The aviation industry is vital to our nation's prosperity, and protecting this system
from terrorist attacks or other dangerous acts remains an important national issue.
Airplanes have been attacked on the ground, bombed in mid-air, and seized in flight.
Airports have also been attacked, such as, passenger terminals being bombed and
terrorists with hand grenades and machine guns inside airport buildings. Aviation
security encompasses all efforts to provide safe air travel for aircraft passengers. It also
involves measures such as screening cargo, baggage, and passengers, and protecting the
aircraft from tampering. Terrorism is an increasing problem in the world; therefore, the
Aviation Industry should require higher means of security.
Experts and members of Congress recognize publicly that America's airline
security system is in disarray. Major problems have been identified in both air traffic
control computer systems and the checkpoint screeners' performance. Weaknesses in the
computer security area includes the physical security at facilities that contain air traffic
control systems and the management of security for operational computer systems. For
example, the Federal Aviation Administration, also known as the FAA, has not secured a
large fraction of the air traffic control facilities and has not performed the necessary
threat analyses for eighty-seven of the ninety operational air traffic computer systems.
The FAA initiated actions to resolve these problems; however, they are still not following
the security requirements (Aviation Security).
There has been little progress made by the FAA and the airline industry to check
the effectiveness of airport checkpoint screeners. There is weak detection of dangerous
objects and the screeners' performance problems remain. For example, "FAA is two
years behind schedule in is...