of trained, armed FAMs on 3% to 5% of all flights was an acceptable number? Further, assuming that this percentage is sufficient to provide a desired level of protection, what criteria were utilised to articulate that figure as acceptable? Was some risk analysis methodology preformed? If so, are results available, and/or are they sufficient to provide a defence to the baselines? If the percentages are based on intelligence-driven data, as alleged by the TSA, by whom and how has this data been vetted? In summary, just how comfortable should the US flying public feel when our best- case scenario leaves 95% of all daily flights unprotected?


Deterrence vs. Guarantee At this point, let me suggest that a large part of the problem stems from a flawed premise, namely that we should, somehow, strive to protect all flights; at least all those that an opaque intelligence process identifies as “high-threat”. Nowhere in the literature surrounding the FAM controversies has this writer been able to find the word “deterrence”; that is, even a hint that the FAM programme is, at heart, a deterrent to terrorist threats. The lack of such verbiage leaves one with the conclusion that the government’s intelligence analysis really results in a figure of 3% - 5% of all US flights subject to threat.


This tends to strain credulity, especially


given a lack of data to support such a contention. Hence the semantic debate over what comprises “coverage”, what constitutes a “flight”, what percentage of flights are actually “covered”, etc., marches on. By simply revising some basic assumptions relative to


FAM Program outcomes, and embracing the possibility that the programme’s efficacy lies in deterrence rather than protection expressed as a percentage of flight coverage, the ferocity driving the debate tends to dissipate.


Issues


relating to numbers of marshals available to fly, percentages of flights “covered”, arrests per FAM, arbitrary “flight coverage indexes” – most, if not all these controversies are rendered moot. The programme was never intended to place an armed federal law enforcement officer on all flights, either domestic or international. While concentrating on those destinations identified as high threat, a programme dedicated to deterrence has the ability to cover some flights randomly, and place its emphasis on predominately foreign or domestic destinations as events dictate. The programme is freed from the hysteria that afflicted it in the aftermath of 9/11, when it seemed imperative to protect everything, all the time. And, perhaps most importantly, it relieves us of the need to solve a problem by throwing money at it, a technique we can ill-afford in today’s economy.


The US$85 million


earmarked for the programme can be shifted to other areas - identified through a suitable risk-analysis process – that have valid, demonstrable needs. More to the point, the FAM programme, funded through 2011 at just under US$ one billion , now becomes amenable to significant reductions in force, complimented by an accompanying economy of scale. (And, one hopes, a corresponding level of expectations). Functioning as a deterrent, the FAM programme becomes as robust as it needs to be, not pegged to the size of the industry it strives to protect. A deterrent, to be effective,


June 2010 Aviationsecurityinternational www.asi-mag.com 13


The author is a Professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University specialising in Homeland Security. He is the former Director of Public Safety at Orlando International Airport.


“...the FAM programme is, at heart, a deterrent to terrorist threats...”


needs merely to exist, and through its existence give pause to those who would seek to do us harm. It is not required to grow large enough to guarantee our safety, a debatable possibility in any case.


Thus, in terms of costs versus benefits and considering the


inherent possibilities and limitations of the programme, the United States stands to benefit from a complete change in FAM program perception, organisation and operation. Small cadres of highly-trained and motivated special agents, flying on multi-leg trips both domestically and internationally, whose frequency and destinations are driven by well-developed intelligence models, offer the nation more than we have been getting. It is a programme deserving of our attention and efforts toward improvement rather than the history of chronic complaints and fault-finding that has dogged the FAMs over the past nine years. We owe it to our citizens, the dedicated men and women who serve in the FAM programme, and our efforts to protect US civil aviation to do better than we have. This proposal constitutes a small step in that direction.


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