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American Morning
New Advisory Being Issued for Nation's Airports
Aired August 05, 2003 - 08:09 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.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: The Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center is a think tank that evaluates security issues. Its CEO is Charles Slepian.
He is here with us now to discuss this new concern about airline safety.
Thanks for being here, Charles.
We appreciate your time.
Tell us how alarming this is.
CHARLES SLEPIAN, CEO, FORESEEABLE RISK ANALYSIS CENTER: It's very alarming. It's particularly alarming because nothing new has been discovered here. Remember, PanAm 103 went down because somebody packed explosives, half a pound of explosives, into a portable radio. We are now talking about electronic devices and what they can do to either be used as weapons or explosives.
I have two weapons with me. Everybody's got one of these in their pocket nowadays.
COLLINS: Right.
SLEPIAN: It starts your car. It's electronic. And my cell phone, which could be packed with symtex (ph). The point...
COLLINS: Let's talk for a moment -- just remind everyone, because I think a lot of people don't remember the findings of the PanAm crash. Symtex is what?
SLEPIAN: Symtex is a plastic explosive. It was set with a detonator and a timer, an altimeter. It was put into a portable radio, packed in somebody's baggage and exploded at about 30,000 feet on PanAm 103 back in 1988, which is the most shocking portion of this, because we've known these things can occur since then.
To respond now, because we've discovered at an al Qaeda hideout somewhere that they're using electronics and carving them out and perhaps putting plastic explosives in them or other weapons, is pretty shocking. We've known this all along.
COLLINS: But, Charles, what's your confidence level that screeners now are going to be able to know how to detect something like symtex? SLEPIAN: Well, not very high. Unfortunately we don't have screeners who are trained to identity symtex, quite frankly. Screeners get 40 hours of training. We have a huge force of people out there. They're former law enforcement people, former military people who ought to be serving in airports right now who could help those screeners identify plastic explosives. We have corrections personnel who can tell you what a weapon really is, if we just put them to work.
We are trying to patch a problem once again, react to a problem instead of being proactive.
COLLINS: Let's get back just to -- for a minute, if we could -- cell phone, remote or a keyless entry sort of key that you have with you. These are typically items, at least for me, that I carry in my purse, also known as carry on baggage.
Is this another issue to address?
SLEPIAN: Well, now each one of these items is going to be more carefully looked at. Now, I'm not quite sure that the person who is looked at it is going to be able to tell you that this is not only a key, but also a detonator. So that when I push the button to open the door, I'm not sending a radio signal to explode a bomb.
We had better be sure that the people who are looking at these things really know what they're looking at. And that is going to be a problem. Just about everybody has got one of these cell phones. And the line will back up out the door and down the street if we try to take apart everybody's cell phone. There are ways of dealing with it.
And let me underscore one other thing, Heidi. People should not be afraid to fly. We can deal with this problem if we want to deal with it. There are bomb boxes. There are ways of checking electronics even before you get to the screening station. If we do those things, we'll be able to get on with our business every day. But reacting the way we do just scares the daylights out of people, affects the economy, puts people out of work and for really for no good reason.
COLLINS: Excellent point.
Thanks so much for being with us this morning.
SLEPIAN: Thank you.
COLLINS: We appreciate it.
Charles Slepian, CEO of Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, thanks once again.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 5, 2003 - 08:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: The Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center is a think tank that evaluates security issues. Its CEO is Charles Slepian.
He is here with us now to discuss this new concern about airline safety.
Thanks for being here, Charles.
We appreciate your time.
Tell us how alarming this is.
CHARLES SLEPIAN, CEO, FORESEEABLE RISK ANALYSIS CENTER: It's very alarming. It's particularly alarming because nothing new has been discovered here. Remember, PanAm 103 went down because somebody packed explosives, half a pound of explosives, into a portable radio. We are now talking about electronic devices and what they can do to either be used as weapons or explosives.
I have two weapons with me. Everybody's got one of these in their pocket nowadays.
COLLINS: Right.
SLEPIAN: It starts your car. It's electronic. And my cell phone, which could be packed with symtex (ph). The point...
COLLINS: Let's talk for a moment -- just remind everyone, because I think a lot of people don't remember the findings of the PanAm crash. Symtex is what?
SLEPIAN: Symtex is a plastic explosive. It was set with a detonator and a timer, an altimeter. It was put into a portable radio, packed in somebody's baggage and exploded at about 30,000 feet on PanAm 103 back in 1988, which is the most shocking portion of this, because we've known these things can occur since then.
To respond now, because we've discovered at an al Qaeda hideout somewhere that they're using electronics and carving them out and perhaps putting plastic explosives in them or other weapons, is pretty shocking. We've known this all along.
COLLINS: But, Charles, what's your confidence level that screeners now are going to be able to know how to detect something like symtex? SLEPIAN: Well, not very high. Unfortunately we don't have screeners who are trained to identity symtex, quite frankly. Screeners get 40 hours of training. We have a huge force of people out there. They're former law enforcement people, former military people who ought to be serving in airports right now who could help those screeners identify plastic explosives. We have corrections personnel who can tell you what a weapon really is, if we just put them to work.
We are trying to patch a problem once again, react to a problem instead of being proactive.
COLLINS: Let's get back just to -- for a minute, if we could -- cell phone, remote or a keyless entry sort of key that you have with you. These are typically items, at least for me, that I carry in my purse, also known as carry on baggage.
Is this another issue to address?
SLEPIAN: Well, now each one of these items is going to be more carefully looked at. Now, I'm not quite sure that the person who is looked at it is going to be able to tell you that this is not only a key, but also a detonator. So that when I push the button to open the door, I'm not sending a radio signal to explode a bomb.
We had better be sure that the people who are looking at these things really know what they're looking at. And that is going to be a problem. Just about everybody has got one of these cell phones. And the line will back up out the door and down the street if we try to take apart everybody's cell phone. There are ways of dealing with it.
And let me underscore one other thing, Heidi. People should not be afraid to fly. We can deal with this problem if we want to deal with it. There are bomb boxes. There are ways of checking electronics even before you get to the screening station. If we do those things, we'll be able to get on with our business every day. But reacting the way we do just scares the daylights out of people, affects the economy, puts people out of work and for really for no good reason.
COLLINS: Excellent point.
Thanks so much for being with us this morning.
SLEPIAN: Thank you.
COLLINS: We appreciate it.
Charles Slepian, CEO of Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, thanks once again.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
