(The Associated Press distributed the following article on March 15.)
WASHINGTON – Sweeping baggage checks for passengers on the “very open” U.S. rail transit systems are impractical despite the specter of terrorist threat, a high-level Bush administration official said Monday.
“I don’t know that we ought to apply the same strategy that we’re using with the airlines,” said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of homeland security. “Is it practical to have magnetometers for everyone who gets on a subway? Is it practical to search every bag that goes on?”
Hutchinson, appearing on morning television news shows, sought to counter accusations by some congressional Democrats that the administration has not committed sufficient money to protection of the U.S. rail and transit systems.
“First of all, we’ve invested $115 million in grants to the transit and rail industry,” Hutchinson said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He said the federal government is working closely with state and local governments and said “we’ve done a great deal of security and more needs to be done.”
In the wake of the terror attack that killed some 200 and injured hundreds more in Spain, the Department of Homeland Security last week put out a bulletin advising local law enforcement authorities and transit agencies to be vigilant. They were asked to consider additional surveillance and to look out for unattended bags and backpacks, said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.
On Monday, Hutchinson was asked whether the United States faced a greater threat of attack in the wake of the bombings in Spain.
“No not at all,” he replied. “We would certainly alert the American people through increasing the alert level if the intelligence justified that and at this time we’re monitoring it very closely, but there has been no change in the threat level.”
The government’s alert status currently is at yellow, or elevated, the midlevel spot on the five-stage terror alert warning.
The attacks in Madrid were “a wake-up call, a horrific wake-up call,” Hutchinson said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”
“In terms of the threat level here in the United States, we do have historic reporting that there are threats to mass transit systems,” he said, “but the current threat reporting does not justify any increase in threat level.”
“We have just naturally, as a consequence of this (Madrid attack), increased security in our transit systems, in our rail systems here in the United States as well,” he said. “We’ve increased law-enforcement patrols, we have increased the presence of explosive detection teams, the public announcements alerting the thousands of passengers to be on alert for unattended bags.” Hutchinson added that other measures, which he said he could not discuss, are pending.
“Whenever we have very open transits system that it is difficult and challenging to have a 100 percent secure guarantee of safety,” he said. “We are working very hard to accomplish that.”
Hutchinson told CBS that administration officials “need to have people that are keeping an eye out” for unattended bags and packages, and to report suspicious activity.