Steve Elson Former Special Agent
with the Navy, DEA and FAA. Specialist in Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and Security.
Twenty-two years military experience, primarily in Naval Special Warfare and
nine years Federal service with the FAA and DEA. Retired Navy Seal.
Operations Coordinator: Steve Elson
Steve Elson has twenty-two years military experience, primarily in Naval Special Warfare. He has nine years Federal Service with DEA/FAA, and one year with Local Law Enforcement in Undercover Narcotics. Mr. Elson specializes in Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and Security, both nationally and internationally, enhanced by a wide range of training and advanced studies in diverse topics relating to security, leadership, and intelligence. He holds a Masters Degree in National Security Affairs/Naval Intelligence with a focus on Terrorism.
And What's Changed?
By Kevin Berger Salon Com
August 3, 2004
So far, media coverage of the 9/11 commission report has been
dominated by story lines out of John le Carré novels. We've learned that the
CIA failed to penetrate al-Qaida in the Middle East and capture the deadly
hijackers, how the FBI gave short shrift to an internal memo warning that
suspected terrorists were taking flight lessons in the
Still more troubling, the 9/11 report portrays the successor to
the beleaguered FAA, the Transportation Security Administration, as infected
with a host of similar problems -- a charge amplified by a host of former FAA
security analysts and aviation security experts. "Look at security measures
before 9/11 and look at them after 9/11," says Michael Boyd, president of
the Boyd Group, an aviation consultant firm based in
As a result, she was "unaware of a great amount of hijacking
threat information from her own intelligence unit." Although government
watchlists contained the names of tens of thousands of known terrorists, the
FAA's own "no-fly" list contained names of just 12 terrorist suspects
(including mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed). In a rare moment of hyperbole,
the report calls the discrepancy between the extensive terrorist roster and the
meager FAA list, the one that airline clerks perused, an "astonishing
mismatch." Indeed, reading how the hijackers slipped through cracks in
security on Sept. 11 is astonishing. Four of the five hijackers on American
Flight 11, the first jet to hit the
Two of the hijackers on American Flight 77, which crashed into the
Pentagon, set off the security gate alarm -- but the screeners didn't bother to
resolve what caused the buzz. The hijackers were hand-wanded, cleared and
allowed to march onto the planes. And that's just the airports. Revelations
abound about what happened in the sky, beginning with the first chapter,
"We have some planes," a reference to the first thing an FAA controller
overheard a hijacker say on Flight 11. Thirty minutes passed before the
controller figured out the significance of that statement. Things could have
gone very differently had officials realized immediately that more than one
plane was in the hands of terrorists. Then there's this exchange. When the
To its credit, the 9/11 report does assert that the FAA and its
self-interested partner, the airline industry, exerted "great
pressures" on the Department of Transportation (FAA's boss) to
"control security costs" and "concentrate on its primary mission
of moving passengers and aircraft." But don't be misled by the
government-speak, says Boyd, who previously worked for American Airlines and
Braniff International. "The FAA and airlines didn't care if security
worked or didn't work. All they care about is no lines for passengers. And no
flight delays." Steve Elson was an FAA special agent for security from
1992 to 1999. He worked for the administration's covert "Red Team,"
which analyzed airport security by, among other things, placing suspicious
objects in luggage and carting them through check-in gates -- nine times out 10
without detection. A former Navy SEAL and Drug Enforcement Administration rep
in
"The FAA always talked about maintaining 'layers of
security,'" Elson says. "But it was layers of bullshit and facade. It
was chary of doing anything that would cost the airlines money. We in the field
knew it but couldn't ever get anything done about it at headquarters."
Since Elson quit the FAA -- "I was convinced they were going to kill
people and didn't want to be part of it" -- he's become a professional
pain in the ass, seldom passing up a chance to blame the FAA's incompetence for
the 9/11 attacks. And perhaps his outrage sounds moot now, as it's not going to
bring 3,000 people back to life. But Elson's criticism is significant because
he charges that the same problems now infect the agency that took over airport
security from the FAA, after Sept. 11, the Transportation Security
Administration or TSA. TSA's annual budget is a staggering $5.3 billion. But in
the past two years, the media has gone hog wild broadcasting how airport
security is no better than it was before Sept. 11. Throughout 2003, Elson,
usually with TV news cameras in tow, waltzed through security gates of the nation's
major airports with objects (blow dryers and oranges) that resemble guns and
explosives -- by hiding them beneath lead-shield film bags -- 135 times. In
each instance, despite seeing a black blob on x-ray monitors, screeners didn't
bother to look beneath the film bags for anything else. But it's not just Elson
and other independent critics who are firing serious barbs at TSA; it's
government officials themselves.
Currently, five
Terrorists could easily load weapons or bombs onto planes, Boyd
says, with a little help from a wide range of people -- caterers, mechanics,
baggage handlers; anyone who has access to jets before they take off. Boyd goes
so far as to say that could be just the kind of help the hijackers had on Sept.
11. Perhaps the screeners really did find no weapons on the hijackers, he says.
"I firmly believe there were things ferreted away on those airplanes. I
firmly believe there were guns involved. I had one mechanic call me two weeks
after 9/11 and say a 767 just pulled into the maintenance overhaul base and
they found a couple of box cutters taped under certain seats." Tom
Burnett, a passenger on Flight 93, did tell his wife, Deena, that one of the
hijackers had a gun. But the 9/11 report states that no trace of a gun was
found at the crash site; it adds that "if the hijackers had possessed a
gun, they would have used it in the flight's last minutes as the passengers
fought back." That doesn't deter Boyd. "What I'm saying is there was
a larger conspiracy. They had to have had help by people on the other side of
security. They had to have had help by people working at that airport. Mohamed
Atta, after planning all this, wasn't going to risk getting caught by some
stupid screener, saying, 'Oh, you have a box cutter?' After spending all this
money, scoping out Boston Logan Airport for months, would you risk this by
putting a box cutter in your bag or pocket? They had to know all this."
Boyd's assertion that the hijackers thoroughly researched the
airports and the type of jets they would commandeer is, in fact, supported by
the 9/11 report. Otherwise, though, when it comes to co-conspirators at work in
the airports, the commission report doesn't go there. Elson too says he hasn't
seen any evidence of Boyd's conspiracy. But that's not the point. What is,
Elson says, is that "you and I could get together, sit down and make a
plan tomorrow to get on airfields. It's a piece of cake. We could get on planes
with virtually 100 percent of success, plant a bomb, get off, and then blow the
planes up. And the chances of getting caught are close to zero percent. That
should make you feel good, huh?" TSA spokesperson Amy Von Walter responds
that screeners are just one part of airport and airline security. "That's
why we have a layered security system," she says. "We now have
federally trained, federally hired screeners. We've got thousands of federal
air marshals, reinforced cockpit doors, and federal flight deck officers, or
armed pilots." Von Walter stresses that installing secure gates and fences
around airport perimeters, and making sure that all areas of the airport are
guarded, is a top priority for TSA officials. She points to a recent TSA plan
that outlines how airport security firms and local law enforcement, including
the police and FBI -- "who have the day-to-day responsibility of enforcing
the perimeter" -- should protect all vulnerable areas, from hangars to
restaurants. In every way, Von Walter says, air travelers today are safer than
they were prior to Sept. 11. "Absolutely," she says. "No
question about it." But in fact there is a question about it.
The 9/11 commission itself declares that the TSA has no
"forward-looking strategic plan" in place to correct past problems
and "major vulnerabilities still exist in cargo and general aviation
security." Other federal officials go further. In a General Accounting
Office report this June, the government penny-pinchers slighted TSA's recent
airport perimeter plan, calling the agency's security efforts "fragmented
rather than cohesive," and hardly enough to justify the program's cost.
Actually, look a little deeper into the bowels of government reports, and you
find that our representatives on Capitol Hill are not happy at all with how
things are going at TSA. In 2002, a House Appropriations Committee averred that
TSA is "seemingly unable to make crisp decisions ... unable to work
cooperatively with the nation's airports; and unable to take advantage of the
multitude of security-improving and labor-saving technologies available."
The next year, a Senate Appropriations Committee chimed in that TSA was
"characterized by arrogance and disregard of the public's views. This is
particularly troubling given the fact that the agency's core mission is to
reassure the public as to the safety of the nation's transportation
system." For Elson, the TSA is quite simply a train wreck. "The fact
is, TSA has proven itself to be a reckless, profligate, self-serving
organization that can't solve the most basic, rudimentary, fundamental elements
of screening." Von Walter responds that TSA has been its own harsh critic.
"As we continue to develop as an agency," she says, "we continue
to assess, evaluate and make adjustments." One wants to believe it. But
inside the TSA itself is one of the world's foremost aviation security experts,
and he begs to differ. In fact, his voice is probably the most sober and
frightening one you will hear regarding the current safety of our skies. His
name is Bogdan Dzakovic and his résumé is awfully impressive. He was an
officer in the Coast Guard, a criminal investigator with the Navy, a U.S. air
marshal and a leader of the FAA's covert Red Team. Dzakovic is as earnest as
Elson is brash. Yet he has been every bit as fearless as Elson, first within
the FAA, and then the TSA, in pinpointing failures in security and broadcasting
them to his managers and Congress members. He paid the price for his
outspokenness: Today, the 50-year-old Dzakovic is biding his time until
retirement as an inconsequential security inspector in TSA. He is a man who
fought the law and the law won. But fight he has. Before the 9/11 commission,
he testified that his Red Team breached airport security 90 percent of the time
-- prior to Sept. 11 --- but that FAA managers suppressed his findings and in
some cases prevented his team from retesting airports that were particularly
bad offenders.
"The more serious the problems in aviation security we
identified, the more FAA tied our hands behind our backs and restricted our
activities," Dzakovic testified. TSA was designed to be more open to
criticism. Has it been? "TSA is worse than FAA," Dzakovic says
flatly. "Nobody bothered to learn from the shortcomings leading up to
Sept. 11. TSA is not only making the same mistakes but they've taken things to
a new depth of ineptness. And they're spending 20 or 30 times more money doing
it." Dzakovic's own detailed report of security failings at the FAA, and
his subsequent claim that his work was being covered up, earned him official
whistleblower status by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which essentially
means, yes, he was telling the truth, and yes, findings from the elite Red Team
were "grossly mismanaged." Like many FAA employees, Dzakovic was
transferred to the TSA, where despite his whistleblower status he was given a lackey
gig in TSA's airport inspection division. After a year, a TSA manager asked him
to prepare a "lessons learned" report about his manifold experiences
in the FAA. And he did. "I wasn't just spouting off my theories
either," he said. "I was saying here is the evidence why this will
work and why you shouldn't do this."
Ten days later, Dzakovic was demoted even further by being
assigned to TSA's general aviation area, where he was given computer fix-it
jobs that "any kid in high school could do on a work studies
program." Dzakovic himself doesn't give the 9/11 commission report high
marks. It's redolent of the political cronyism and craven policies that marred
FAA and now TSA, he says. He offered the commission his 500-page whistleblower
report, which proved that "FAA security operated in a manner that was a
gross threat to public safety," and yet, he says, the commission turned
him down. "The more I read the 9/11 report, the angrier I get,"
Dzakovic says. "I keep reading how the intelligence agencies didn't have
any imagination. But they had too much imagination. They were so disconnected
from the real world that they were in la-la land. Now they say the answer is
having the agencies talk better to one another. But having one ineptly run
agency talk to another ineptly run agency doesn't exactly fix the
problem."
What should have been corrected, Dzakovic continues, "is the
one thing that should have happened in every agency -- the FBI, CIA, FAA. And
that's the people on the bottom level of each of the respective agencies did
their jobs. We recognized that the terrorist threat was increasing, we knew
that security in aviation was a joke, we reported this to our chain of command,
and they did nothing. If we would have been allowed to continue with what we were
working on, and had the agencies made changes based on what we were doing, 9/11
wouldn't have happened." Dzakovic has some specific ideas for fixing the
TSA, such as placing rigorously trained TSA employees throughout airports,
rather than having a TSA manager strolling around with a clipboard, trying to
organize myriad security guards and law enforcement agencies, the result being
that no one is clear who's actually in charge. But it's pointless to offer
recommendations, he says. So he stays in his office, doing his work. "One
of my first assignments from the division manager was to go through an old FAA
operations manual," he says. "Every time I saw the word 'FAA,' I was
to scratch it out and put 'TSA.'" Kevin Berger is senior news editor at
Salon.
In the early 1990s, Elson was a leader of the FAA Red Team. During this time he conducted covert assessments of airports in the United States and around the world. He also helped perform mock aircraft hijackings.
In the late 1990s, Elson was an FAA Security Field Agent. He spent his time in airports, working with the airlines, screening checkpoint personnel and airport agents.
Elson says he wrote a number of reports and emails to FAA headquarters and government officials, warning of the weaknesses in airport security and recommending improvements. He says he quit his job in 1999 when he realized the government was not listening to his warnings or making the necessary improvements.
Since quitting the FAA, Elson has continued this work in other ways; for example, in 2003 he developed test protocols for the US Capitol Police to enhance security procedures in the Congressional office buildings and the US Capitol building.
Elson has helped various organizations study and report on airport security. He has appeared on television programs such as CBS Nightly News, CNN and NBC Dateline to assist reporters with airport assessments. He does not charge a fee for his services.
The fifth estate asked Elson to visit Canada and conduct a security assessment of Canada's airports in preparation for its report Fasten Your Seatbelts.
STEVE ELSON INTERVIEW
Hana Gartner: DID YOU HAVE, YOURSELF, GIVEN YOUR LINE OF WORK – DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THAT NORTH AMERICA WAS GOING TO BE HIT WITH SUCH A CATASTROPHIC AND HORRIFIC EVENT AS 9/11?
Steve Elson: Not 9/11 specifically. I was positive we were gonna get hit. I quit the FAA – Federal Aviation Administration in the United States--because I exhausted virtually every avenue I had to get them to pay attention.
Hana Gartner: AND YOU KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE BAD?
The magnitude – no, I couldn't have predicted that. But with regard to hi-jacking, which is what we saw, the issue wasn't what happened after the plane was hi-jacked; the issue was to prevent a hi-jacking. If we prevented a hi-jacking, anything thereafter simply didn't matter.
Hana Gartner: SO IF YOU TO SOME DEGREE WERE ABLE TO PREDICT IT, YOU'RE SAYING IT WAS PREVENTABLE?
Steve Elson: Oh, it was absolutely preventable and the United States government knew it. The Federal Aviation Administration knew this and I was able to get a question in at the 9/11 hearings that proved this. We knew how vulnerable the planes were. It's all documented. ..As of 9/11, I failed. I'm not a failure, but I failed. I couldn't get anybody to listen.
Hana Gartner: SO IF SO MANY PEOPLE SAW IT COMING, WHY DID IT HAPPEN?
Steve Elson: Why – the question I have now is why is it happening again? We know what can happen now and yet working all over the country for two years with the media and following articles – the same thing's happening again. And the big focus unfortunately, is strictly on aviation Security check points.
Hana Gartner: SO DO WE NEED MORE SECURITY?
Steve Elson: No we don't need more security. We need security. We need a rational group of people to sit down, clearly assess the situation, not just throw money at the wall, not run in circles, scream and shout, look at what the situation is and start figuring what can we do quickly, simply, cheaply and easily getting basic things done and prioritizing those. Start fixing the basic things so that we can actually force and channelize terrorists to do the more complicated things.
Hana Gartner: SO TELL ME, WHEN YOU WOULD ASSESS AN AIRPORT, WHERE DO YOU BEGIN?
Steve Elson: I like to look at the big picture and consider the entire aviation system and that includes what the public sees and the government's focused on. Checkpoint screening. I look at baggage screening, whole screening for explosives, carry on screening. I'll look at the airport perimeter; I'll look at access control, ramp control, cargo, badging, background checks. You know, the layout of the field, access to the planes. So you have to look at the entire system.
Hana Gartner: AND BY POINTING OUT THE VULNERABILITIES IN THE SECURITY SYSTEM, AREN'T YOU SORT OF BREAKING THE LAW?
Steve Elson: Absolutely not. First of all I said I believe these people already know this. Secondly I'm American; I look at it from an American perspective. They may think, as the Soviets did, a lot of what we say is disinformation but the driving force is that I kept quiet for years. I was in F.A.A. I quit the F.A.A. I went to the Department of Transportation. I was called by reporters. I said I won't talk to you. I went to the General Accounting Office, I went to a number of senators and Congressmen. I've got their names, the dates, the times, the places, the people I talked with. They didn't care. So now I know I've got this horrible feeling something's gonna happen and I've tried working in the government, I've tried being outside of the government – what am I to do just sit here and watch people get slaughtered? About the only way to get politicians in the United States to react – and a Congressmen's staffer told me this – is go to the media. Hopefully you alert the people and as the people know what's going on, they call their represents and say, hey what's going on here? And then maybe we'll get it changed. Otherwise we're dead.
Than he who would lay his life down for his friends. Petty Officer Second Class (SEAL) Marc A. Lee from Hood River, Oregon was killed in action this week while providing cover fire for a wounded comrade on a Ramadi rooftop.
U.S. Navy officers told his mother, Debbie Lee, that her son died minutes after he single-handedly held off enemy fighters as his team rescued a soldier wounded on a rooftop by a sniper.
Marc was part of a major operation to clear out terrorists from the center of the city in conjunction with the US Army's 1st Armored Division. According to news reports two other SEALs were wounded during the operation-one severely. My sources in the AO report that the seriously injured frog remains in critical condition and may have lost his sight in at least one eye. I would ask that all B5 readers send a prayer upstairs for this brother of mine and keep Marc Lee's family in your thoughts and prayers as well.
Unfortunately, the SEAL Team's record of no combat fatalities in Iraq has now been broken. Up to this point, we had not lost a man during OIF.
MASTER CHIEF TOM BLAIS -- a personal
view and assessment
Rick is so sincere and such a strong person that
his messages convey. People are calling from all over the world, literally.
The word "hospice" had conjured up some pretty frightening
images. So for those who haven't had the opportunity or good fortune to
visit the Chief and are concerned about his environment and state, I'd like
to share a few vignettes of each. Some of the e-mails I have seen are very
informative and well-written but don't quite capture the feeling of warmth,
happiness, and fun I experienced while there. A couple times, I saw the
Chief quietly talking and laughing with each of his daughters, Eva's
wonderful husband, and grand kids. I left for those were private moments.
Of course, I stayed when other old Teammates came to visit. All day long there was a constant stream of people, some of them like Herschel (who comes daily and who I haven't seen in years), rolling through. Talking, laughing, BSing, and just having a good time. Crazy Herschel D. is great medicine as are others the others I saw: Ken McDonald, Harry Coleman or one I never met - Randy Wise; it seemed like most of the First Colonial Staff came into hug the Chief (mostly woman) daily and spend some time talking/laughing with him. As you would expect, the Chief's presence is well known to most of the staff. When I came through the side entrance, I passed
through the first door and then had to press a button and put my face on
camera where I was asked who I was and what I wanted. When I told the lady
I was coming to visit MC Blais, she started laughing told me to tell him
that Norma sent a big hug. These are NOT hospital rooms, but actual
apartments - very nice, roomy, clean, and comfortable. Residents on both
sides of the facility decorate their outside doors and apartments as they
wish. Many have a dried floral arrangement on the door and one resident has
a lot of American Flags and "Support Our Troops" stickers all
over the door. The halls are attractive and soothing. Naturally, the
Chief's door looked like the entrance to a SEAL museum -- the inside even
more so. His living room has a TV and pictures of his family. There is a
corner with religious artifacts. And there are UDT/SEAL pictures and
memorabilia everywhere. I loved looking at his plaque from his entering the
UDT Training Class in 1947 and then going to UDT 2, UDT 21, and finally
ST-2. Also many don't realize that he went through UDT Training Classes 4
and 16. He briefly got out of the Navy and when he came back, they made him
go through twice. To the best of my knowledge, that makes him even more
unique in the community.
We did talk about the end of life whenever it comes and how important it is to enjoy every moment and all your family and friends -- which he is doing. In the end I left a satisfied and happy man knowing how well he is doing and how much he is enjoying the calls, cards, and visits from his many friends and admirers. I was sad to have missed Rick Woolard who, perforce, was out of town and I would have loved to been there when our VN Plt Commander Bill Gardner (I haven't seen him since VN) visited. But it is gratifying to know so many care and remember that "love of our fellow Teammates is so strong. Medically, it seems almost impossible that the Chief will get up and leave the room -- to break boards or chase woman. But who the hell knows? The Chief never let minor things like the difficult or
impossible get in his way. Whatever happens and when it happens, he seems
to have made peace within himself, loves his immediate family as well as
his UDT/SEAL family, and when he does go, there is little reason to be sad
except we won't get to see or talk to him in person. He is one of those
rare people in our lives who will ALWAYS remain within us. Many of the
things I have accomplished are in some part due to his influence on and
caring for me. Few have accomplished as much for so many special folks as
has he. |
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