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Six Layered Security

That is, how can we make our airports more like safer, dealing with increasing greater terror threats with far less inconvenience, to genuine passengers? Our goal is to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport. That, in a nutshell is "Six Layers" - a system that protects life and property without annoying passengers to death or disrupting normal working procedures at the airport.

"The first thing to do is to look at who is coming into the airport."

The first layer of actual security that greets travelers at the airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from? Two very simple questions! The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is. Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" behavioral profiling. We reject the argument that profiling is discriminatory. "The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security. To us, it doesn't matter if the person is black, white, young or old. It's just his / her behavior that matters. Once the passengers have got out of the car or bus, they pass through the second and third security perimeters. Armed guards outside the terminal are trained to observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behavior. At the airports half-dozen entrances, another layer of security is watching through the CCTV system. At this point, some travelers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage searched. "This is to ensure that passengers don't have heavy metals on them or something that looks suspicious," Passengers are now inside the terminal. As they approach the airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes their passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side? "The whole time, they are looking into the eyes which is very embarrassing to the passenger. But this is one of the ways to determine if the passenger is suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds." At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. In case an explosive device is

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detected, only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few meters away. Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation. Five security layers done: passengers now finally arrive at the body and hand-luggage check. First, it's fast. That's because security personnel are not looking for liquids, or looking at passengers shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at the Passenger. Today with the heightened security in North America, security will check passenger items to death. But they will never look at the passenger, at how passengers behave. They will never look into the eyes ... and that's how security can determine the people with bad intensions from the innocents. That's the process six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at airports is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

This doesn't cover the off-site security net intelligence. A coordinated

intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies. But even without the intelligence, we maintain, that a potential suspect would not get past the airport's behavioral profilers. It is said that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark where the key was actually lost. That's exactly how Indian security officials act. Nothing has to be replaced. They have to add just a little bit technology & training. But, more than that, officials have to completely change the way they go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept. Officials always say; 'So far, so good'. Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and passengers spend hours in an airport. This is ridiculous, and not justifiable! The above security layers can be used successfully in every location where people can be allowed access to establishments like refineries, ports, game venues, even inside city areas that contain government buildings.