FBI, other agencies to share travel plans with air marshals
Security overlap on planes at issue
WASHINGTON -- The FBI and three other federal law enforcement agencies will share their travel plans with the Federal Air Marshal Service to avoid scheduling armed officers from two agencies on the same flight, air marshal chief Thomas Quinn said yesterday.
Quinn said the agreement, which also involves the Drug Enforcement Agency, the US Marshal Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, will take effect once the agencies figure out how to get their computers to talk to each other.
A similar agreement with the Secret Service, announced in February, has not been executed because the computerized scheduling system of the Secret Service is incompatible with that of the air marshal service, Quinn said.
"We're still working on it," Quinn told reporters.
David Adams, air marshal spokesman, said they expect a solution soon.
The Bush administration hired thousands of new air marshals after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The administration has faced criticism in Congress for trimming jobs in the last year and proposing a $13 million cut in the air marshal service's $623 million budget for 2005.
The exact number of marshals is classified, but Quinn said they fly on more than 5 percent of the 30,000 commercial flights in the United States each day.
Using FBI and other law enforcement agents as de facto air marshals is a "force multiplier" that will let the government protect more flights, Quinn said.
Law enforcement officers from the other agencies won't be trained as air marshals or be asked to behave differently than they normally do on flights, which includes getting a pass to carry a weapon on a plane, Adams said. They will be required to review a CD-ROM and manual on procedures the air marshals follow.
An additional 400 Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents have received 40 hours of training as air marshals, Quinn said. He said the immigrations and customs agents were used during the heightened threat alert during the last Christmas season.
Quinn reiterated the Bush administration's warning that terrorists remain interested in using planes to mount attacks.
"Certain surveillance-detection reports of federal air marshals have clearly identified criminal terrorist activity in the aviation domain," Quinn said. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating those reports, he said, but there have been no arrests.
On a separate issue, Quinn dismissed complaints by some air marshals that their dress code makes them stick out. They have said that other travelers can identify them because they have to wear jackets and dress pants on flights to leisure destinations. "The policy is designed to enable the federal air marshals to blend into their environment," Quinn said.
