Airport Badge Clampdown

The nation's airports have revoked the badges of tens of thousands of people who, although unauthorized, had been able to bypass security checkpoints and gain access to airplanes.

In the past, many former airport workers did not turn in their badges, which investigators warned could compromise security.

After last month's terror attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration asked airports to check the badges of all employees, a job completed this week.

In Chicago alone, almost 12,000 badges were not renewed at O'Hare and Midway airports. Denver reported that 3,000 badges were not renewed. All the badges were deactivated.

"When the deadline was reached, the badges automatically were turned off," Denver International Airport spokesman Chuck Cannon said.

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto would not discuss the number of badges revoked nationwide but said anybody who can bypass security checkpoints now has a badge that is "genuine, difficult to counterfeit and tamperproof."

Federal officials are investigating whether box cutters and other weapons used to commandeer four jetliners Sept. 11 were planted on board the flights by people with access to the aircraft, rather than being smuggled by the hijackers past airport security screeners.

Adding weight to this theory is that box cutters were found in two planes that were grounded after the terrorist attacks, one in Boston, the other in Atlanta.

On Friday, the Massachusetts Port Authority announced the hiring of two safety consultants for Logan International Airport at Boston, from where the two planes that crashed into New York's World Trade Center took off. One of the two is Rafi Ron, former security director for Israel's El Al Airlines, famous for tough security procedures. The previous director, Joseph Lawless, was reassigned after the attacks.

FAA Administrator Jane Garvey announced this week that airports and airlines would be required to conduct new background checks on all 750,000 employees who can enter secured areas.

Meanwhile, newly elected House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi of California pressed House Republicans to bring up the airline security bill that unanimously passed the Senate. The legislation would put all 28,000 passenger screeners and other airport security employees on the federal payroll, and House GOP leaders oppose such a move.

Former Transportation Department Inspector General Mary Schiavo said each badge should have been invalidated immediately and surrendered whenever an employee left, but the airports and the FAA didn't follow through.

"You had a live badge that could work in the system," Schiavo said. "Somebody had to take he time to say these badges are missing."

The Transportation Department's inspector general, in a report issued last year, noted that almost one of every 10 badges at six selected airports remained active even after the holder no longer had reasons to enter secure areas.

"That's definitely a security loophole that's been out there," said Paul Hudson, director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, an advocacy group affiliated with consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

In addition, airports are going to be more stingy in distributing the badges, said Carter Morris, regulatory affairs vice president for the American Association of Airport Executives.

"Historically, some folks who have activities on a sporadic basis have been allowed to come in with an escort or under special procedures," Morris said. "They are either eliminating or drastically tightening those procedures. If you're going to be in that area for whatever reason, we're going to know who you are and what your background has been to the extent of the intelligence and criminal data capability of the federal government."

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