Reagan National is not far from the White House and other very important places in Washington. Why did it take them so long to round up these people at these airports and get them out of there?

PARENTI: Well, that is concerning. And again, I think it's because perhaps it was done so piecemeal up to that point. They had to go through a lot of different agencies to track down this background information apparently. And they had been conducting these stings across the county, but you would think this would be one of the first ones that they would want to target.

COSTELLO: That's what I was just going to ask you. So these people were not necessarily working at security in the airports, but they were food service workers and people like that.

PARENTI: That's true. Some of them were in security, but also some were in food service. Now, I should also mention, we talked about some of the passengers being nervous. One member of a union came up, declined of course to go on camera, but said they were concerned that these people were just being arrested on immigration charges. They are saying, hey, there was no security breach here. This was just an immigration problem, some documents, very different perspective than you hear from some of the passengers, who say, oh, my gosh, we have 140 people at three airports lying about their past.

COSTELLO: I know. Wow! Well, thank you -- Alissa Parenti reporting live for us from Washington -- thank you for that report from our friends at WJLA.

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