Excess baggage

Congress is moving aviation security and anti-terrorism legislation with speed that befits the circumstances. The sticking points between House and Senate versions of these crucial bills suggests, however, that some of the special-interest and partisan baggage has not been left behind.

The Senate version of the Aviation Security Act, cosponsored by Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe and passed by a unanimous vote last Thursday, contains many of the provisions long called for by experts in field. All airline baggage – checked or carry-on – would be x-rayed, cockpit doors would be strengthened, armed sky marshals would be on board, intelligence-sharing between airlines and law-enforcement would be improved.

On the issue of passenger screening, 100 senators agreed that the greatest vulnerability needs the strongest fix – the Justice Department would gradually take over airport security from the airlines. Rather than have the front lines of safety guarded by the lowest-bid subcontractor, the Senate wants a corps of some 30,000 air marshals. A $2.50 per-ticket surcharge will help fund the added agents.

House Republicans object strenuously to last provision and so far have shown no willingness to compromise. Their answer is tighter federal standards, but still leaves it to private contractors to do the screening and the hiring. House Democrats support federalizing airport security. Both caucuses want oversight given to the Transportation Department.

GOP leaders in the House support their position with tiresome anti-government spiel. Airline security is not a federal concern. Nations with better security do it with private guards. You can’t fire an incompetent federal worker.

The Constitution, however, clearly states the federal government’s responsibility for national defense and for interstate commerce. The United States, with its sheer size, its hundreds of commercial airports and, as now is apparent, its attractiveness as a terrorist target, cannot be compared to other nations with private security – it also does not have the mandated high wage and benefit standards in effect throughout Europe and in Israel, the public’s protection against being protected by the bottom of the employment barrel. Airport security is a law-enforcement issue – it belongs in the Justice Department, not Transportation.

The weakest argument, though, is that which plays the anti-bureaucrat card. Reports of lax security at airports throughout the country, even after the Sept. 11 attacks, make it evident that the private sector is no stranger to incompetence. The goal should be to make airline security a law-enforcement career, with wages and benefits sufficient to attract competent, dedicated people.

The two versions of the anti-terrorism legislation passed by both chambers last week are quite similar. Both versions confer broad new powers on law enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance and to share information. Some elements of the two versions require reconciliation – the House, for example, sunsets enhanced wiretapping and other electronic surveillance powers after three years; the Senate does not.

The most striking and disturbing differences, though, deal with money laundering and the ability of government to dismantle the finances of the global terrorism network. The Senate anti-terrorism bill includes a number of provisions to disrupt the ability of terrorists to move money anonymously across borders. House leaders want to winnow these provisions – long opposed by Internet gambling services and some segments of the credit industry – into a separate bill, as if the link between global terrorism and global money laundering has not been made obvious, and the luxury of such extravagances not now obsolete.