Airport drug bust heightens debate over non-federal forces

A recent drug bust at Kennedy International Airport shows that the use of workers from private companies in sensitive security jobs poses a substantial risk, federal airport screeners argued Monday.

Government agents arrested 20 baggage and cargo handlers at Kennedy last Tuesday and charged them with slipping tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana past security checkpoints during the last decade. Authorities said the workers were employed by American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and five smaller companies: Globe Ground North American, Evergreen Eagle, Hudson General, Swissport USA and Flying Foods.

The operation represented "a potential threat to homeland security," said Michael Garcia, acting head of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"A network of corrupt airport employees, motivated by greed, might just as well have been collaborating with terrorists as with drug smugglers," Garcia said following the arrests.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said the handlers capitalized on their status as airport employees to circumvent inspection procedures in importing massive amounts of narcotics over the last decade.

Although baggage and cargo handlers must pass background checks, they are not subject to the stringent security checks faced by federal baggage and passenger screeners with the Transportation Security Administration.

Miguel Shamah, acting vice president of the Metropolitan Airport Workers Association, said the accused handlers could have just as easily smuggled bombs or weapons into airports and onto planes.

"These private workers were getting paid off," he said. "Instead of drugs, it could have been explosives."

MAWA was recently created to represent the interest of airport workers, and has been outspoken in defending TSA screeners.

Shamah said the drug bust has amplified his concerns about private workers handling baggage. For example, he said La Guardia International Airport recently decided to let handlers from private companies work in areas where CTX baggage screening machines are operated. The handlers load bags onto the CTX machines and take them away after they are screened by TSA employees.

"Basically, what this is boiling down to is that these people from private companies that do not have 10-year background checks now have access to work on federally owned equipment and are doing things that at one point were considered security-sensitive operations," Shamah said. "It's absolutely insane. They have access to areas where cargo goes in and out of the planes. I don't understand how this benefits national security in any way, shape or form."

Another TSA screener at La Guardia said her job is now more stressful because she has to make sure that private handlers are doing their jobs and not breaching security. MAWA is fighting the move and met last week with Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., to enlist congressional support.

LaGuardia management decided to let private handlers perform loading duties during this holiday season so TSA screeners could be freed to perform other duties, such as screening passengers. The private handlers are not allowed to operate the CTX machines or screen bags; they can only load and unload luggage.

"It is not a screening function that is being performed and it is not unique to LaGuardia," said Mark Hatfield, chief TSA spokesman for the northeast region.

Hatfield emphasized that employees from several private companies perform numerous jobs at the nation's airports, and all of them have passed background and badge checks. He said loading bags is a "non-security function," and it is not uncommon for bags to be handled by multiple private workers before they are loaded onto planes.

Hatfield said security at LaGuardia has greatly improved since the terrorist attacks. "We've tightened it up significantly since TSA has come on the scene and we continue to look at ways to improve it," he said.