Benny And The Jets

     “It is a significant increase in the level of security,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts who has made a national name for himself ever since 9/11, advocating strict air cargo security.
     But in the end U.S. air cargo security came down to politics and compromise, and a weakened bill fearful of a President Bush veto.
     “Republicans One-Up House Democrats, Claim Victory on Key 9/11 Protection Against Terrorist Activity,” said the press release that one side of the debate put out.
     So now after months of negotiating, a “sweeping” U.S. security bill is likely to pass with bipartisan support when it comes up for a final vote next week.

Bennie & Ed: No Summer thunder here, rather politicians eager for deal folding under pressure.

     The air cargo requirement, in the final version of the bill, still says that within three years all cargo carried aboard passenger jets be checked, but the legislation now specifically states it must be “screened” instead of “inspected.”
     The words mean that as much as 60 percent of air cargo could be exempt from mandatory physical inspection at the airport, under the “Certified Shipper,” initiative, an extension of the “Known Shipper” program in place for the air cargo industry for years.
     Companies in this program will be ordered to follow all the rules and inspect packages and shipments and affix tamperproof seals on containers. But shipments in Certified Shipper will in most cases not be physically or electronically inspected at airports.
     Air cargo can’t be all that unhappy with the legislative outcome, in that costs would/will have been burdened upon the industry, quite a shock to an already reeling financial system, with U.S. carriers only recently, finally showing some profits after a half decade decline.
     In the end the compromise insures that the frontline labor of TSA effort to create a secure atmosphere for U.S. airline business—airport screeners will not be allowed a collective bargaining position, but will continue as uniformed guards at competitively low pay.
     The other area that Democrats caved in to get something about security on the books before ‘Summer Recess’ is the whistleblower provision.
     The defeated provision came out of an incident aboard a NWA flight when one passenger did not like the looks of six Muslim travelers aboard, who were then removed from the flight and put through the mill, but later sued the passenger.
     In the future, at least aboard a U.S. flag airplane, anyone will be permitted to charge anybody with anything with immunity from being sued.
     “To get a bill passed is an art of compromise,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi, the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told The New York Times.
     “But I don’t think we weakened our systems of protection in the process.”
     Well-respected CNN journalist Lou Dobbs spoke for many in the USA and around the world when he called TSA “a joke” in a conversation with Rep. Thompson earlier this year, while chiding the politician to do something about it.
     As Rep. Thompson heads back to Mississippi we can only wonder if the ranking Democrat on the panel for the nation’s transportation security system gets it?
Geoffrey