Watchdogs: FAA dodging criticism by cutting website

BY MEG LAUGHLIN mlaughlin@herald.com

When the Federal Aviation Administration began taking specific information about airport security violations and incidents off its website after Sept. 11, industry watchdogs balked. Was the FAA protecting airports and airplanes from terrorists or protecting itself from criticism for lax security enforcement?

``They're protecting their butts,'' said Billy Vincent, former FAA chief of security.

Vincent, along with other FAA watchers ranging from journalists to aviation and consumer advocates, says the less the FAA posts on its website about enforcement the less aggressive it has to be as an airline regulator.

``Not so,'' FAA spokesman Christopher White said. ``We took specific information off the Web because it made us vulnerable to terrorists.''

SECURITY VIOLATIONS

The FAA removed website information that told where security violations took place and generally described what they were.

The government agency also removed violations that did not result in fines, but rather letters of warning. It was information, watchdogs say, that enabled them to see what was being negotiated away, as opposed to enforced.

Brant Houston, executive director of Investigative Editors and Reporters, a nonprofit organization in Columbia, Mo., says his organization is approaching the FAA ``in a respectful and energetic mode'' to ask that information be restored to the website.

``Without the information that makes scrutiny possible, we can't serve the public interest and continue to point out chronic FAA problems,'' he said.

WHY A THREAT?

Houston points out that the information removed from the website was supposed to be about problems already corrected: ``So, if they were corrected, how could they make an airport or airline vulnerable to terrorists?''

FAA spokesman White: ``The information, while being about what was corrected, shows trends of weaknesses, which could help terrorists. That's why we removed it.''

But aviation and consumer advocates strongly disagree.

Victoria Cummock, an aviation advocate and former member of the White House Commission on Aviation and Security, has watched the FAA for almost 13 years and has concluded that the regulatory agency needs to be regulated by outsiders who can see what it's doing.

``They took helpful information off the website to increase the smoke and mirrors and make it more difficult for us to watch them,'' Cummock said.

FOX AND HENS

Time and again, she says, the FAA has been lax on oversight.

``That the FAA is the watchdog on airport and airline security is asking the fox to watch the henhouse,'' she said. ``And for the agency to take away our ability to watch them shuts a very important door.''

POSSIBLE SHIFT

There is no need to get upset about the information being removed from the website, White said -- things may soon change.

``Maybe the FAA will have a lesser role in regulatory oversight. Who knows what Congress will decide?'' White said, referring to pending airport security legislation. ``Maybe expanded oversight will be put in the hands of the Department of Justice.''

``Justice would be great,'' Cummock said. ``Just not the FAA. Too many of us have seen them fail too many times -- and get away with it.''

http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/national/digdocs/096308.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), November 04, 2001

Answers

As long as Jane Garvey is in charge, the results of ANY effort will fall short.

``Maybe the FAA will have a lesser role in regulatory oversight. Who knows what Congress will decide?''

One can only hope.

JB

-- Jackson Brown (Jackson_Brown@deja.com), November 04, 2001.