Inspired by a current thread but not wanting to hijack it.
Is the merchandise going to the stores that are past the security checkpoints at airports checked?
It would be trivial for a store employee to give “the right bottle” to his accomplice so he can bring down a plane or whatever.
I have a hard time believing that every bottle of Johnny Walker and every can of coke that is sold at those stores was inspected in any way that would prevent an inside job. Are those employees screened in any meaningful way?
I’ve never noticed the store employees wearing the same type badges as other airport employees wear so it seems their screening is not the same. Or maybe they just don’t get badges. They might have to get a basic background check. Around here if you do any volunteer work in schools you have to get a background check.
Former Orlando International Airport retail worker here.
At OIA/MCO there were four levels of security clearance, IIRC. People who were not employed by the airport itself and worked at businesses not beyond security got the lowest level of clearance, which basically let them park in the (gated) employee parking lots.
Employees at stores and restaurants beyond security get a fairly rigorous background check- the same one the TSAs undergo, basically- but aren’t allowed outside the terminal building or in the baggage handling areas, and have to pass through metal detectors on the way in.
Airport, airline and third-party vendor personnel who worked in actual airport operations were split the same way- one level of clearance for pre-security and one level for post-security.
I worked on the pre-security side so I don’t know exactly what the procedures are. However, I’m fairly certain that merchandise isn’t inspected (except possibly via x-ray) before being delivered to the post-security vendors. Hence the fairly intensive background check.
There aren’t many of them at OIA, anyway; a sort of half-assed Disney store, a couple of news stands and some fast food restaurants.
I’m fairly certain that it would be a trivial matter for a US citizen with no criminal record to bring a bottle full of explodey stuff through employee security. I suspect it would be harder to ship something in with merchandise because it would be more easily traceable.
I have plenty of friends both as aero mechanics and ATC. The screening they do on them insures that they don’t have criminal backgrounds but not that they are mentally stable (ATCs are a lot better in this respect than mechanics) nor political affiliations. Maybe a lot happens behind curtains that the FBI investigates and they don’t know, but I don’t see how the screening could spot a smart and determined terrorist wanting to get in.
If once someone is in, they have full freedom to get stuff in, then I am surprised this hasn’t happened already. There has to be some level of security on merchandise getting past TSA security.
The trick to this is to bribe a lot of people and have them bring in benign items. That way there’s so much stuff coming in for so long no one has a clear idea of when the fatal item was brought in.
Background checks are only as good as the financial stress of those cleared
I think of worst case scenarios as a mental hobby. I am surprised that it hasn’t already happened either. The 9/11 terrorists for example just used technically allowed weapons combined with psychological tricks to exploit airline procedures. You could bring knives on the plane before then and I almost always brought my Swiss Army knife with me before 9/11 and it was perfectly allowed through security. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was a complete imbecile. All he had to do was go to the lavatory and fire his bomb up (The 1970’s movie Airport shows a similar scenario) but he chose to do it next to other people in his seat and they stopped him. Thank god he seemed to be virtually retarded just by the look on his face alone. Anyone with any creativity and smarts can still crash a plane and to pretend otherwise is ludicrous. Domestic luggage wasn’t even routinely screened before 9/11 and anyone could have done as much as much damage as they wanted to but no one did it domestically. There simply aren’t that many people interested in doing that type of thing and the current airport security procedures are mainly for show.
Stuff in airport stores is not checked. Nor are the supplies used at the airport itself. Employees of the airport are checked, but people employed by third parties are suppose to be screened by their employer. In many airports, these employees can enter and exit the security areas without screening.
Worst is the third party people hired to actually work on the planes themselves. They’re allegedly screened by their employer, but most of that screening is very poorly done. At Newark, there has been incidence of undocumented workers (aka illegal aliens) working on the planes. This is not so Lou Dobb diatribe, but an observation on how poorly these workers are screened. If someone with a fake SSN and a few other documents can pass this security screening, how about someone who reallywants to do some harm and is backed by an organization that is willing to help?
I’ll let you setup your own scary scenarios of stuff being snuck in via stores or cleaning supplies, then being used by poorly screened third parties.
Just rest assured that some radical terrorist will never be able to take over a flight by threatening the crew with a economy-sized bottle of shampoo. Feel better?
Almost all security at airports is a complete farce, with nonsensical procedures applied with various degrees of diligence by the under-qualified to random travelers.
Goods sold at the airport and checked baggage are barely checked at all. Almost no mail freight going on commercial passenger jets is checked in any sort of way.
There are enormous gaps in the ability to screen, anyway. The reason they want your liquids gels and aerosols removed and put in a baggie is because they cannot screen for them if they are not removed. I have never had the various bottles of lotions and shampoos I leave in my bag called out (and that’s about 100 screenings/yr).
As I have mentioned here before, anyone could get a couple litres of any fluid through the magnetometer by strapping on a urinary leg bag and sticking a catheter in their urethra (on the remote chance they were randomly searched).
We should be looking for terrorists and not screening for weapons. But that’s another thread, I guess.