Federalize Security at Our Airport

Re “Senate Favors Federal Airport Screeners,” Oct. 4:

Why should the screeners be federal and not private employees? Because if anything like this ever happens again, it is the government, not some unaccountable private company, that should be held accountable for the security of travelers.

Any dissenting voices should remember that the U.S. government is here to “insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” These are the reasons I pay taxes. I do not pay them to bail out billion-dollar companies that would rather cut employees than the million-dollar salaries at the top.

Nor do I pay taxes to subsidize weapons technology that perpetuates a foreign policy that subverts democratic processes and invites the enmity of millions. I do not pay taxes to subsidize the pharmaceutical industry so it can charge my countrymen exorbitant prices for medicine that I helped pay to develop in a land where health should be a right. I pay my taxes for the government to do its job in ensuring the future of the people--not corporations. President Bush, do your job, be accountable and earn my respect.

Dominic Di Zinno

Los Angeles

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While many Americans may feel a sense of security seeing police and military personnel at our nation’s airports, they should not be fooled by such imagery. On Sept. 28, as I was being searched at a screening station in LAX’s Terminal 1, a security guard told me I couldn’t take a rounded, unsharp, computer tool on the plane with me. Running late, I quickly agreed and left it with the police. Once I sat in my seat, however, I realized that the Swiss Army knife attached to my key chain made it on board without a question.

The federal government needs to move quickly to secure our airliners. It should do this not by giving Americans a false sense of security, but rather by replacing the weak link in our airport safety: metal detection personnel. Until these jobs are replaced by more highly qualified applicants, our airplanes will continue to be just as unsafe as they were Sept. 11.

Ryan W. Ozimek

Los Angeles

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Steve Lopez’s Oct. 3 column, “Unscreened Ground Crews Leave Attendants, Public Feeling Anxious,” raises valid concerns about the security lapses in and around the nation’s airports.

I’ve recently traveled through Orange County, Los Angeles, Dallas/Fort Worth and Cleveland’s Hopkins airports and in general have come away with a sense of “airport insecurity.” In one of these airports I was profiled and my bags hand-searched by an older woman who barely had the strength to unzip the baggage. Had I put a gun in the bag she wouldn’t have found it. In my opinion, this is the kind of lapsed airport security that we can count on if the airlines are allowed to provide their own security. The public should obligate itself to making the government and not the airlines accountable for providing security in and around the nation’s airports.

Otherwise the question is not a matter of if but when the next flight will be taken over by terrorists or U.S. citizens of the Timothy McVeigh type.

Wendell Taylor

Rancho Santa Margarita

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Re using the National Guard at airports: Militarizing the airports does not make us feel safer. Can anyone really feel secure in the presence of someone with a high school education and an assault rifle? As long as there are soldiers present your civil liberties are toast.

Chris Zarow

Altadena

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If it weren’t for cell phones, we would not know as much about the hijackers as we do. The terrorist pilots were able to navigate to their destination despite their use. The electronic signals coming from the phones did not affect operation of the aircraft. Why do airlines insist that cell phones not be used during flight?

Ken Brock

Upland