Aero-News Instant Analysis by Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

A Department of Homeland Security overhaul announced by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff today will have some impact on aviation, but mostly it's a reshuffle at the highest levels of the agency. The changes that affect our industry are the return of Air Marshals to the TSA, increased user fees to pay for the free-spending TSA, the end of one minor rule for commercial-airline passengers into DC, and increased fingerprint scrutiny for foreigners entering the US legally.

Chertoff's Six Imperatives

Secretary Chertoff said that the reorganization encompassed what he called "Six key imperatives:"

• Increase preparedness, with particular focus on catastrophic events.
• Strengthen border security and interior enforcement and reform immigration processes.
• Harden transportation security without sacrificing mobility.
• Enhance information sharing with our partners, particularly with state, local and tribal governments and the private sector.
• Improve DHS stewardship, particularly with stronger financial, human resource, procurement and information technology management.
• Re-align the DHS organization to maximize mission performance.

The new organizational chart is a model of management complexity with at least 26 different agency heads of special staff members directly reporting to the Secretary. Among them are two powerful new under-secretaries who will have policy and preparedness responsibilities.

The Undersecretary for Policy, not named, inherits among many other things the policy responsibilities of the Transportation Security Administration. These have long been rumored to be going, leaving the agency little more than a large central staff running hundreds of airports' worth of bag screeners.

The Secretary also announced that the embattled Federal Air Marshals Service would return from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to TSA. This was, according to DHS, "to increase operational coordination and strengthen efforts to meet this common goal of aviation security."

The Secretary had been expected to announce that the TSA would be refocused specifically on aviation security, but made no such announcement. Instead, he spoke of the need to "harden" rail security. This appears to greenlight TSA to apply its peculiar brand of screening to rail travel: it will be easier for jihadis, but harder for your grandmother, or press critics of the TSA, to travel.

Chertoff's Remarks on TSA

Under the rubric of Transportation Security, Chertoff first addressed the expansion of the TSA into "Transit Security." Then he spoke about its aviation role.

"After 9-11, TSA was created to deny terrorists the opportunity to use aircraft as weapons and to defend our vital national infrastructure. Extraordinary progress has been made, but more remains to do. In aviation, our security and efficiency can be strengthened by better use of technology, both existing and next generation technologies."

Chertoff followed up with a cry for more money -- the TSA style of management doesn't come cheap. "Let me observe that the Congress intended TSA to be almost entirely supported by user fees, but it is not. The Administration has proposed a modest increase in user fees to fund the infrastructure needed for this job. I believe travelers are willing to pay a few dollars more per trip to improve aviation security and enhance efficiency. I call on Congress and the aviation industry to work with me to find a formula that will work. By collecting user fees for aviation, we can free up precious DHS resources for other important security priorities."

This is, at a minimum, a missed opportunity to reform an agency that routinely hires marginally qualified people in six-figure management jobs, spends hundreds of thousands promoting itself, and hides from accountability by crying "security."

He followed up with a call for rapid adoption of TSA's "Secure Flight" and "Registered Traveler," programs, the latest iterations of the Big Brotherish CAPPS2 system, which has been opposed by civil libertarians on the left and the right. "Our job is to identify people at airports whom we already know and believe to pose a risk to aviation," Chertoff said. (Which doesn't explain why this writer was put on the terrorist watch list immediately after writing an editorial critical of TSA, something that has happened to others at Aero-News as well). He went on to admit that, "Our existing watch list does identify threatening people, but... it yields an unacceptably high number of false positives."

In other developments, the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, divided in a previous reorganization into two agencies, now appears to be split in three.

One welcome bit of news -- Chertoff was applauded by Department staff as he made the unexpected announcement -- the annoying 30-minute seat lockdown when flying to or from Reagan National Airport is no suspended. Chertoff feebly defended the rule: "This 30-minute seating rule was a sensible measure when first applied," as something that was once sensible, but has been made obsolete by new security measures, including increased deployment of Federal Air Marshals, and hardened cockpit doors. He made no mention of what may be the strongest post-911 security measure -- alert passengers.

The rule has been a lightning rod for commentators who criticized the ineffective, irritating, and expensive requirements imposed by TSA and DHS bureaucrats post-911. It's worth noting that the TSA is not rescinding the rule, only suspending it. That it was changed so reluctantly and incompletely, after four years of well-deserved ridicule, and with such fanfare, indicates that TSA and DHS will fight fang and claw to retain many other bureaucracy-building rules that have little or no effect on terrorists.

Another "common-sense" change announced by the secretary now requires a 10-finger fingerprint scan of foreign visitors, on their first visit. Previously, they were only required to have two fingers scanned. On second and subsequent visits, foreign travelers will still have only two fingers scanned under the new plan.

This only applies, of course, to travelers who enter legally. For the others, DHS says that in the coming weeks Chertoff will announce "efforts to reduce the demand for illegal border migration by channeling migrants seeking work into regulated legal channels" -- in plain English, amnesty.

FMI: www.dhs.gov