Newspaper reporters were able to get past airport security with weapons in their carry-on baggage

NEW YORK , Sept 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A U.S. newspaper Wednesday, September 4, 2002 , exposed glaring holes in airport security after its reporters managed to carry potentially lethal weapons onto 14 separate flights - a week before the September 11 anniversary. 

The New York Daily News said that none of its reporters, carrying items such as box cutters, razor knives and pepper spray in their carry-on baggage, were prevented from boarding the flights which covered 11 different U.S. airports and six major airlines.

The newspaper investigation was carried out over the Labor Day weekend, with airport security already on high alert in the run-up to the September 11 anniversary.

"Not a single airport security checkpoint spotted or confiscated any of the dangerous items, all of which have been banned from airports and planes by federal authorities," the newspaper said.

The airports included New York 's Kennedy and La Guardia, as well as Boston 's Logan Airport , Washington 's Dulles International and international hubs in Los Angeles , Chicago and Los Angeles .

All the tickets bought by the reporters were one way, which usually raises security suspicions.

The Daily News said security screeners X-rayed and hand-searched its reporters' bags, asked them to remove their shoes and checked photo identifications, but did not find the banned items, reports news agencies.

The paper had carried out a similar exercise with the same results in the month after the September 11 attacks.

While security measures have been significantly beefed up in the interim in terms of technology and trained personnel, the newspaper concluded that the changes "amounted to nothing more than a big show."

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) - the federal agency that has been gradually taking over checkpoint security at airports since mid-February - admitted that much remained to be done.

"We have a lot of work to do," Leonardo Alcivar, a spokesman for Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, told the News.

"Clearly there's a long way to go with security," said TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker. "It can never be 100 percent, much as we would love it to be."

However, Rosenker stressed that substantial progress had been made in recent months and cited the confiscation of nearly 600 firearms by airport security since mid-February and the surrender of more than two million items, including 600,000 knives and 24,000 box cutters.

Rosenker said the main difficulty lay in the training of X-ray screeners, who are already required to log 40 hours of classroom time and 60 hours of on-the-job training.

"Their job is not easy at all," she said. "Even after they've qualified, we continue to provide three hours of training per week."

CBS News crews conducted a similar test last week, although without weapons. Carrying bags lined with lead to block X-rays, they sailed past about 70% of screeners at several airports nationwide, reports news agencies.

"They're impossible to miss, and yet they just continually let it go," said Steve Elson, a former security investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration who helped with the CBS investigation.

Rosenker also pointed out that the investigation carried out by the News was "illegal."

A United Airlines spokesperson, Chris Nardella, told the News: "That is a violation of federal law that you guys knowingly took those items on an airline."

Another TSA spokesperson, David Steigman, could not immediately say Wednesday whether charges were expected against the reporters.

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