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Douglas R. Laird was a guest on the Minnesota Public Radio Midday program. . He was Northwest Airline's security directory (worldwide) in the 90's. He's currently a security consultant. The purpose of the airline security director is to in-take all the information from the govt and make recommendations to captains, and design airline wide security.
Major points he made:
Very dubious of 1hr rule. He does not know any security professionals or captains that can make sense of that rule.
No advancement in passenger screening from the past decade has actually increased security. Checked baggage security with computer tomography is quite effective.
Just because someone is on a watch list doesn't mean the government wants that person to be denied boarding or even tipped off that they are on a list.
Pre-9/11 airlines used the CAPS profiling system (based on financial information and flight history) which would have flagged the DTW terrorist for additional screening. That system no longer exists. It's been replaced by a DHS system. He recommends allowing airlines to use CAPS again for secondary screening flags.
He recommends we send all the back scatter body scanners to the major gateways of US bound flights instead of scanning people in or leaving the US. Third world screening is an issue, so focus should be on major gateways to the US.
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