The Journey Man -- A Serious Problem: U.S. Airport Security

By now, you know the general story. Last month the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter apparently sent from the Unabomber, a domestic terrorist who has been linked to a series of attacks, many of them package bombings, over the past 17 years that killed three people and injured 22.

The Unabomber threatened to blow up a plane "out of Los Angeles" just before the Fourth of July holiday, one of the heaviest U.S. travel periods of the year. Los Angeles is the world's fifth-busiest airport, handling 51 million passengers last year.

LAX is a large, inviting target, and federal officials wasted no time saying that they were taking the letter threat seriously.

They announced that airport police patrols would be intensified, passengers would have to arrive two hours before departure time, they had to be prepared to show photo identification before checking in bags, and they should never leave their bags unattended. Additionally, the airlines said they would not transport any U.S. mail parcels postmarked in California and weighing more than 12 ounces.

The postal restrictions were a logical response, since the Unabomber has always used the mail to deliver his lethal packages.

Requiring a photo ID to check bags is also an excellent idea. But even if my photo matches me and my name is on the bags, this means nothing if the luggage is not X-rayed, then matched against the number of passengers boarding the planes.

Both Federal Aviation Administration security officials and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said "everything possible" was being done to make the airport safe.

Maybe not.

Go back to the Persian Gulf War in 1991. During Operation Desert Storm, the FAA enacted strict security measures at U.S. airports: Curbside baggage check-in was banned; no one without a ticket was allowed beyond the passenger X-ray screening areas, and passengers were randomly asked to identify their bags and the contents therein.

Sadly, those security measures were not continued after the war ended. Bowing to pressure from airports and concessionaires angry at their loss of revenue, curbside baggage check-in was reinstated, and meeters and greeters were again allowed to clog up terminals.

During both the Gulf War and the Unabomber threat, one obvious and necessary security measure has not been taken: Domestic checked baggage is not manually examined or checked by X-ray machines.

When you check in a bag for a domestic flight, it is tagged and loaded onto the airplane without ever being checked. Even worse, bags are not matched against the boarding of individual passengers.

A person can easily check a bag onto a flight without boarding the plane, and yet the bag still flies.

This serious security breach does not happen on international flights, especially to, from and within Europe, where bags are examined and matched against passengers. When you check in for a European flight, the number of bags you check is written on your ticket and computer flight record. If you don't board the aircraft, it is held on the ground while your bags are off-loaded.

This is a problem of potentially staggering proportions: Domestic U.S. airline security does not match up to the worldwide standard.

There are large holes in security here. Airports know it, airlines know it, the federal government knows it. But in keeping with an American tradition of reacting to a disaster (and not anticipating it), no one seems willing to do anything about it.

It all comes down to money. Who is going to spend the money to install the machines needed to X-ray the bags, and the employees needed to analyze the screens?

The airlines and the airports say they don't have the money. And the federal government hasn't jumped in with the necessary funds.

But it's precisely the government that has the authority and the money, through the Aviation Trust Fund. The fund, begun to help pay for airport improvements, has never been tapped. Every time you buy an airline ticket, part of that ticket price goes to the fund. So, it's our money and our security we're talking about.

Last month, the U.S. airline industry celebrated carrying its ten billionth passenger in scheduled commercial service. The U.S. air-travel market is the world's biggest, with nearly 20,000 scheduled flights carrying an average of 1.3 million passenger each day.

Thus, it's easy to understand the industry's argument of a great record of safety when it comes to providing security for passengers. However, the absence of a tragic act of domestic terrorism on a U.S. airliner should not - and cannot - presume the presence of effective security.

Savvy travelers know the failings of airport and airline security. And yet we're the ones who contribute to the multibillion-dollar Aviation Trust Fund every time we purchase an airline ticket.

Write your elected representative and demand that the fund be used for the purposes for which it was created.

Isn't it about time that this fund was tapped to spend much-needed money for proactive (instead of reactive) security? Or do we have to wait until the next letter? It may contain not just a threat, but result in a fatal act that could have been prevented.

Peter S. Greenberg's syndicated column appears occasionally in the Travel section.