Speaker 1: November two thousand to the Department of Homeland Security became
Speaker 1: an official agency. It would also become the parent to
Speaker 1: agencies like the t s A, Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard, FEMA, and the Nuclear Incident Response Team.
Speaker 1: For a brief time, Chad Wolfe was the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Homeland Security. He was also the Under Secretary of Homeland
Speaker 1: Security for Strategy, Policy and Plans. Previously, he was one
Speaker 1: of the original architects of the t s A. It
Speaker 1: was a monumental task, probably at that time, something that
Speaker 1: had never really occurred since the stand up of the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense. This is nine eleven, two decades later.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles. On the morning of
Speaker 1: nine eleven, I was working on Capitol Hill in the
Speaker 1: Russell Senate Office Building. Had arrived at work as the
Speaker 1: first plane went into the first Trade center, uh, and
Speaker 1: then saw the second plane on the television go into
Speaker 1: the second one. We were evacuated, along with other members
Speaker 1: of Congress, you know, shortly thereafter. And uh, that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I was introduced to Homeland Security. Had been
Speaker 1: working on really domestic issues prior to that, so it
Speaker 1: hadn't really been in the national security space. But like
Speaker 1: many other people, that that day forever change sort of
Speaker 1: my professional outlook and how I went about doing my
Speaker 1: job and had a profound impact on me. And talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how you got into the security
Speaker 1: space and and sort of how you started to learn
Speaker 1: about how nine eleven started to affect how we lead
Speaker 1: our daily lives. I stayed on Capitol Hill for a
Speaker 1: few additional months when the Aviation and Transportation Security Act
Speaker 1: was passed by Congress, which actually created at that time
Speaker 1: the Transportation Security Administration, and a few short months later
Speaker 1: had the ability and the opportunity to go to work
Speaker 1: for the Transportation Security Administration in the Bush administration, so
Speaker 1: I had sort of a first hand seat to what
Speaker 1: it was like on building a new agency after such
Speaker 1: a monumental event as nine eleven. Security was at the
Speaker 1: forefront of most Americans thought process at that time, and
Speaker 1: so we went about for the next several years building
Speaker 1: an apparatus that you see, you know, in use today
Speaker 1: at airports all across the country and really had become
Speaker 1: the gold standard for how security is conducted in airports
Speaker 1: all around the world. Um, and so there's probably no
Speaker 1: other aspect of Homeland Security that touches so many daily
Speaker 1: americans lives, like the Transportation Security Administration. If you travel
Speaker 1: and go through an airport, you're going to come in
Speaker 1: contact with an employee of the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1: So it was, you know, for those three or four
Speaker 1: years after nine eleven, it was a crash course on
Speaker 1: how do we protect the country from another terrorist of it?
Speaker 1: Where does one start when you're creating an agency and
Speaker 1: we're not just talking about any agency. We're talking about
Speaker 1: an agency that's supposed to protect the lives and safety
Speaker 1: of American citizens and all citizens. But where does one start?
Speaker 1: Well for us at that time, and again just talking
Speaker 1: about t s A at that moment, we had a
Speaker 1: pretty instructive handbook from Congress. They gave us very specific
Speaker 1: deadlines to meet, whether it was federalizing checkpoints, whether it
Speaker 1: was deploying explosive detection equipment UH and everything in between.
Speaker 1: And so we had a very specific we laid out
Speaker 1: a roadmap on how to get there, and it was
Speaker 1: a monumental task probably at that time, something that had
Speaker 1: never really occurred since the stand up of UH the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense, and so you had to go about
Speaker 1: it smartly. You had to bring in stakeholders. You had
Speaker 1: to bring in those that you were going to regulate.
Speaker 1: As I've often said, homeland security is not just done
Speaker 1: by the department. If you don't have the buy in
Speaker 1: and support of the stakeholders and the other individuals in
Speaker 1: the private sector specifically that are involved, and you're really
Speaker 1: not going to truly have homeland security. And so we
Speaker 1: were conscious to do that from day one, and we
Speaker 1: did that at the Department of Homeland Security, and then
Speaker 1: you know, broadly speaking sorry at t s A, and
Speaker 1: then broadly speak at at DHS when we look at
Speaker 1: a variety of other threats beyond just the aviation sector.
Speaker 1: You know, when you start talking about the t s A.
Speaker 1: I think in the beginning, we as Americans were understanding
Speaker 1: that we were going to have to adhere to all
Speaker 1: of this, and we're going to go through pat downs,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to limit our our liquids, We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to do all these things. But after a while
Speaker 1: that became sort of cumberson to the everyday person in
Speaker 1: in in the t s A started to become sort
Speaker 1: of the agency everyone grew to hate. Did you see
Speaker 1: that coming I think we all certainly recognize that it
Speaker 1: certainly had the potential. Again, as I indicated, there's probably
Speaker 1: no other agency within the Department of Homeland Security that
Speaker 1: it comes into contact with everyday Americans more than T
Speaker 1: s A. And you just got to think about the
Speaker 1: nature of flying. It's already sort of a stressful situation
Speaker 1: to fly. You add that into security, and you add that,
Speaker 1: you know, a variety of different levels onto that, and
Speaker 1: it just becomes all together that much more cumberson. And
Speaker 1: then you add a workforce that you know, Congress you know,
Speaker 1: only pays them so much and so um, you have
Speaker 1: a workforce that is constantly under stressed some would say,
Speaker 1: is constantly under resource. And you know you're going to
Speaker 1: have some some incidents that the media will love to
Speaker 1: blow out of proportion, will love too, you know, only
Speaker 1: highlight when things go bad, and that's what they do
Speaker 1: most And so I think over time T s A
Speaker 1: and some sense has been victimized by that. Really the
Speaker 1: only thing that gets publicized a lot of cases is
Speaker 1: you know, things that are perhaps things that they do bad,
Speaker 1: And what doesn't get showcased is all the things that
Speaker 1: they do right each and every day. To keep our
Speaker 1: airways safe and secure. Use air travel safer now today
Speaker 1: because of the t s A. Oh, I would definitely
Speaker 1: say yes from it From an aviation security standpoint. The
Speaker 1: enhancements that t s A has done both at the
Speaker 1: checkpoint but check baggage, general aviation, a variety of different
Speaker 1: things that Essay has done over the last twenty or
Speaker 1: some odd years, I think has certainly increased the security
Speaker 1: of the American people flying not only here domestically, but
Speaker 1: internationally as well. Um just the technology standards detection standards
Speaker 1: alone has increased. Now. Look, our our adversaries are also
Speaker 1: still out there at work, still trying to to figure
Speaker 1: out how they can penetrate that security network that we
Speaker 1: have put in place. But I would say absolutely when
Speaker 1: we just look at the aviation security context and what
Speaker 1: we've done over the last several years, were certainly safer
Speaker 1: today than we were on nine eleven. You spoke a
Speaker 1: little bit about the media blowing things out of proportion
Speaker 1: and talking about how we as a media always fixate
Speaker 1: on the bad tell us some of the good tell
Speaker 1: us some of the things the public doesn't get to
Speaker 1: see on a daily basis. Wow. Uh So it's you know, look,
Speaker 1: when we talk about the Department of Promeland Security, we
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, the largest law enforce an agency,
Speaker 1: not just in the US but in the world. So
Speaker 1: we have over or the department has over seventi five
Speaker 1: thousand law enforcement officers and those are folks. Some of
Speaker 1: those folks are at t s A, some of those
Speaker 1: folks are at the U. S. Border Patrol CBP ICE,
Speaker 1: which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement Coast Guard. And so
Speaker 1: you have a huge network of law enforcement officers that
Speaker 1: are doing their various missions, all very different, but are
Speaker 1: coming together to protect the homeland at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. And a lot of that is not again
Speaker 1: reported on or advertised about how they do that, how
Speaker 1: they are investigating child smuggling rings, child exploitation, human trafficking
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, or how CBP is is you know, uh,
Speaker 1: detecting and seizing immense amounts of drugs and other contraband
Speaker 1: along our borders. And so some of these things I
Speaker 1: think are taken for granted, but it it actually takes
Speaker 1: a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication from
Speaker 1: the men and women of the department to do their
Speaker 1: job every single day. And haven't even talked about our
Speaker 1: Cybersecurity Agency and what those folks do every day to
Speaker 1: try to keep federal network secure and keep the American
Speaker 1: people as safe as can be against cyber intrusions. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people just take for granted. Uh is. You know,
Speaker 1: it's embedded in the security of their lives every day.
Speaker 1: But it's only there because of the hard work of
Speaker 1: the men and women of DHS. You know, some would
Speaker 1: say that if you think about bringing all these agencies
Speaker 1: under one umbrella, because all these agencies obviously existed outside
Speaker 1: of it. You know, Immigration, Customers Enforcement was you know,
Speaker 1: that's that was more of an iteration of what border
Speaker 1: patrol and customs, right, But you've got past Guard, You've
Speaker 1: got all these agencies you spoke about. Critics have said
Speaker 1: there was really no need to to create the Homeland
Speaker 1: Security or the t s A, because, in fact, I
Speaker 1: was talking to military expert the other day they said,
Speaker 1: if we had just adopted the Israeli model, he is
Speaker 1: a Reeli security model, we wouldn't need the t s A,
Speaker 1: And then that the creation of DHS was just more
Speaker 1: bloated government. What would you say to that well. I've
Speaker 1: heard that. I've heard that as well, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: that viewpoint. Particularly when we talk about the Israeli model
Speaker 1: of aviation security. I go back to they have one
Speaker 1: primary airport, ben Gurn International Airport that they have to protect,
Speaker 1: and so they can devote all their resources to that
Speaker 1: one airport. We have over four hundred and fifty airports
Speaker 1: to protect in the United States, and so you're gonna
Speaker 1: need a little different approach. I've also heard about the
Speaker 1: Canadian approach right where you you regulate it instead of
Speaker 1: having it federalized, and I think that's a debate worth having.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's the right approach, but I think
Speaker 1: that model is probably going to be a little bit
Speaker 1: closer if you wanted to change the the nature in
Speaker 1: which we do aviation security, a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: having it being more regulated by the federal government and
Speaker 1: actually conducted by private entities versus having it being totally federalized,
Speaker 1: which it is today. Talk about some of the things
Speaker 1: that just absolutely surprised and or shocked you when you
Speaker 1: started to work creating the t s A and starting
Speaker 1: to see security on a global scale, and what was
Speaker 1: going on, what were some of the things that shocked
Speaker 1: you about the creation of this agency. That's a great question,
Speaker 1: I think. You know again, I think it was you
Speaker 1: have to think back to the time period after nine eleven.
Speaker 1: I think everyone was in a very different mindset than
Speaker 1: they are today, and there was an extreme focus on
Speaker 1: are we going to be hit again? Will there be
Speaker 1: another nine eleven? I think over time, what one thing
Speaker 1: that surprised me was how quickly that faded and how quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, travelers really voice their displeasure with being inconvenienced
Speaker 1: at the airport, and look, I can appreciate that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to make sure we're all very,
Speaker 1: very busy, and you want to make sure you get
Speaker 1: to your destination as quickly as possible, particularly for business travelers,
Speaker 1: because that's you know, time is money, which I understand.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, after that, after nine eleven, security
Speaker 1: was continues to be a priority for the department, but
Speaker 1: really at that point in time, it was the overriding factor.
Speaker 1: We were doing everything we could to make sure that
Speaker 1: we didn't get hit again, and some would say that
Speaker 1: we overcompensated on the security front and not on the
Speaker 1: facilitation front. So I think That was one thing that
Speaker 1: surprised me pretty quickly after nine eleven was the attention
Speaker 1: span of the American people wanted to make sure that,
Speaker 1: you know, they got to their destination pretty quickly, as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible. I would have thought that the overriding
Speaker 1: concern at that time, particularly in two thousand and two
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, would be to make sure that
Speaker 1: we didn't get hit again and to shore up that
Speaker 1: that aviation security. That's not a criticism, that's just like
Speaker 1: I said, answer your question, it's more of a surprise
Speaker 1: than anything else. I am very curious if you could
Speaker 1: go back and do anything with this over again, what
Speaker 1: would it be. Well, I think there's always there's always
Speaker 1: a number of things that you can do better, whether
Speaker 1: that's from communicating with the American public, whether that's communicating
Speaker 1: with members of Congress. So like, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism both from Congress and the American public because as
Speaker 1: a security agency at that time creating t s A,
Speaker 1: you wanted to communicate, but you didn't want to communicate
Speaker 1: too much, right, You didn't want to show your hand
Speaker 1: your adversaries. You didn't want to detail everything that the
Speaker 1: agency was doing at that time to give them a
Speaker 1: roadmap on how to penetrate you. So there was a
Speaker 1: there was a balance there on how much we could
Speaker 1: communicate versus how much we were actually doing to help
Speaker 1: secure and protect the American people. So as I look back,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's different ways to communicate that, there's different
Speaker 1: ways to to talk to individual stakeholders. I think one
Speaker 1: thing that the agency didn't do extremely well is I
Speaker 1: think they thought, you know, at that time, that security
Speaker 1: was everything. And I'm not sure that we brought in
Speaker 1: the airlines and the airports as quickly as we could have.
Speaker 1: Right at the end of the day, it's it's their airplanes,
Speaker 1: it's their passengers, it's their customers, and we needed to
Speaker 1: do that. We we did that pretty well. We could
Speaker 1: have done that a little bit better to really have
Speaker 1: them be partners. But I think there's always gonna be
Speaker 1: a healthy tension there between the private sector who wants
Speaker 1: to a for profit entity and like the airlines and
Speaker 1: the airports, and an agency that is worried about securing
Speaker 1: UH their infrastructure, um and so there's always gonna be
Speaker 1: that healthy tension. I think sometimes it boiled over into
Speaker 1: the public sphere and and T s A took a
Speaker 1: hit for that, So I think you can always go
Speaker 1: back and have a little bit better relationships and communicate better.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, you're looking back now
Speaker 1: with DHS, T s A, and UH, you know, everything
Speaker 1: like the Patriot Act and all the things that were
Speaker 1: created following nine eleven. Are we safer today than we
Speaker 1: were on? Well, that's a that's a difficult question to answer.
Speaker 1: I think if you you have to when you look
Speaker 1: at are we safer as a country, you have to
Speaker 1: look beyond just T s A and aviation security. You
Speaker 1: have to look at cybersecurity. You have to look at
Speaker 1: border security. You have to look at foreign terrorist organizations
Speaker 1: and their ability to strike the homeland. So there's a
Speaker 1: variety of different threats in scenarios that you have to
Speaker 1: look at. If you're trying to assess is the homeland
Speaker 1: more secure today than it was at nine eleven? Were all?
Speaker 1: I would say probably yes, although I am extremely concerned
Speaker 1: about what I'm seeing today. When we look at border security,
Speaker 1: we look at what's going on in Afghanistan today and
Speaker 1: and creating another safe haven for terrorism because of some
Speaker 1: of the events that have occurred recently. I think all
Speaker 1: of these things give me great pause to say, are
Speaker 1: we safer today than we were two years ago, four
Speaker 1: years ago, or six years ago. I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: at this point in time, when you have over two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand illegal individuals coming across our southern border in
Speaker 1: a given month, when you know you can't bet them all,
Speaker 1: you know you're not apprehending them all. What does that
Speaker 1: say about the sovereignty and and the security of your borders?
Speaker 1: Not a lot in my opinion. And so to have
Speaker 1: an administration say that the border is closed and the
Speaker 1: border is secure when you know that there's criminal elements
Speaker 1: and bad people coming across that border every day, that
Speaker 1: gives me a great pausing concern. Do you have any
Speaker 1: other thoughts you want to share? No, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you know, we didn't talk a lot about the
Speaker 1: other parts of the department. You know, we talked about
Speaker 1: T s A, which I think is important. Obviously that's
Speaker 1: what occurred on nine eleven, But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other elements of DHS that go into protecting the homeland,
Speaker 1: go into what how do you do that so that
Speaker 1: the American people can sleep safe at night? And one
Speaker 1: thing that I always focused on It's not just you know,
Speaker 1: how do we protect individuals from foreign terrorist organizations or
Speaker 1: even domestic terrorists. But I think what the Department does
Speaker 1: in many cases is provide economic security to the country.
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by that, right It it's
Speaker 1: you know, if we talk about t s A, it's
Speaker 1: keeping that aviation system up and running, because if that
Speaker 1: industry goes down, the economy is going to take a
Speaker 1: significant hit if airlines can't fly. You know, the same
Speaker 1: thing goes with the Coast Guard. Of all the goods
Speaker 1: that you you know that we see on the on
Speaker 1: the shelves of Target and Walmart come through our ports,
Speaker 1: and you know, the United States Coast Guard provides security
Speaker 1: in those ports and waterways. You know, cybersecurity and what
Speaker 1: our our SISSA agency does, you know, protecting federal networks.
Speaker 1: You know, when a pipeline goes down or or any
Speaker 1: of these other cyber attacks, it has a significant impact
Speaker 1: on the country as a whole. So a lot of
Speaker 1: what DHS does each and every day is to make
Speaker 1: sure that you know, we are in the best position
Speaker 1: to keep this economy roaring and going, because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, that's the security that's the sort
Speaker 1: of the might behind the United States is our economy
Speaker 1: and obviously the security that we provide not only here
Speaker 1: in the US but around the world. I think over
Speaker 1: the last few years, there's always been this talk about
Speaker 1: whether you know, how strong is our intelligence infrastructure and
Speaker 1: how does that play into the homeland security. Well, it
Speaker 1: plays in significantly a lot of the information that we
Speaker 1: acted on, right, So, you know, when you look at DHS,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different threats that come in, a
Speaker 1: lot of different scenarios that that the Apartment could be
Speaker 1: acting on. But like any other department, there's limited resources.
Speaker 1: So you focus those resources on the on the most
Speaker 1: you know, logical threats out there, and we rely on
Speaker 1: our intelligence community to provide that information to us. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a great amount of information that they collect overseas
Speaker 1: that goes into that decision making process, and so we
Speaker 1: are completely you know, the department, I would say, is
Speaker 1: you know, really really reliant on on a lot of
Speaker 1: the intel collection that different parts of the intel community
Speaker 1: provide to the Department so that we can make informed
Speaker 1: decisions that we can say, look, we we believe that
Speaker 1: the foreign terrorist threat is more you know, severe and
Speaker 1: dire today than it was. I'm not you know, this
Speaker 1: is just an example, but we we base that assessment
Speaker 1: off of information that we're getting from the intelligence community.
Speaker 1: So the Department gets fed from the IC, the intelligence community,
Speaker 1: and then we make educated assessments based off of that information.
Speaker 1: So it's absolutely critical that the information that they pick
Speaker 1: up that's relevant to protecting the homeland gets shared with
Speaker 1: the Department UM so that we can make informed decisions,
Speaker 1: we can make resource allocation decisions to go about and
Speaker 1: doing our job every day. Talk about baggage screening because
Speaker 1: that that is become a huge part of security. This
Speaker 1: is something that you know, the entire airports had to
Speaker 1: be reconfigured to accommodate all of this bag screening. Talk
Speaker 1: about how that came into play. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: a great question, and I think you have to think about,
Speaker 1: you know, the Department of a lot of people think
Speaker 1: about Homeland Security and they think about the Department. You
Speaker 1: think about you know, Border Patrol, you think about Coast Guard,
Speaker 1: you think a lot of different agencies. A lot of those,
Speaker 1: you know, we're pulled from other departments to create the
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security. T SA was unique and that
Speaker 1: it was created out of whole cloth. Right. It didn't
Speaker 1: exist prior to other than an office or two within
Speaker 1: the Federal Aviation Administration that did some civil aviation stuff,
Speaker 1: but nothing to the extent that we see today at
Speaker 1: t s A. And but again, Congress was very explicit
Speaker 1: in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act ats A and
Speaker 1: gave the department very specific deadlines to meet UH. And
Speaker 1: that started with making sure that we federalized every checkpoint.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean. You know, prior to nine eleven,
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was contracted out by the
Speaker 1: airlines and airports, and so you had a couple of
Speaker 1: you know, private contractors there at a at a checkpoint
Speaker 1: doing some you know, magnetometer work, and that was about it.
Speaker 1: And so all the infrastructure that you see at a
Speaker 1: checkpoint when you arrived there to get on a plane,
Speaker 1: it didn't exist prior to nine eleven. And Congress gave
Speaker 1: us a year or so to get that out UH
Speaker 1: and into into play. And so that meant hiring fifty screeners,
Speaker 1: making sure they were trained, making sure they were resourced
Speaker 1: is a significant hurdle. The next year, you know, making
Speaker 1: sure that we had explosive detection system, So every bag
Speaker 1: that goes into the hole of an aircraft is screened
Speaker 1: for explode SIPs, matching those bags with passengers that get
Speaker 1: on the airplane, which you didn't have to do prior
Speaker 1: to nine eleven. So all these different things that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people take for granted over the
Speaker 1: last twenty years, it just occur because of the security
Speaker 1: system that we have been put in place didn't occur
Speaker 1: prior to nine eleven. And within a two year period,
Speaker 1: the folks at t s A and all the screeners
Speaker 1: and all the officers that were hired and are very
Speaker 1: rapid fashion, you know, got to work and created not
Speaker 1: only an agency. You're standing up an agency in the
Speaker 1: infrastructure of that agency, but you're also standing up the
Speaker 1: security apparatus, which is largely still intact that we see today.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been improvements of technology over time, but
Speaker 1: a lot of that infrastructure still exists today. And just
Speaker 1: let me you know, mentioned the technology again. Prior to
Speaker 1: nine eleven, it was non existent. It was an X
Speaker 1: ray machine and a magnetometer, which was very very basic.
Speaker 1: You could see that at basically any public building anywhere.
Speaker 1: Today you have some very advanced technology at that checkpoint
Speaker 1: scanning your bags for very small amounts of the explosives.
Speaker 1: A lot of that research and development was in a
Speaker 1: nascent stage. It had to be accelerated, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: and it has been over the last decade or so.
Speaker 1: And so again, the the amount of time and attention
Speaker 1: and energy to stand up an agency after a crisis
Speaker 1: like nine eleven, I don't think can really be underestimated.
Speaker 1: It was a huge amount of work, with a lot
Speaker 1: of specific deadlines written, you know, given to us by
Speaker 1: Congress um, and it took a sort of a whole
Speaker 1: of government approach to get it done. You know what,
Speaker 1: I just happen to think about chance, What role did
Speaker 1: you guys play in cockpit security? Was that all F
Speaker 1: A A Or was that you as well? No, that
Speaker 1: was T S A. And so when we look at at,
Speaker 1: you know, the security of the cockpit of aircraft, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things that come to mind. One was
Speaker 1: making sure that we reinforced those cockpit doors which were
Speaker 1: not reinforced prior to nine eleven. So we worked with
Speaker 1: the airlines and we worked with others to make sure
Speaker 1: that those doors were reinforced. That we're more difficult to breach.
Speaker 1: We also put in place, or I should say Congress
Speaker 1: told us to put in place what we called the
Speaker 1: Federal Flight Deck Officer Program or the f f DO program,
Speaker 1: which allowed pilots and those that sit in the cockpit
Speaker 1: of commercial aircraft to carry a firearm if they wanted to.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a voluntary program, but t. S
Speaker 1: A trained them, you know are usually our federal air
Speaker 1: marshals probably trained them on how to do that. UM
Speaker 1: and so yes, there was a lot of work that
Speaker 1: went into the to the security of the aircraft. There's
Speaker 1: many what we what we called at the time, and
Speaker 1: I believe T. S A still talks about layers of security, right.
Speaker 1: And the layers start as you book your ticket. You know,
Speaker 1: your name is run, the name check is done, and
Speaker 1: you go through you know, some complex algorithms to see
Speaker 1: if you're a bad person or have travel patterns like
Speaker 1: a bad person, things of that nature, to security checks
Speaker 1: that occur as you arrive at the airport, to security
Speaker 1: checks that occur as you arrive at the checkpoint, to
Speaker 1: security checks that occur as you arrive at the gate.
Speaker 1: And if all that fails and a bad person gets
Speaker 1: through all of that. Then it becomes the the security
Speaker 1: of what's on that aircraft and whether it's the flight
Speaker 1: attendants being trained a certain way, whether that's an air
Speaker 1: marshal being on board, or whether that's a cockpit door
Speaker 1: that's been reinforced, or a pilot who has been enrolled
Speaker 1: in that program that carries a firearm. There's a variety
Speaker 1: of different layers that we sought to put in place
Speaker 1: so that if anyone layer was breached, it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: the last layer of defense. We made sure we had
Speaker 1: redundant layers set up. Coming up. In episode five, we
Speaker 1: tried to put air marshals in suits on those lights.
Speaker 1: A lot of my flights went to Hawaii, we had
Speaker 1: haw Wine shirts on, so we tried to blend in
Speaker 1: what it's like to be a cop in the sky.
Speaker 1: Nine eleven Two Decades Later is produced by Steve Gregory
Speaker 1: and Jacob Gonzalez and is a production of the KFIE
Speaker 1: News department for I heeart Media Los Angeles and the
Speaker 1: iHeart podcast network. The views expressed are strictly those of
Speaker 1: the guests and not necessarily the hosts or employees of
Speaker 1: I Heart Media. H