Security agency expects airports to meet baggage screening deadline

The Transportation Security Administration expects all of the nation's commercial airports to meet a Dec. 31, 2002, deadline for screening all checked baggage for explosives, TSA chief James Loy said Monday, during a homeland security conference sponsored by E-Gov.

Under the new law creating a Homeland Security Department, TSA can grant extensions to airports that are unable to install explosives detection technologies by Dec. 31. But those airports must use alternative methods, such as manual searches and bomb-sniffing dogs, for screening all checked baggage by Dec. 31.

Loy said the slower screening methods could cause passenger delays, but said any delays would be reasonable.

"There is no acceptable alternative," Loy said. "We're not going to let terrorists catch us asleep at our posts again."

Loy added that as TSA and 21 other federal agencies move to the new department, "there will be administrative, technological and cultural challenges to overcome day after day, and that process has begun."