Federal Protection or Bureaucratic Bungling?

Re “Risks, Costs Weighed in Terror Response,” Oct. 25: No doubt pressured by airline lobbyists and lured by the promise of campaign largess, libertarian demagogues in the House of Representatives, led by Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Tom DeLay (R-Texas), dither over a dreaded government expansion while an alarmed American public waits and steams. Beholden to public-employee labor unions, House Democrats insist on the federalization of airport security screeners.

Meanwhile, pilots and flight attendants insist that easy access to airport tarmacs and unscreened luggage in airplane cargo holds remain ready and inviting avenues for terrorist weapons or bombs to board planes. The physical safety and emotional reassurance of the traveling public--not at all issues for compromise or deal-making--are at stake here. Woe betide the reelection plans (if not the moral consciences) of heel-diggers on both sides of the aisle if one more drop of American blood spills because they failed to act with dispatch in the interests of the millions of Americans they and President Bush have urged back aboard commercial airliners.

Paul Vandeventer

Los Angeles

So the White House and the GOP House leadership want to kill a unanimous Senate bill that would federalize security screeners (editorial, Oct. 23). The bill would ensure that federal regulations would be uniformly enforced by trained professionals instead of the ham-handed security conducted by $6-an-hour private screeners.

While Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and House Majority Whip DeLay work to kill this bill, why don’t they hire private security provided by low-bidding Argenbright to protect the House chambers, if they are so confident in the capacity of these sleuths to catch the bad guys.

I didn’t think so.

David Perez

Newport Beach

P.W. Singer must have been on the moon for the last month. “Some Things Just Can’t Be Handed Off” (Commentary, Oct. 25) promotes the handling of our security to the federal government. Singer wants to turn over our lives to an entity that gathered no intelligence on the terrorists, allowed four planes to fly unchallenged (three of which killed 5,000 people)--and now that entity is issuing contradictory statements such as: Bin Laden may escape, but we will still kill the Taliban.

I don’t think so, Mr. Singer. The federal government has done enough securing and defending us.

Michael Rives

Los Angeles