The Washington Post carries a story outlining several of the problems with federal airport security and concludes that in spite of all the spending and passenger inconvenience

The federal government disclosed this month that it fired 85 felons it had hired to work as security screeners and that it has yet to finish 22,000 background checks. Private airport security firms, which hired screeners before the federal takeover, had similar problems.



Charles G. Slepian, a former security consultant for TWA, is dismayed by the lapses. “Nothing has really changed that much in terms of substantive security,” he said.



He noted that reinforced cockpit doors and more explosive-detecting machines have helped. But Slepian said Congress and the rest of the federal government are focusing too much on preventing another Sept. 11 attack instead of concentrating on other tactics that terrorists have used, such as planting bombs on aircraft.



“When a terrorist sees that the front of the airport has some semblance of security, he’s just going to go through the back of [the] airport,” Slepian said.

(emphasis mine.)