Learning To Screen
BLOOMINGTON, MINN.--To baggage screener Jason Svela, the dots, rectangles, and other odd shapes in the computerized image of an X-rayed suitcase are crystal clear. "That's a flashlight, that's a stapler, and that black bar at the top, that's a gun," he says, pointing to blobs on the screen. With criticism of federal air screeners mounting, the Transportation Security Administration last week invited reporters to tour one of its training facilities here, a mile from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. About 120 screeners--some new, some brushing up like Svela--file through here each month to sharpen their skills. There's a transplanted airport checkpoint--a metal detector and X-ray baggage scanner--plus state-of-the-art imaging programs that provide cross-sections of dangerous objects, and authentic examples of lethal contraband from ninja stars to knives hidden in lipstick tubes. "We have gone above and beyond" the federal requirements for training mandated by Congress in 2001, says Kenneth Kasprisin, a Minneapolis-based TSA federal security director.
Slipping by. Not everyone agrees. The General Accounting Office said last month that the TSA, in charge of aviation security, repeatedly falls short. In these still tremulous post-9/11 times, GAO investigators were able to slip box cutters and other dangerous items through several airport checkpoints. Just last week, an internal investigation at the Homeland Security Department skewered the TSA for giving screeners the answers to a test and failing to ask key questions. TSA brass say the agency needs more and better technology to up performance. Back in Minnesota, passenger screener Kathleen Barcelona is learning bag-check skills. She puts a reporter's handbag through the X-ray machine and points out items in the jumbled image that pops up--cellphone, keys, and coins. She asks whether a square piece of equipment is a PalmPilot. Nope, it's a tape recorder. Focusing harder, she says: "This takes a lot of practice. You have to be 100 percent sure." You sure do. -Samantha Levine
This story appears in the October 20, 2003 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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