MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2010


KLMNO


EZ SU POLITICS & THE NATION DIGEST HAWAII


Obamas attend Sunday services President Obama and his fami-


ly attended church Sunday in Hawaii, making one of their few public appearances since the president arrived here Thursday. The Obamas went to St. Mi-


chael’s Chapel, the church at the Marine base a few miles from wherethe family is staying.About 100 people were in attendance, and they clapped when the first family walked in. The president is a Christian


and frequently speaks about the role of faith in his life but he does not attended services often and has not become a member of a church in theWashington area. —Perry Bacon Jr.


NEWYORK


Civil War events scarce in many states The state of New York con-


tributed 448,000 troops and $150 million to the Union cause during the CivilWar, not to men- tion untold tons of supplies, food, guns and munitions. But with the 150th anniversary


of the war’s start just months away, the state government has so far failed to find funds to com- memorate its role in the conflict. Other states with similar bud-


get woes are also unable or un- willing to set aside taxpayer funds for reenactments and exhibits when public employeesare being laid off and services slashed. —Associated Press


Richard Daley surpasses fa- ther’s mark: Richard M. Daley surpassed his father’s tenure Sunday, becoming the longest- serving mayor of Chicago. Daley has served 7,917 days in office, or 21 years and eight months. That’s one day more than his father, Richard J. Daley, who died in office in 1976. Daley, 68, announced this year


that he would retire and not run for a seventh term. —From news services


AGONYATTHE AIRPORT Howmuch security risk in cargo overflights?


regulations are needed BY ASHLEYHALSEY III


Experts divided on whether stricter


Those planes that look like


specks in the stratosphere are fly- ingsohighbecause they aremere- ly passing by the United States— flying bananas toGermany, Cana- dians toMexico andEuropeans to Jamaica. But should that exempt such flights fromthe full security screening they would get if their destinationwere in this country? As the Obama administration


works to harden domestic defens- esagainst terrorism, some experts point to a potential vulnerability from thousands of flights that pass over the United States each week. AlthoughtheUnitedStates reg-


ulates overflights, the cargo aboard them is not screened to federal standards and passenger lists are notmatched to names on the terrorist watch list main- tained by the Transportation Se- curityAdministration. The TSA says other countries


“have their own cargo security protocols that apply to those air- craft.” The TSA has not imple- mented the new Secure Flight programto scrutinize passengers boarding overflights. That be- hind-the-scenes operation is de- signed to ferret out potential ter- rorists through a process that be- gins with airlines collecting de- tailedinformationwhensomeone buys a ticket. Security experts are divided


about the severity of the risk. Scanning all the cargo that flies


over the country “is totallyunreal- istic,” said Yossi Sheffi, director of theCenter forTransportationand Logistics at theMassachusetts In- stitute of Technology. “We have tens ofmillions of packages flying almost every night.We can’t stop thehuge flowof packages fromall over the world. There has to be a


scrambling fighter jets to inter- cept the flight if necessary. Most passenger plane over-


flights originate in or are bound for Canada, but the route over the North Pole is the most direct be- tween northern Europe and the Americas. The FAA said about 92 percent of overflights by cargo planes were headed to or from Germany. “Thereisanunfoundedfearout


there that other countries don’t have security standards on a par with the United States,” said Ste- ven Lott, communications direc- tor for theInternationalAirTrans- port Association, the trade group for 230 airlines that account for more than 90 percent of interna- tional passenger flights. “It’s a myth to say these overflights are theWildWest.” The FAA recorded 307,000


KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES The issue came to the fore in October when bombs in printer cartridges were found on cargo planes.


balance between acceptable risk and the economy.” But Richard Bloom, a longtime


U.S. intelligence operative who teaches counterterroism courses at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said a ter- rorist could “explode a planewith a dirty bomb or a biologicalweap- onoranactualnuclearweaponon board, and that material will spreadwherever it crashes.” TSA spokesman Greg Soule


saidinastatement that theagency “continues toworkwithour inter- national and industry partners to ensure the successful implemen- tation of vetting overflights. Se- cure Flight is a phased-in pro- gram, and addressing routes that overfly the United States is the nextphaseinits implementation.” Some of the costswould fall on


other nations and their air carri- ers. The TSAhas authority to divert


planes from U.S. airspace if it de- tects a security risk, and there have been occasions when planes have been turned away. The agen- cy, however, declined to comment


for security reasons. The issue of cargo aboardinter-


national flights came tothe fore in Octoberwhenbombs packagedin printer cartridges were found aboard U.S.-bound cargo planes near London and in Dubai. Ac- cording to U.S. and British offi- cials, the packages sent from Ye- men were addressed to Chicago area synagogues and designed to detonate in flight. The federal government esti-


mates that 55 to 65 percent of cargo bound for theUnited States aboard passenger planes is screened. Many experts say that scanningtherestof it,andthevast volume flown in cargo planes, would be economically infeasible. The former security chief at Tel


Aviv’s airport pointed out that the printer cartridge bombs evaded X-ray detectionevenafter author- ities knew they were in the pack- ages. “Congress would make a mis-


take by passing a requirement for 100 percent screening of cargo,” saidRafiRon, nowa security con- sultant based inMcLean. “What’s


the use of legislating 100 percent screening even if the bombwhich triggered this legislation would not have been detected by it?” The overflight planes cross the


United States at an altitude so high they often appear no bigger than the dot in the exclamation pointof a longvapor trail.Airlines pay theFederalAviationAdminis- tration $33.72 per hundred nauti- calmiles flown over orwithin 100 miles of theUnitedStates, andthe flights are subject to the same stringent regulations established for all other planes since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Theplanes are requiredtohave


hardened cockpit doors to deter hijackers, crew movement is re- stricted and pilotsmustmaintain contactwithU.S.air trafficcontrol centers. Even though they don’t intend to land here, pilots must file flight plans and air traffic con- trol centersmonitor the planes. Should a plane stray off course


or otherwise arouse suspicion, air traffic controllersare linkedtothe FAA emergency network that wouldspreadanalarm,ultimately


overflights in2009, anumber that isbothaccurateandmisleadingin thecontextof theterrorist risk. It’s based on billing records of all flights handled by U.S. air traffic controllers. Many of thosewere trans-Pacif-


ic flights handled byU.S. control- lers based in Guam. The flights never came within striking dis- tance of the continental United States. Similarly, controllers in Puerto Rico direct flights bound for Central and South America, and U.S. controllers handle polar flights that skirt Alaska, bound fromtheMiddleEast andAsia. Although the FAA could not


break down the numbers to say howmany planes fly over the con- tinental United States, Lott esti- mates that it isbetween2,000and 3,000 eachweek. “You could probably count on


one hand the number of planes that are coming [over the U.S.] in any given month from countries that are considered [terrorist] hot spots,” Lott said. “Overflights, to us, remain a pretty small risk. If you and I can go on the Internet and track a plane as it crosses the UnitedStates,youcanbesurethat the government can, too.” halseya@washpost.com


A3


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