Nov 20, 2007 3:33 pm US/Eastern
TSA Agents Planted In Airports For Holiday Travel
Extra Layers Of Security Used To Monitor Passengers Anonymously
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
From X-ray machines to bomb sniffing dogs, many layers of airport security are clearly visible. But there are also many 'invisible layers' of defense. CBS 2 was allowed to exclusively bring cameras to never-before-seen areas of LaGuardia Airport where undercover security officers are seeking out potentially threatening passengers, especially during this busy holiday week.
Security for your flight doesn't start when you get to the airport. It begins the moment you make your reservation, when your name is checked against a no-fly list.
"It's done before when you make the reservation and it's also done the day of departure when you actually check in and get your boarding pass," federal security director Doug Hofsass said.
Redundancy like that is how the Transportation Security Administration has boosted its efforts.
Bomb detection K-9 teams patrol constantly, trained to detect explosive materials.
But that's also what InVision scanners do.
At LaGuardia, baggage for 50,000 travelers a day is scanned, sometimes twice, in a part of the airport the public never sees.
Travel documents are also checked twice, once at check in, once at the checkpoint.
But what's new is you're also being closely observed in secret by special TSA officers, trained to tell the difference between people acting suspiciously, and people just nervous about flying. Throughout the airport, undercover federal air marshals are doing the same.
In the area where your baggage goes but no one without the highest clearance can, CBS 2 HD was given access to one of the newest levels of security -- random checkpoints where airport employees, even TSA security officers themselves, are screened for explosives or weapons.
"This is a nimble, flexible, constantly moving layer of security behind the scenes," Hofsass said. "These officers are never in the same place at the same time or the same day, and they cover areas all over the secure side of the airfield."
The security doesn't end when you get onboard a plane, but from here on in it becomes a lot less visible.
Greg Alter trains federal air marshals.
"Anonymity is a critical feature of their mission," Alter said.
Not only are a classified number of air marshals, whose faces we can't show, anonymous passengers on hundreds of flights a day, but they are now also training pilots and flight attendants in hand-to-hand combat.
When asked how he's found the flight crews to be in terms of their receptiveness to this kind of training, one federal air marshal said, "Enthusiastic."
Air marshals are the best shooters in all of law enforcement. But they say for one of them to actually fire a weapon on board a plane, would only happen if all those other layers of security failed.
The air marshals say that contrary to popular myth, if they did have to fire a gun on board an airliner a stray bullet would not necessarily bring down the entire plane. But they reiterate, firing a weapon is the absolute last resort.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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