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U.S. fears inside job
by airport workers 
British bomb suspects had Muslim plant
at Heathrow to test security procedures

U.S. authorities are stepping up security checks on airport personnel after learning that one of the suspects in the transatlantic sky terror plot helped terrorists case security at London's Heathrow airport as an airport employee.

Asmin Amin Tariq, a Muslim convert of Asian descent, was a security guard at Heathrow, where the explosives allegedly were to have been carried onto planes bound for the U.S. After Tariq's arrest, his employer, Jet Airways, suspended him. Jet Airways is the leading private airline in India.

He previously worked for G4S, earlier called Securicor, which provided services to British Airways, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways.

Investigators say 23-year-old Tariq, who studied biochemistry, allegedly provided information about airport security procedures to bombers in the foiled plot. It's not clear if he also planned to hand off explosives materials to them in the sterile area of the airport, or perhaps plant them on board targeted aircraft. Tariq holds a British passport, investigators say.

"This is precisely why you don't want so many Muslims working in airports," says former FAA special agent Steve Elson, who tested airport security as a member of the elite Red Team.

For the first time, the Transportation Security Administration is now subjecting U.S. airport workers – including ramp workers, baggage handlers, gate agents, cleaning crews and retail workers – to random security searches before they enter restricted and secure areas in the airports.

Until now, only two of the nations 428 commercial airports screened ramp workers for weapons and bombs, according to Charles G. Slepian, a former TWA security analyst who now heads the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center in New York.

With the exception of ramp workers at the major Miami and Denver airports, "they don't go through any screening process," Slepian said.

The vast majority of ramp workers – along with their lunch pails and backpacks – have not been searched, he stresses.

Airlines trust they aren't a threat because they've "passed" a 10-year criminal background check, he says.

Trouble is, ramp workers more often than not are issued a Security Identification Display Area pass long before their fingerprints are processed, Slepian points out. That SIDA badge, along with door security access cards or pass codes, allow them to bypass the passenger screening process at the front of the terminal and go through locked doors in the back of the terminal – gaining largely unsupervised access to baggage, cargo and planes.

The background checks "can take months and months, so they're walking around with a card" in the meantime, he said. "That's why so many of these airport employees are arrested so long after the fact, and are continuing to be arrested in sweeps by the Justice Department. When the information finally does come back, they see they've got somebody out there (on the ramp) that has a felony and lied on his application, or has a warrant out, or is in the country illegally."

Slepian says ramp workers actually warrant more security screening than passengers. And he should know, having coordinated numerous undercover stings on suspected criminals on the TWA ramp at JFK International Airport in New York.

"Take a group of ramp workers at random, and take a group of passengers at random, and I bet you're going to find there's more reason to search those workers after you look into their backgrounds than you would if you checked the passengers' backgrounds," he said.

"Yet when we talk about searching passengers, we say no exceptions – you can be 90 years old and we are going to check you thoroughly," he added. "When we talk about employees at the airport, however, we call them the 'trusted worker program.' "

What's more, many airport workers are foreign nationals from the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan. Some even work for security firms that contract with TSA to check tickets and IDs of passengers before they enter official TSA security screening checkpoints.

"There is no requirement that you be a U.S. citizen to work in an airport, unless you are a federal screener," Slepian said.

Authorities recently cracked down on a number of illegal Arab and African nationals working at Dulles International Airport in Washington, where the plane that crashed into the Pentagon departed. Some had ties to terrorism cases.

Before 9/11, more than 80 percent of the checkpoint screeners at Dulles airport were foreign nationals mostly from the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.

Many working even the TSA security checkpoints at San Francisco International Airport – even now, under new federal rules – are not U.S. citizens, Slepian contends.

Fast-food and other retail workers also are not screened with passengers before entering the sterile area of airports, according to Slepian.

That badge you see Burger King and other airport food-court workers wearing is the same SIDA badge worn by ramp workers. And any airport worker with a SIDA badge gets to bypass screening, he says.

Though food-service and shop workers enter the airport through security checkpoints at the front of the terminal, they normally avoid screening. Same goes for the belongings they bring with them to work.

"The TSA security people just wave them through. They don't go through the actual check," Slepian said. "You won't see them standing in line with you when you're in an airport." Yet they could easily hand off explosives or weapons to passengers once they enter the sterile area.

Additionally, food-service and shop workers in airports are not subject to the same 10-year FBI criminal background check as ramp workers.

"Food chains are supposed to do a background check that goes back only five years, which is really meaningless," Slepian said. "But there's no 10-year FBI background check."

Airline contractors and vendors, including food caterers, also avoid the 10-year FBI check, he notes.

What's more, airline cleaning crews are not screened for weapons and bombs like passengers.

TSA has asked only that airlines make sure a supervisor does a final walk-through of the plane after crews leave, checking for planted weapons or bombs, Slepian says, adding he doubts any cleaning vendors would know how to identify C-4 plastic explosives if they found them.

He says flight attendants also are not trained to sweep the planes for such items and focus instead on restocking pillows and blankets and safety instructions in the cabin.

Slepian points out that cleaning crews service planes between flights, not just late at night. And he says there are almost too many places to hide a bomb in the cabin alone to check for them after each cleaning. His solution: Screen all workers and their supplies before they can get near the airplane.

Under existing security rules, "they can put a bomb on board the airplane in a seat back, or in the lavatory in the overhead just by popping the tile and putting it in the ceiling, or in any of the storage areas in the airplane, preferably somewhere near the wing or the fuel tanks, and blow up the airplane," he warned.

Another ideal place: the empty pouch underneath your seat, where your life vest is supposed to be stored, but usually isn't. Many of the vests have been taken by workers for their kids to use at pools, he said. Al-Qaida terrorist Ramzi Yousef hid a bomb this way aboard a Philippines Airlines flight, killing an unlucky Japanese passenger who sat above it.

Occasionally, bomb-sniffing dogs are brought on board planes to search for bombs in the cabin. But such searches are usually done only on high-risk international flights to the Middle East.

Food caterers also have unfettered access to planes, allowing yet another means for bombs to get on your flight, Slepian says.

"There's still plenty of food that's being offered on airplanes, particularly on international flights," he said. "And now, some carriers are selling food on shorter flights."

He says terrorists – who have brought explosives on board more than 100 flights around the world since the 1950s (including the shoe bomb of al-Qaida agent Richard Reid) – have devised what's called the "hamburger bomb," which is Semtex or C-4 in the shape of a burger or chicken patty.

"They put it on meals, and at 30,000 feet it blows up the airplane," he said.

Short of food, they can sneak explosives on board with the beverage supply, which also is catered.

The largest airline food-and-beverage caterer is LSG Sky Chefs, which employs numerous immigrants from the Middle East and in the recent past has employed some suspected al-Qaida terrorists.

Muslim airport workers lose security clearances
Linked to terrorism: 'You don't strip people of their badges for small matters'

 PARIS — Authorities at Charles de Gaulle airport have stripped several dozen employees _ almost all of them Muslims _ of their security badges in a crackdown against terrorism, a government official said Friday.

Four baggage handlers who lost their clearance filed a joint discrimination complaint this week, alleging they had been unfairly associated with terrorism because they are Muslims, their lawyers said. Some had been in their jobs for up to five years.

The baggage handlers and other employees have been barred from secure areas at the airport since February, Jacques Lebrot, an official who oversees the airport, told The Associated Press in an interview.

The cases were "linked to terrorism, of course," he said, adding that the crackdown followed recommendations by France's anti-terrorism coordination unit, UCLAT, as part of an 18-month investigation.

"You don't strip people of their badges for small matters," he said. The crackdown was part of heightened security in France, after terror attacks in Britain, Spain and the United States in recent years.

Lebrot, citing security reasons, declined to say whether the "several dozen" people _ he would not specify how many _ who lost their badges had been involved in specific plots.

"Mr. X or Y could have been suspected because corresponding facts ... suggested he belonged to a sizable network," Lebrot said, without elaborating. Others could have been stripped of the badges because they were "impressionable and manipulated" by such networks, he said.

He declined to comment on the individual complaint filed by the four.

Lawyers and community groups said the baggage handlers, who worked for subcontractors at the airport, were likely to lose their jobs because such work depended on security clearances.

In letters from the regional government office, the employees were told that they presented a "significant danger to airport security," or had shown "personal behavior threatening airport security."

Lawyers for those who lost their badges said that under police questioning, they were never told of the reasons they lost their badges _ but repeatedly were asked about their religion.

"The link among these people is that either they are Arab _ or practice their religion in a normal way," said Eric Moutet, a lawyer for the four employees suing in administrative court. Authorities, he said, "are in essence asking people to prove they are not terrorists."

Lebrot insisted the employees "know" why they lost their clearance, but refused to discuss specific cases. He said all but two were Muslims but sharply denied that any religious reason was involved.