9/11 Attacks And Airport Security
Airport security
This paper will address the September 11 attacks and the problems with airport security personnel and the outdated technology that was being used in most airports The September 11 terrorist attacks could have been avoidable if airport security was up to par with new security devices and better trained personnel. The government should have passed a new airport security law to update security devices and to make sure employees were properly trained long before September 11. Airport security would still be in poor shape if it wasn't for September 11. It took September 11 to happen to make the U.S. government realize that airport security was not good enough. The September 11 attacks are the worst terrorist attacks ever …show more content…
committed on U.S. soil. On September 11 there were four passenger planes that were hijacked by terrorist. The first plane to be hijacked that morning was American airlines flight 11. This passenger plane was crashed into the north tower of the world trade center. About fifteen minutes later a second plane appeared in the skies it was united airlines flight 175 and it crashed into the south tower of the world trade center. Forty five minutes later the third hijacked flight American airlines flight 77 was crashed into the pentagon. The fourth and last hijacked plane was united airlines flight 98 this plane was crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers tried to stop the terrorist. This plane may have been heading for Camp David, the White House, or the U.S capitol building. (www.cnn.com) Fifteen out of nineteen terrorist that were involved in the attacks were from Saudi Arabia. They all had been living in the U.S. for years and were suspected of having terrorist ties. They all had trained in the U.S. to get there pilots license. Most of the terrorist were being by law enforcement because of having suspected terrorist ties. To take control of the passenger planes the terrorist were suspected of using weapons such as box cutters and knives. If this is true the metal detectors should have picked the weapons up in less the terrorist used the knives avaible that contain no metallic which make them virtually indictable.(www.cnn.com) There is no hard evidence of what weapons were used for sure. All the voice recorders on the planes were destroyed in the crashes so officials have no idea for sure what method was used to take control of the planes. There were people on the flights that called from cell phones to tell that there flights had been hijacked and that the terrorist were going to crash the planes. From these calls authorities now know that some of the terrorist were threatening to use bombs and other weapons so that the passengers wouldn't intervene with there mission. (wwwphilly.com) If this turns out to be true that they had all these possible weapons such as explosives it is clear that airport security may be to blame for not doing there security screening properly. Airports and airplanes are the most common major sights for terrorist to carry out attacks. They have also been the most successful in creating major loss of life and causing the most chaos. Since the attacks of September 11 the U.S. has realized a major demand for an increase in airport security. Most of the security equipment being used in airports could be traced back to the seventies.
This old equipment primarily x ray machines can pick up metal objects but not new advanced materials used as explosives or other weapons. These older machines don't always pick up all metal objects either. This machine that is used in most airports is the dual energy x ray system. This x ray machine only uses one x ray source to detect metal objects. The x ray power of this old machine sends out between one hundred and forty to one hundred sixty kilovolt. (www.controlscreening.com) That is pretty low power compared to some of the newer machines that can send out almost two hundred sixty kilovolts such as the backscatter machine. The more power used in an X ray machine the more it can go throw to view objects. This older machine will only pick up metal and nothing else. There is a newer machine on the market that could be successful in finding anything that could be used as a weapon or an explosive. This new machine is called the Backscatter and it would reveal all. This new machine will pick up both metals and plastics. This x ray machine scatters x rays beams that bounce off metals or plastics instead of skin like the older machines. The x ray beams are so powerful in this newer backscatter machine that it will show the person passing through it without any clothes on. The reason this machine has not been put into effect is because a lot of people feel that it would violate …show more content…
there rights. People would feel really uncomfortable having there private body parts being seen by a stranger. This intern would make a lot of people angry and cause problems. This machine has been available for about nine years and cost between one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars. A lot of other countries are already using this machine. The company Edgewood technologies that makes this backscatter machine is working on a version that would not show so much of the body undressed.(www.cnn.com) This machine may need to be put into effect even if a version cannot be developed that wouldn't show the person passing through it naked.
People need to realize that if this machine will help prevent another terrorist attack like September 11 than it would be worth putting this machine in all 450 commercial airports and violate the rights of those that feel uncomfortable passing through the x rays machines. There is also other newer x ray machines that can pick up plastics as well as metals but are not as full proof as the backscatter machine discussed above. If people had the choice between the two machines Im sure that they would want the one that was guaranteed to pick up more than just metals. The reason it is so important to pick up more than metal is because bombs and other weapons are now being made with plastic materials. Plastic is now popular in making bombs and uses no metal so the older X ray machines never would have picked it up. All guns up to this point in time always have contained metal in them so they have always been detected by x ray machines. The older machines were good when they first came out because the main focus was to pick up metals such as guns. (www.abcnews.com) Weapons that contain metals have been the main thing used by terrorist in the
past. The second new piece of technology that is being considered is mainly to catch people that have explosives or explosive material on them. This new machine is called the sentinel two. This new sentinel two machine involves a person walking through an air locked chamber. Once the person is in the chamber air is blown at them. If the person has explosive material on them it dislodges particles from it. Air is then sucked back into an analyzer where it determines what the material is. (www.thewbalchannel.com) This new technology sounds a little weird, but is already is being used in an airport in London. This machine so far has had a hundred percent success rate in catching explosives. The company that makes this sentinel two machines is knows to be one of the best homeland security companies that exist. The sentinel two is around the price range of tree hundred thousand dollars. The third major advancement in technology being looked at for airport security is biometric security devices. Biometric devices give an analysis of a person's biological chacteristics. These devices will analyze facial structure, fingerprints, and iris patterns. These are devices that are already being used all over the U.S... They are used in everything from amusement parks to welfare offices to make positive identification on people. They have not yet been implemented in airports to deter terrorist acts. The first major time biometric device was used to identify possible terrorist was at super bowl xxxv. The devices used were cameras that scanned the crowd looking for criminals. After scanning a crowd it searches a database of mug shoots photos looking for criminals. It was successful in finding twenty criminals in the crowds. The people identified were all wanted for offenses. A lot of people think that this invades there privacy. What should people have to worry about though if there not criminals. Airports have not yet installed biometric devices because it would take to much time and space inside the airports. Airports think that they would loss money with theses devices due to the time it would take for the machines to properly identify criminals. It could also delay flights due to the hold up of identifying someone. The biometric technology would be least costly and possibly the most successful in identifying terrorist. Biometric devices range from about five thousand to thirty thousand dollars. (www.techtv.com) the reason this would probably be the most successful is because it is hard for people to change there biological cartelistic. People must keep in mind all these devices mentioned must be operated by highly trained professionals for them to be one hundred percent effective in the war against terrorism. There are other methods to beef up security besides high tech devices. Two things that should have been done prior to September 11 attacks are more security personnel and better trained personnel. Second better communication between law enforcement agencies about intellengce information. Some airport security personnel don't know how to properly operate all the security devices, which make the devices useless. A lot of security personnel in airports only make a little bit above minum wage. This usually doesn't make some one to want to give there full one hundred percent at work. These are issues the federal aviation administration should have looked at prior to Sept. 11. Due to the shortage of employees for airport security a large amount of luggage was rarely ever x rayed or hand searched for weapons before September 11. The federal law enforcement agencies also play a big part in the security of airports. Prior to sept 11 the F.B.I intercepted phone calls of terrorist. In these phone conversations there was talk about wanting a major terrorist attack to occur on U.S. soil. They were talking about plans to planes as the main weapons in the attacks. These were either not paid close attention to or were just overlooked and not taken to be that serious. This intelligence information about the phone conversations was never shared with government officials in till after September 11 when it was already to late. Whatever the reason this intelligence information wasn't taken more serious the public will probably never know. It has also just came to light recently that the President had received intellengce months before September 11 that the terrorist were in New York scooping out places to carry out there major attack. This information should have looked at closer and with more intensity. The public will must demand to know what was done to act upon this information. Since September 11 congress approved a law called the airport security federalization act of 2001. This law will put fifty million dollars towards the upgrades of airport security. Because of the massive amount of money being put towards airport security there will be a price increase of about two dollars and fifty cents per ticket to help with the costs. This law demanded the immediate upgrade of airport security in both airports and aboard the planes. This law will upgrade security personnel, security devices, and security while onboard a flight. One of the first things to be done with this law in effect is the hiring of about twenty eight thousand new federal employees. All the large airports will haft to have the new employees to be federal unlike before. Smaller airports will be able to have local law enforcement agencies provide security for there airports. All of the employees will trained for the first time or current employees will be retrained to ensure there capabilities. There will be regular training and practice exercises to make sure the employees are up to par on their duties. This new law created a federal transportation security administration. They will oversee all passenger transportation and security personnel. Some things that this law will affect for passengers is they will only be allowed to take one carry on item with them on the plane. This is so it will not take so much time to check the luggage. The wait will also be a lot longer than before due to security screening process. Airport employees will also be checking ids a lot more to ensure persons identity. Only people going on flights will be allowed passed security gates. These are just some of the things that passengers should now expect. These new rules should not affect the amount of people flying because the new law will just make flights safer for the community. A major part of this law will increase the number of federal air marshhalls aboard flights. Air Marshall were in strong demand in the eighties because of suspected possible terrorist hijackings. Due to little terrorist activity they were fazed out a great deal because of the cost. They will now be brought back in full force to protect flights. The air marshals are dressed in normal close so no one knows there identity. Only in the case of an emergency will they identify themselves. Also to combat attacks airline pilots thought it would be a good idea to keep tasers in there cockpits. This idea was quickly rejected because the tasers could be used against passenger and pilots in the event of an attack. All passengers will now be subjected to a computer screening whether they buy tickets ahead of time or at the ticket counter. Before only some passengers that bought there tickets the counter were to go through the computer screening process. Passengers should also be prepared to have there electronic items more closely examined to make sure there are mot harboring weapons inside of them. These new precautions will not only take longer for passengers, but also may delay flights costing airline companies millions of dollars. These new changes will be closely monitored by the new security administration to make sure the necessary changes will be made. (www.inforesources.com) Even with all of these new security measures terrorist will still try to devise and carry out attacks in airports and aboard planes. What terrorist will look at when choosing an airport is old security equipment mentioned before. They will scoop out the airport months in advance to see where they can gain access to what they want the easiest. They will also look for airports that are under staffed and that don't have adequately trained employees. When they find a site with these cartelistic they will probably be able to gain access to restricted areas. This will make it easy for them to by pass security checkpoints and take any weapon they desire with them. There has been cases in the past were news reporters have put airport security to the test. They looked for areas were they could gain easy access to such as restricted areas that were not being properly supervised. In some cases they were able to gain access to the planes or past security check point without anyone even saying anything to them.(www.techtv.com) Everyone must keep in mind that security personnel are the biggest part of securing airports. Without them doing there job properly a terrorist may be able to carry out an attack successfully. The most likely time that terrorist will chose to attack is when the U.S. is involved in political or military acts with other countries. Terrorist groups become in angered when the U.S. comes into there country and tries to lend aid like the U.S. has done in Iraq. They will usually request that the U.S. leave there country or there will be repercussions such as terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups will plan to carry out there attacks around the anniversary or the birthday of one there dead leaders. They will plane these attacks out long in advance and usually do test runs to make sure everything goes smoothly. They chose a sight to carry out an attack by looking for a place that will affect the most people and creates the most chaos. In most cases that is why they chose airports and airplanes to carry out there attacks. (www.infowar.com) The terrorist attacks of September 11 shocked the U.S. nation. No one ever expected there to be a terrorist attack of that caliber on U.S. soil. These attacks have made the nation more united than ever and determine to stop terrorism. The U.S. will now need to be aware of the advancing technology of weapons and have security ready for anything. This will include constant new training of employees and have the bet and newest security devices avaible at there disposal. Even with the best of security devices and personnel will never make our skies and airports security full proof. If airport security is kept up with we can only hope that it will greatly decrease the chance of terrorist attacks in airports and planes on U.S. soil. Thanks to the new security law being passed terrorist will now think twice before trying to carry out another terrorist attack.
This paper will address the September 11 attacks and the problems with airport security personnel and the outdated technology that was being used in most airports The September 11 terrorist attacks could have been avoidable if airport security was up to par with new security devices and better trained personnel. The government should have passed a new airport security law to update security devices and to make sure employees were properly trained long before September 11. Airport security would still be in poor shape if it wasn't for September 11. It took September 11 to happen to make the U.S. government realize that airport security was not good enough. The September 11 attacks are the worst terrorist attacks ever …show more content…
committed on U.S. soil. On September 11 there were four passenger planes that were hijacked by terrorist. The first plane to be hijacked that morning was American airlines flight 11. This passenger plane was crashed into the north tower of the world trade center. About fifteen minutes later a second plane appeared in the skies it was united airlines flight 175 and it crashed into the south tower of the world trade center. Forty five minutes later the third hijacked flight American airlines flight 77 was crashed into the pentagon. The fourth and last hijacked plane was united airlines flight 98 this plane was crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers tried to stop the terrorist. This plane may have been heading for Camp David, the White House, or the U.S capitol building. (www.cnn.com) Fifteen out of nineteen terrorist that were involved in the attacks were from Saudi Arabia. They all had been living in the U.S. for years and were suspected of having terrorist ties. They all had trained in the U.S. to get there pilots license. Most of the terrorist were being by law enforcement because of having suspected terrorist ties. To take control of the passenger planes the terrorist were suspected of using weapons such as box cutters and knives. If this is true the metal detectors should have picked the weapons up in less the terrorist used the knives avaible that contain no metallic which make them virtually indictable.(www.cnn.com) There is no hard evidence of what weapons were used for sure. All the voice recorders on the planes were destroyed in the crashes so officials have no idea for sure what method was used to take control of the planes. There were people on the flights that called from cell phones to tell that there flights had been hijacked and that the terrorist were going to crash the planes. From these calls authorities now know that some of the terrorist were threatening to use bombs and other weapons so that the passengers wouldn't intervene with there mission. (wwwphilly.com) If this turns out to be true that they had all these possible weapons such as explosives it is clear that airport security may be to blame for not doing there security screening properly. Airports and airplanes are the most common major sights for terrorist to carry out attacks. They have also been the most successful in creating major loss of life and causing the most chaos. Since the attacks of September 11 the U.S. has realized a major demand for an increase in airport security. Most of the security equipment being used in airports could be traced back to the seventies.
This old equipment primarily x ray machines can pick up metal objects but not new advanced materials used as explosives or other weapons. These older machines don't always pick up all metal objects either. This machine that is used in most airports is the dual energy x ray system. This x ray machine only uses one x ray source to detect metal objects. The x ray power of this old machine sends out between one hundred and forty to one hundred sixty kilovolt. (www.controlscreening.com) That is pretty low power compared to some of the newer machines that can send out almost two hundred sixty kilovolts such as the backscatter machine. The more power used in an X ray machine the more it can go throw to view objects. This older machine will only pick up metal and nothing else. There is a newer machine on the market that could be successful in finding anything that could be used as a weapon or an explosive. This new machine is called the Backscatter and it would reveal all. This new machine will pick up both metals and plastics. This x ray machine scatters x rays beams that bounce off metals or plastics instead of skin like the older machines. The x ray beams are so powerful in this newer backscatter machine that it will show the person passing through it without any clothes on. The reason this machine has not been put into effect is because a lot of people feel that it would violate …show more content…
there rights. People would feel really uncomfortable having there private body parts being seen by a stranger. This intern would make a lot of people angry and cause problems. This machine has been available for about nine years and cost between one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars. A lot of other countries are already using this machine. The company Edgewood technologies that makes this backscatter machine is working on a version that would not show so much of the body undressed.(www.cnn.com) This machine may need to be put into effect even if a version cannot be developed that wouldn't show the person passing through it naked.
People need to realize that if this machine will help prevent another terrorist attack like September 11 than it would be worth putting this machine in all 450 commercial airports and violate the rights of those that feel uncomfortable passing through the x rays machines. There is also other newer x ray machines that can pick up plastics as well as metals but are not as full proof as the backscatter machine discussed above. If people had the choice between the two machines Im sure that they would want the one that was guaranteed to pick up more than just metals. The reason it is so important to pick up more than metal is because bombs and other weapons are now being made with plastic materials. Plastic is now popular in making bombs and uses no metal so the older X ray machines never would have picked it up. All guns up to this point in time always have contained metal in them so they have always been detected by x ray machines. The older machines were good when they first came out because the main focus was to pick up metals such as guns. (www.abcnews.com) Weapons that contain metals have been the main thing used by terrorist in the
past. The second new piece of technology that is being considered is mainly to catch people that have explosives or explosive material on them. This new machine is called the sentinel two. This new sentinel two machine involves a person walking through an air locked chamber. Once the person is in the chamber air is blown at them. If the person has explosive material on them it dislodges particles from it. Air is then sucked back into an analyzer where it determines what the material is. (www.thewbalchannel.com) This new technology sounds a little weird, but is already is being used in an airport in London. This machine so far has had a hundred percent success rate in catching explosives. The company that makes this sentinel two machines is knows to be one of the best homeland security companies that exist. The sentinel two is around the price range of tree hundred thousand dollars. The third major advancement in technology being looked at for airport security is biometric security devices. Biometric devices give an analysis of a person's biological chacteristics. These devices will analyze facial structure, fingerprints, and iris patterns. These are devices that are already being used all over the U.S... They are used in everything from amusement parks to welfare offices to make positive identification on people. They have not yet been implemented in airports to deter terrorist acts. The first major time biometric device was used to identify possible terrorist was at super bowl xxxv. The devices used were cameras that scanned the crowd looking for criminals. After scanning a crowd it searches a database of mug shoots photos looking for criminals. It was successful in finding twenty criminals in the crowds. The people identified were all wanted for offenses. A lot of people think that this invades there privacy. What should people have to worry about though if there not criminals. Airports have not yet installed biometric devices because it would take to much time and space inside the airports. Airports think that they would loss money with theses devices due to the time it would take for the machines to properly identify criminals. It could also delay flights due to the hold up of identifying someone. The biometric technology would be least costly and possibly the most successful in identifying terrorist. Biometric devices range from about five thousand to thirty thousand dollars. (www.techtv.com) the reason this would probably be the most successful is because it is hard for people to change there biological cartelistic. People must keep in mind all these devices mentioned must be operated by highly trained professionals for them to be one hundred percent effective in the war against terrorism. There are other methods to beef up security besides high tech devices. Two things that should have been done prior to September 11 attacks are more security personnel and better trained personnel. Second better communication between law enforcement agencies about intellengce information. Some airport security personnel don't know how to properly operate all the security devices, which make the devices useless. A lot of security personnel in airports only make a little bit above minum wage. This usually doesn't make some one to want to give there full one hundred percent at work. These are issues the federal aviation administration should have looked at prior to Sept. 11. Due to the shortage of employees for airport security a large amount of luggage was rarely ever x rayed or hand searched for weapons before September 11. The federal law enforcement agencies also play a big part in the security of airports. Prior to sept 11 the F.B.I intercepted phone calls of terrorist. In these phone conversations there was talk about wanting a major terrorist attack to occur on U.S. soil. They were talking about plans to planes as the main weapons in the attacks. These were either not paid close attention to or were just overlooked and not taken to be that serious. This intelligence information about the phone conversations was never shared with government officials in till after September 11 when it was already to late. Whatever the reason this intelligence information wasn't taken more serious the public will probably never know. It has also just came to light recently that the President had received intellengce months before September 11 that the terrorist were in New York scooping out places to carry out there major attack. This information should have looked at closer and with more intensity. The public will must demand to know what was done to act upon this information. Since September 11 congress approved a law called the airport security federalization act of 2001. This law will put fifty million dollars towards the upgrades of airport security. Because of the massive amount of money being put towards airport security there will be a price increase of about two dollars and fifty cents per ticket to help with the costs. This law demanded the immediate upgrade of airport security in both airports and aboard the planes. This law will upgrade security personnel, security devices, and security while onboard a flight. One of the first things to be done with this law in effect is the hiring of about twenty eight thousand new federal employees. All the large airports will haft to have the new employees to be federal unlike before. Smaller airports will be able to have local law enforcement agencies provide security for there airports. All of the employees will trained for the first time or current employees will be retrained to ensure there capabilities. There will be regular training and practice exercises to make sure the employees are up to par on their duties. This new law created a federal transportation security administration. They will oversee all passenger transportation and security personnel. Some things that this law will affect for passengers is they will only be allowed to take one carry on item with them on the plane. This is so it will not take so much time to check the luggage. The wait will also be a lot longer than before due to security screening process. Airport employees will also be checking ids a lot more to ensure persons identity. Only people going on flights will be allowed passed security gates. These are just some of the things that passengers should now expect. These new rules should not affect the amount of people flying because the new law will just make flights safer for the community. A major part of this law will increase the number of federal air marshhalls aboard flights. Air Marshall were in strong demand in the eighties because of suspected possible terrorist hijackings. Due to little terrorist activity they were fazed out a great deal because of the cost. They will now be brought back in full force to protect flights. The air marshals are dressed in normal close so no one knows there identity. Only in the case of an emergency will they identify themselves. Also to combat attacks airline pilots thought it would be a good idea to keep tasers in there cockpits. This idea was quickly rejected because the tasers could be used against passenger and pilots in the event of an attack. All passengers will now be subjected to a computer screening whether they buy tickets ahead of time or at the ticket counter. Before only some passengers that bought there tickets the counter were to go through the computer screening process. Passengers should also be prepared to have there electronic items more closely examined to make sure there are mot harboring weapons inside of them. These new precautions will not only take longer for passengers, but also may delay flights costing airline companies millions of dollars. These new changes will be closely monitored by the new security administration to make sure the necessary changes will be made. (www.inforesources.com) Even with all of these new security measures terrorist will still try to devise and carry out attacks in airports and aboard planes. What terrorist will look at when choosing an airport is old security equipment mentioned before. They will scoop out the airport months in advance to see where they can gain access to what they want the easiest. They will also look for airports that are under staffed and that don't have adequately trained employees. When they find a site with these cartelistic they will probably be able to gain access to restricted areas. This will make it easy for them to by pass security checkpoints and take any weapon they desire with them. There has been cases in the past were news reporters have put airport security to the test. They looked for areas were they could gain easy access to such as restricted areas that were not being properly supervised. In some cases they were able to gain access to the planes or past security check point without anyone even saying anything to them.(www.techtv.com) Everyone must keep in mind that security personnel are the biggest part of securing airports. Without them doing there job properly a terrorist may be able to carry out an attack successfully. The most likely time that terrorist will chose to attack is when the U.S. is involved in political or military acts with other countries. Terrorist groups become in angered when the U.S. comes into there country and tries to lend aid like the U.S. has done in Iraq. They will usually request that the U.S. leave there country or there will be repercussions such as terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups will plan to carry out there attacks around the anniversary or the birthday of one there dead leaders. They will plane these attacks out long in advance and usually do test runs to make sure everything goes smoothly. They chose a sight to carry out an attack by looking for a place that will affect the most people and creates the most chaos. In most cases that is why they chose airports and airplanes to carry out there attacks. (www.infowar.com) The terrorist attacks of September 11 shocked the U.S. nation. No one ever expected there to be a terrorist attack of that caliber on U.S. soil. These attacks have made the nation more united than ever and determine to stop terrorism. The U.S. will now need to be aware of the advancing technology of weapons and have security ready for anything. This will include constant new training of employees and have the bet and newest security devices avaible at there disposal. Even with the best of security devices and personnel will never make our skies and airports security full proof. If airport security is kept up with we can only hope that it will greatly decrease the chance of terrorist attacks in airports and planes on U.S. soil. Thanks to the new security law being passed terrorist will now think twice before trying to carry out another terrorist attack.