Investor's Business Daily, August 13th, 2007
Border Security: A computer "glitch" that paralyzed international terminals at LAX wasn't an isolated problem. The system routinely crashes at other major airports, knocking out electronic watch lists.
It's a chronic problem that Washington can't seem to solve. Many frustrated border agents complain that it's simply not a high priority at headquarters.
But if it's not paying attention, rest assured al-Qaida is. New intelligence reports warn that it's trying to sneak terror cells into the U.S. from Pakistan. Its chances improve every time the border security system is disabled.
The Department of Homeland Security uses the system to check travelers entering the U.S. against a "no-fly" terrorist watch list. Until now, the press has done little to highlight the problem. The meltdown at LAX, the nation's fourth-busiest airport, made headlines because it took seven hours to restore the system during a busy travel weekend.
Saturday's outage was unprecedented, stranding more than 20,000 inbound foreign passengers. DHS said it had fixed the problem. But then the system went down again Sunday night, affecting another 1,700 passengers.
LAX appeared to be the only major airport hit. But in 2005, a virus crashed computers for several hours at LAX, JFK, O'Hare and Miami International, as well as several other major airports.
Customs officers had no emergency backup system, and had to process foreign visitors by hand using so-called hot sheets to look up bad guys. There are a lot of holes in these paper lists.
Making matters worse, DHS has implemented a policy of "mitigation" whereby certain types of immigrants -- including ones from Muslim countries -- are exempted from new screening procedures in order to turn around international flights quickly. Customs officers are under pressure to clear flights within 60 minutes.
The policy came in response to airlines' complaints about delays.
Nobody wants to wait at airports, but we have to wonder if bad guys are slipping through the net under such a system.
DHS has known its computers are vulnerable to outages, viruses and even cyberterrorism for some time. An October 2005 inspector's general report said as much. It also said headquarters had failed to install software that can patch security holes.
"If the Department of Homeland Security itself is so inept and lackadaisical about securing its own critical information, how hard can it be for terrorists to gain access to it and other critical information?" asked former DHS Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin.
DHS, one of the most wasteful agencies in the government, still spends only a fraction of its budget on cybersecurity.We might expect such a situation under the old incompetency of the INS.
But now we supposedly have moved to a better, more efficient organization under DHS. To build this system after 9/11 with no back-up in case of emergencies is a huge blunder. It boggles the mind.
Border inspectors are our first line of defense against foreign terrorists sneaking into the country. But they're only as good as the databases and equipment we give them. And they too often fail even without hacking.
To guard against future computer crashes and worms, DHS must act now to beef up its server firewalls and build redundant systems that can replace ones that are disabled or destroyed.
Sounds nerdy, but your life might depend on it some day.
