Is Congress' Air Security Bill Enough?

N E W   Y O R K, Nov. 19 -- President Bush signed into law today a new aviation security bill hailed by lawmakers as a breakthrough in making the skies safer. But does the measure go far enough?

"The law I will sign should give all Americans greater confidence when they fly," said Bush before turning the act into law at Reagan National Airport in Washington.

The Aviation Security and Transportation Security Act of 2001, the fruit of a compromise between Senate and House bills, contains some strong measures to bolster the security of air travelers, including a requirement to screen all checked luggage on domestic flights. At present, no more than 10 percent of such luggage is screened for explosives.

But even as Congress added the mandate to screen checked baggage while debating the bill, it dropped a provision that air-safety advocates have long supported: requiring the airlines to match all checked bags to passengers on board domestic flights.

Positive bag-matching, as it is known, has been standard practice on international flights and in Europe for years.

Congress' bill calls for complete searches to be made starting in mid-January, but does not require complete screening systems for checked bags to be installed until December 2002. In the meantime, some think bag-matching can still be an effective deterrent to terrorists.

"We could have bag-matching by Thanksgiving," says Arnold Barnett, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who headed a 1997 study on the subject. He adds: "We may not have years until the terrorists strike again. It may be months or weeks or even days."

Bag-Matching: International Standard Since 1980s

Most of the measures in the bill are aimed at preventing hijackings like those of Sept. 11. It includes federalization of the lapse-prone airport screening work force, strengthened airplane cockpit doors and armed air marshals on many flights.

But the practice of bag-matching, in which no luggage is allowed in the cargo hold unless the person it belongs to is aboard the plane, has been used by other countries for years.