Ex-TSA head Kip Hawley: Airport security should focus on bombs and behavior, not knives and liquids

(CBS News) Every day, nearly two million travelers pass through more than 450 commercial airports in the U.S. Former Transportation Security Administration head Kip Hawley says that, for most of them, flying is an "unending nightmare" because of TSA security measures.

"We ran so fast after 9/11 to put in measures to stop future attacks that we just kept moving," Hawley said on "CBS This Morning." He believes some of those measures are no longer needed.

Hawley's offers recommendations to revamp airport security in his highly critical new book, "Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA and the Fight for the Future of American Security", co-written with Nathan Means.

He believes risk management formulas can be employed to remove certain items, such as knives and liquids, from the prohibited items list. Hawley says TSA officers spend too much time searching for them instead of the real threats to a plane.

"You can't take over a plane with a knife," he told Charlie Rose, because the cockpit doors are now secure. "It's a risk management issue. You could say, 'Yes, somebody could bring a knife and stab the guy next to him,' that's a risk. When I tried to get small scissors taken off the prohibited items list, there was a scream of, 'There'll be blood running in the aisles!'

"I think what risk management would dictate is you've got to find the bombs, because a bomb will take down a plane. And if you're so busy fishing around looking for Swiss Army knives, it diverts your focus. So my theory is, let's not have the officers look for knives and small things. Focus on bombs, toxins, things that could destroy the plane."

Hawley suggested that, in the case of liquids, the public can decide for itself whether it wants to bring them on board. "We can detect threat liquids, but because it produces false positives the lines would be long," he told Gayle King. "So open that up to the public, say, '[We] have a couple of lanes over here that if you want to bring your big bottles, knock yourself out, but it's a little longer line than if you leave it behind.'"

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Hawley also said TSA can be smarter about its screening of passengers (focusing on the real threats instead of a 75-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair), and can avoid charges of profiling by using behavior-based screening rather than appearance-based.

An airline passenger gets patted down after going through a full-body scan at O'Hare Airport in Chicago in this November 2010 file photo.

/ Scott Olson/Getty Images

"You can't look at what you think a terrorist looks like," Hawley said. "You have to go by something in the physical behavior that's independent of age, gender, ethnicity that will give you a clue, and then you can follow up on it."

He said that TSA can follow the Israeli model of air security in which the interview of passengers is key. "We have the capability to do that behavior [screening]," Hawley said. "These are smart people and they're well-trained, but if you just tell the work force to get into people's bags and fish for stuff, they're not using their brains."

When Rose asked if there is resistance to being smarter about airport security, Hawley said there was. "Because if you allow people to be smart, that means you allow them to make mistakes. And then if you allow people to make mistakes, you're going to end up on this show or others, explaining how is it possible someone in your organization [screwed up]."

Hawley also criticized a proposal by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., to abolish what he called the "bloated bureaucracy" of TSA and privatize the functions of airport screening. Mica, John Miller pointed out, has also received $81,000 in contributions from firms that would become the contractors for airport security.

Hawley said Mica's proposal would simply replicate TSA's current method and put a surcharge on top of it. "Just asking somebody else to do exactly the same thing as TSA with the price markup isn't really getting at [the problem]," he said.

[S_Bailey]

How quick Kip is to forget. Or maybe he was just clueless. A loaded and chambered 9mm was taken from the carry-on of a 71 yr old Granny (a lawyer at that) in my short stint with the TSA a couple of years back. Just one round that breaks cabin pressure at 35,000 ft is a major concern.

And hey Kip, did you take a look at the films that are on-line showing what damage a half litre of liquid explosives can do?!??!

And this was the best we could do to lead the TSA?

We need half the TSA officers with twice the authority. Real peace officers that can crawl up the butt of anyone they so choose. And of course they would have to be paid a real wage in line with other federal officers.

[T-Prop]

Current TSA dolts were hired under this genius.

Something to think about.

[S_Bailey]

Apply for a job with the TSA and go through their vetting to see if you could even qualify. Then we'll think about it. You will too.

[LisaSimeone]

How convenient. Kip Hawley, who for years did the TSA's dirty work for it, has had an epiphany -- mere weeks after getting his a** handed to him in an on-line debate at The Economist with security expert Bruce Schneier. During that debate, Hawley continue to defend the indefensible, and now has the gall to repeat the same lines Schneier used to skewer him as if they were his own.

The abuses of the TSA will continue, for one reason and one reason only: millions of people are willing to put up with them. Until more Americans grow a spine and start having the courage of their purported convictions, nothing will change. Indeed, it will only get worse.

[JustinHarclerode]

Transportation Committee Chairman Mica does not propose eliminating TSA. The problem is the agency is too bloated and focused on maintaining its large bureaucracy of over 65,000 when it needs to be focused on analyzing intelligence, evaluating security risks and threats, and setting security standards.

Private screeners have been shown to be more effective, efficient, and innovative, as well as more customer-friendly and responsive to airports' needs. Chairman Mica has always believed that the private sector performs better than government in general, whether in security screening or in other areas like providing better rail transportation compared to Amtrak or helping to finance needed infrastructure improvements.

By utilizing private screeners, under TSA oversight, the screening process will improve, and the agency will be able to focus on its essential missions of identifying and addressing true security risks and setting appropriate security standards. TSA will no longer be required to regulate itself. This will change the current and unacceptable status quo and bring needed reform to TSA.

Justin Harclerode
Communications Director
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Rep. John L. Mica, Chairman

[LisaSimeone]

Privatizing won't help. Privatizing prison has made them worse, not better. More abusive. More unaccountable.

Privatizing the TSA isn't the answer. The mentality of this country has to change or nothing will get better. The post-9/11 paranoia and hysteria have to stop. You're more likely to drown in a bathtub than to be involved in a terrorist attack in this country.

Not only are too many people embarrassingly overreactive, but they're falling for the propaganda of the government and the so-called security industry, which has everything invested in hyping a perpetual state of fear.

Stop giving them what they want. Stop thinking A Terrorist Is Hiding Around Every Corner. Start resisting.

[S_Bailey]

Stand in line at SFO a few times and get back to us.

[RHWeber]

Now that he has a new book to promote, Hawley is suddenly interested in fixing the TSA. Just a couple of weeks ago he was in an online debate at the Economist magazine where he was defending TSA against the proposition "that changes made to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good." (The Economist declared Hawley the loser of that debate -- and it wasn't even close.) His abrupt turnaround is pretty despicable, although at least he's finally making sense.

The public knows all about the TSA: the agency has yet to stop a single terrorist, and in fact the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, and the Times Square bomber all waltzed right through their much ballyhooed "multiple layers" of security. Every day brings another story of thieving TSA employees or the near-molestation of a child or the perverse efforts of screeners to send attractive women through the backscatter scanners (which see through clothing) multiple times.

Instead of making noise on TV Hawley ought to be making calls to Congress and the Department of Homeland Security. That's what former DHS head Michael Chertoff did, and as a result the TSA magically decided that out of all the technology available, the x-ray machines Chertoff was selling were exactly the ones they needed.

The people who need convincing are the members of Congress who, like Hawley, are too politically cowardly to act. TSA has shown little ability to keep the flying public safe from anything except tweezers and bottled water, but if there were ever another attack, no one would want to be on record as having voted to defund this bloated agency that has stripped Americans of their dignity, slowed travel (at a huge cost to the economy), and drained $60 billion (so far) from the federal budget.

Hawley needs to make the case to them that it's either arrogance or ignorance to think that TSA can outwit every terrorist, every time. We need prudent security measures (like traditional metal detectors) combined with an understanding that it is 21 times more likely to be killed by lightning that to be a victim of a terrorist attack.

The TSA under Hawley helped create the current hysteria. He should apologize and start working on defunding the monster he helped to create.

[S_Bailey]

"stripped Americans of their dignity"... Really?!?!

We've got the freedom to drive or sail to any destination in the world, and if airport security offends you then, please, do so. Clearly your travels are limited as you have not seen how "security" is handled by the authorities in foriegn lands.

[fwd23515]

Finally, some sensible advice.