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Look for Suspicious Passengers, Not Suspicious Luggage, Say Air Pilots

Posted on: Tuesday, 23 October 2007, 15:00 CDT

By Jim Brown, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Security personnel pay too much attention to what airline passengers are carrying in their hand luggage and not enough to the kind of people toting the bags, says a union representing pilots in Canada and abroad.

Craig Hall, of the Air Line Pilots Association International, told the Air India inquiry Tuesday that the emphasis has to shift from "finding the pointed object" to the more difficult task of figuring out how to spot "the people who would do us harm."

The association is urging Ottawa to adopt what it calls a behavioural recognition program, in which screeners would be trained to detect signs of nervousness or other passenger demeanour that could signal something is wrong.

The concept, also known as behavioural profiling, has been advocated by other witnesses at previous hearings, and a Transport Canada advisory panel has cautiously recommended pilot projects to test the idea at selected airports.

Civil libertarians warn there's a danger that any such program could degenerate into legally unacceptable racial profiling. But the head of the inquiry, former Supreme Court justice John Major, has suggested it may be possible to tailor the measures to pass muster under the Charter of Rights.

Hall insisted he's not arguing for screening on racial grounds and maintained that personnel at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority could be taught how to avoid such pitfalls.

"Behavioural profiling is a very, very useful tool," he said, noting that Israeli security officials have long used it and the United States is experimenting with it.

The association, whose Canadian branch represents pilots at a half-dozen mainly small airlines, also believes Ottawa should institute a registered-traveller program that would speed frequent and low-risk flyers through the screening process.

That would allow more time to concentrate on people who pose a greater risk, said Hall.

"We don't believe that the one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach to security screening - which treats a member of Parliament at the same level of risk as a federal prison parolee - is appropriate."

Turning to other anti-terrorist measures, Hall and colleague Jean Labbe offered strong backing for the Canadian version of the U.S.-inspired sky marshall program.

Following the 9-11 attacks by al-Qaida in the United States, the RCMP started stationing armed, plainclothes officers on flights from Canada to Washington, D.C. The force has since expanded the program to other routes, but it's a closely guarded secret exactly which flights have Mounties on board.

"We support the program 100 per cent," said Labbe.

The Canadian section of the pilots association isn't as enthusiastic about another U.S. initiative to arm flight-deck personnel with a view to repelling assaults on the cockpit.

Hall acknowledged the American branch of the union supported the measure but said there's no plan "at this point" to lobby for a similar move in Canada.

"Countries are different, cultures are different," he said. "We are not the United States, and we need to have our own policies."

The inquiry is examining airline and airport security as part of its investigation of the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 that took 329 lives. The attack was blamed on militant Sikh separatists based in British Columbia, but only one man has ever been convicted in the plot.

Source: Canadian Press

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