Beefed-Up Travel Security, Employee Background Checks : Terrorism Accepted as Part of L.A. Landscape

With the deadly scourge of international terrorism threatening to spread to U.S. soil, Americans will face increased and often restrictive security measures both at work and while traveling.

Beefed-up security in the form of armed guards at airports, extensive employee background checks and the likelihood of increased police intelligence-gathering--a practice criticized as intrusive--will become facts of life as officials search for ways to protect Americans in their own country.

‘Part of Our Landscape’

“You can put terrorism in the same category as war and crime--it’s part of our landscape now,” said Brian Jenkins, a Rand Corp. researcher who specializes in international terrorism.

“We have to recognize that terrorism has become a political mode of action and that it is probably going to persist,” he said.

“About all we can do is devote our resources to containing it and try to minimize the damage.”

Rand researchers say that Los Angeles is second only to New York as a target for terrorist attacks that have occurred on U.S. soil since the mid-1960s, and add that Los Angeles International Airport is a priority area for increased security.

Meetings on Security

Clifton Moore, head of the city’s Department of Airports, said he and other airport officials from four facilities serving Israel’s El Al Airline are meeting with Federal Aviation Administration authorities regarding security measures.

El Al ticket counters in Vienna and Rome were targets of attacks by Palestinian terrorists in December. More than 20 people, including several Americans, were killed in the coordinated attacks, believed by many to have been the work of a shadowy terrorist using the name Abu Nidal.

“The events in Vienna and Rome occurred in basically unsecured areas,” Moore said. “We have built a defense by checking people who enter passenger areas, but they found a way around it” by attacking unguarded ticket counters.

“Vienna and Rome are ironic and bloody evidence that security measures work,” said Jenkins, referring to the decreasing number of hijackings from Western countries since the placement of metal detectors to check passengers.

Smuggling Bombs

Jenkins said terrorists will not limit their attacks to airline terminals, but also will probably increase attempts to smuggle bombs aboard aircraft.

“We might see hand searches of all baggage and a measure, already in effect in Europe, where luggage is placed on the airport apron before takeoff for passengers to identify,” Jenkins said.

Airport officials have also called for background checks of airline workers, and Jenkins predicted that employees of other companies with international connections may begin carrying electronic access cards to the buildings where they work.

Suspicious Groups

Jenkins refused to speculate on recent warnings by Los Angeles law enforcement officials that groups capable of terrorist acts may already be in Southern California.

He said police intelligence-gathering measures are the best way to identify any such groups, but he also noted that laws resulting from police abuses, such as spying on political groups, restrict their actions.

“Security measures are like linoleum,” he said. “Once they’re in place, it’s pretty hard to pick them up again.”

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said aggressive intelligence-gathering is necessary to protect the country from terrorists.

“The primary and most important weapon we have is intelligence and, frankly, the more intrusive it is, the more effective it will be,” Cmdr. William Booth said.

Comparing the Fright

“The very vocal spokesmen against police intelligence actions need to take another look at how frightful intelligence measures are and how frightful a terrorist attack can be,” Booth said.

Some private groups are already taking their own steps against the threat of politically motivated violence.

Metal detectors were used to screen the audience at the privately sponsored appearance last weekend of a Nicaraguan government official and author, Omar Cabezas, at a Santa Monica church.

“Because of feelings people have about these things, we just didn’t know,” said Bruria Finkel of the Friends of Nicaraguan Culture. “We thought it was better to do too much than too little.”

Jenkins said recognition of the threat of violence has already become commonplace among U.S. citizens and companies, who pumped $22 billion last year into various security measures.

“Abu Nidal, the Night Stalker, the armed robber and the burglar--they’re all the same in our world today,” Jenkins said. “Put them together and you’ll see this is a very scary place.”