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The job of protection is shared among these many defined checkpoints. By
taking advantage of them all, we need not depend on any one point in the sys-
tem to do the whole job.The challenge is to see the common problem across
agencies and functions and develop a conceptual framework--an architec-
ture--for an effective screening system.
35
Throughout government, and indeed in private enterprise, agencies and
firms at these portals confront recurring judgments that balance security, effi-
ciency, and civil liberties.These problems should be addressed systemically, not
in an ad hoc, fragmented way. For example:
What information is an individual required to present and in what
form?
A fundamental problem, now beginning to be addressed, is the lack of
standardized information in "feeder" documents used in identifying individu-
als. Biometric identifiers that measure unique physical characteristics, such as
facial features, fingerprints, or iris scans, and reduce them to digitized, numer-
ical statements called algorithms, are just beginning to be used.Travel history,
however, is still recorded in passports with entry-exit stamps called cachets,
which al Qaeda has trained its operatives to forge and use to conceal their ter-
rorist activities.
How will the individual and the information be checked?
There are
many databases just in the United States--for terrorist, criminal, and immigra-
tion history, as well as financial information, for instance. Each is set up for dif-
ferent purposes and stores different kinds of data, under varying rules of access.
Nor is access always guaranteed. Acquiring information held by foreign gov-
ernments may require painstaking negotiations, and records that are not yet dig-
itized are difficult to search or analyze.The development of terrorist indicators
has hardly begun, and behavioral cues remain important.
Who will screen individuals, and what will they be trained to do?
A
wide range of border, immigration, and law enforcement officials encounter
visitors and immigrants and they are given little training in terrorist travel intel-
ligence. Fraudulent travel documents, for instance, are usually returned to trav-
elers who are denied entry without further examination for terrorist
trademarks, investigation as to their source, or legal process.
What are the consequences of finding a suspicious indicator, and who
will take action?
One risk is that responses may be ineffective or produce no
further information. Four of the 9/11 attackers were pulled into secondary bor-
der inspection, but then admitted. More than half of the 19 hijackers were
flagged by the Federal Aviation Administration's profiling system when they
arrived for their flights, but the consequence was that bags, not people, were
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