9/11: Knowledge is Power

Brian F. Sullivan

After the wave of remembrances that marked the fifth anniversary of 9/11, many Americans are quite rightly still asking this question: “What can we do, as individuals, to help prevent another attack?”

My answer is this: Demand that our government arm us with the most powerful weapon against terrorism — knowledge.

Knowledge of the hijackers’ true aims gave the passengers of United Flight 93 the power to fight back heroically and prevent that airplane from destroying the U.S. Capitol. And it is knowledge about our aviation security vulnerabilities before 9/11 that will give all Americans the power to make us safer.

As a retired special agent for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who was charged with protecting classified information within the New England Region, I am aware that many pre-9/11 vulnerabilities have yet to be revealed. One reason is because the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) stubbornly refuses to distinguish between information of value to terrorists that must be kept secret and information that would empower us to protect ourselves and just as urgently should see the light of day.

TSA’s abusive overdesignation of documents as “Sensitive Security Information” (SSI) is an endless source of frustration to 9/11 family members determined to learn the truth about how their loved ones died, to watchdog organizations determined to hold our government accountable, and to distinguished jurists determined to mete out justice.

In the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, Judge Leonie Brinkema was astounded that TSA refused to provide 9/11 family members with evidence it gave to the convicted terrorist’s lawyers. “It’s quite extraordinary that TSA has a tougher policy on disclosure than the CIA or the FBI or the NSA,” she said from the bench. After Judge Brinkema ordered TSA to share these documents with 9/11 family members, TSA refused to comply, tying it up in Appeals Court for the foreseeable future.

In my many years at the FAA (TSA’s aviation security predecessor), I saw how the interests of our real bosses, the American people, sometimes took a back seat to other concerns, including the pleadings of airline lobbyists. This was evidenced further by TSA Attorney Carla Martin’s alleged collusion with aviation industry attorneys, which nearly sabotaged the Moussaoui prosecution.

Indeed, ample evidence demonstrates that TSA’s refusal to release pre-9/11 documents is not based on legitimate anti-terrorism grounds but rather on evading accountability. For example, in 9/11 aviation litigation, TSA restored much language it had originally marked as SSI and removed from documents provided to the families. One look at this made clear TSA was protecting itself from embarrassment, not the public from harm.

Moreover, reports from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the former DHS Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin found that passenger screening is only marginally better, if at all, than five years ago, despite the $2.4 billion spent on aviation security since then. Cargo security is woeful and, in tests conducted within the past year, GAO agents bypassed security with bomb components at all 21 U.S. airports tested.

Airport security, therefore, will remain vulnerable until the public demands we receive the protection we’ve paid for. But how can we do that when TSA continues to use SSI not to protect national security, but as a shield to cloak government and airline negligence and incompetence before 9/11?

Fortunately, a solution is at hand. Thanks to the leadership of Reps. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and Martin Sabo (D-Minn.), the U.S. House included bipartisan language in Section 525 of the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill that would end TSA’s abuses without preventing the agency from keeping legitimate secrets. Section 525 would:

•Require the release of SSI that is more than three years old and not currently being used to protect the transportation system, unless TSA demonstrates a compelling reason why the release would present a risk of harm to the nation;

•Standardize and justify TSA practices for labeling documents as SSI, and

•Permit a judge overseeing legal proceedings to allow controlled access to SSI in the proceedings, unless TSA demonstrates a compelling reason why the release would present a risk of harm to the nation.

However, the Senate version of the bill would preserve the status quo. So citizens who want to make America safer and hold our government accountable should call their senators and representatives and tell them to demand inclusion of the House’s Section 525 language in the final, unified version of the bill (H.R. 5441).

It was my job to keep secrets. The last thing I want is for any information useful to terrorists to be released. All I want is for citizens to be armed with the knowledge —the power — to protect ourselves from future 9/11s. That is exactly what Section 525 would do.