I would be lying if I said the suicide bombing at the busiest airport in Moscow this week did not hit home for me. I was born in Moscow, and a lot of my family still lives there. Upon reading that 15 pounds of TNT had blown up in the arrivals hall, I instantly contacted my parents to make sure everyone we knew was OK.
However, this tragic incident did not just hit home for me on a personal level, but on a national level also. Russia, on the surface, tries to model itself after America. In the aftermath of the bombing, from which at least 35 people were killed and 100 injured, President Medvedev appears to think that modeling Russian airport security after America’s will bring peace to his citizens.
Speaking as a former Russian citizen, current U.S. citizen and avid traveler, I think the airport security in the States is not worth Russia’s admiration. In fact, if any country’s level of security is to be modeled after, it is Israel’s. Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy, seems to know what he’s talking about. He has worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.
“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take shit from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for – not for hours – but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport,'” Sela says.
Sela explains the six layers of security at the Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport in an elegantly rational fashion. The security there is designed to take no more than a total of 25 minutes from the parking lot to the airport lounge. The gist of it is that the security protects you without annoying you. I can’t help but wonder why we can’t implement such a system in the States.
The security we currently have is misguided. We are overly concerned with racial profiling when what we need to be focused on is behavior profiling. As Sela says, “The word ‘profiling’ is a political invention by people who don’t want to do security… to us, it doesn’t matter if (they’re) black, white, young or old. It’s just (their) behavior.”
Sela can ask a seemingly useless question, like “how are you”? and be able to scan a person for signs of distress and nervousness. This takes a matter of seconds. It is significantly more efficient than the time spent harassing people about taking off shoes and tossing their bottles of water more than 100 milliliters in volume, then patting them down when they forgot to take off their belt. Such time-consuming procedures in America create a bottleneck that is perfect grounds for a suicide bomber.
I think it is worthless to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on current security check procedures that are based off of previous bombing attempts. If a terrorist once planted a bomb in his shoes that didn’t set off, forever after the shoes of all Americans will be checked. Likewise, if once upon a time a terrorist attempted an attack using a gel, all liquids and gels will forever after be banned and seized from all Americans.
“Why should the budget, personnel, [and] stringency of an abandoned tactic be continually intensified”? asks Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal.
We should focus our efforts elsewhere. Take as an example the Moscow airport bombing, which has exposed some of our airport’s weaknesses. Just like at the arrival gate in Moscow, hundreds of people at American airports gather to wait for arriving passengers from international flights. Just like those killed and injured in Moscow, these innocent bystanders are susceptible to a suicide bombing. Moreover, as the Washington Post reports, just like the design of the Moscow airport, many American airports have glass elements and partitions, which extends the death and injury toll upon an explosion. Airports should be redesigned with this in mind. The Ben-Gurion Airport design is a good place to start modeling after.
In response to the incident in Moscow, our Transportation Security Administration spokesman, Nicolas Kimball, stated that the tragedy is being monitored. I hope this means that they are doing more than just watching the videotapes to figure out if the suicide bomber was really dark skinned or not.
“We have a saying in Hebrew that it’s much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it’s dark over there. That’s exactly how (North American airport security officials) act,” Sela says. He’s right. With some additional technology and training, we can have a more efficient airport security system.
The website http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/sad_images_of_american_airport_security_theater/ shows some saddening images of the misguided American airport security efforts. Let’s hope they are never captured again.
Victoria Yakovleva ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in chemical engineering.
