Security Deadlines Missed

Government Lets Dozens Of Deadlines Set By Congress After 9/11 Pass

(AP)  It became clear that more needed to be done after suicide bombings of railways in Madrid, Spain, and London, on a tanker near Yemen and on airplanes in Russia.

So Congress set more deadlines for more security measures.

Some were met. Many were not.

A law signed by President Bush on Nov. 25, 2002, set a July 1, 2004, deadline for ships and ports to tighten security amid fears that terrorists might smuggle nuclear weapons in a cargo container.

The Coast Guard largely accomplished the undertaking. But much still remains undone: A report on how a grant program for shippers and ports would work is more than a year late; a report on cargo container security is eight months overdue; a national security plan for marine transportation is well past its April 1 due date.

Rep. Harold Rogers, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Homeland Security spending, was unhappy because the TSA missed a March 17 deadline for a plan to deploy bomb-detection machines at airports.

Rogers, R-Ky., put a provision in the Homeland Security spending bill, signed into law Oct. 18, that withholds $5 million from the department until it submits such a plan.

Some security deadlines have been met, especially those set soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Within nine weeks of the hijackings, lawmakers ordered a federal work force to take over airport security, many more air marshals and the creation of the TSA.

Congress set 33 deadlines; a press release went out each time one was met.

One of the biggest deadlines was met with great fanfare when the TSA announced on Nov. 19, 2002, that it had replaced private airport screeners with a government work force.

The next year, then-TSA chief James Loy told Congress they had met "100 percent of the aviation screening mandates."

The TSA does not make those kinds of announcements any more.