Examination of Witnesses (Questions 73-102)
MR PHILIP
BAUM AND
COLONEL RICHARD
KEMP
26 JANUARY 2010
Q73 Chairman: Colonel Kemp, Mr Baum,
thank you very much for coming to give evidence to the Committee.
May I apologise for keeping you waiting. We interposed an evidence
session by Lord West following the decision of the Government
to raise the threat level. Could I start with a question on that
to you, Colonel Kemp, because I know you have been on the radio
over the weekend about the Government's position. What concerned
you about the decision taken by the Home Secretary to raise the
security threat level? Clearly, we did not want the Government
to tell us all the intelligence that led to this, but you were
concerned about a number of aspects. What were those concerns?
Colonel Kemp: I do not consider
that I was concerned by that decision. I think that the Government
was right, subject to what the intelligence is, which, of course,
I am not privy to, to raise the threat level in the way it did.
I agree with you that they should not reveal any more of the intelligence
than they have told us; in other words, they should not give us
any specifics because, of course, that aids our enemies and also
potentially could mislead people if you give them a little bit
more but not everything, so I think there are those issues, and
also show al-Qaeda the limits of our intelligence. The only thing
I would say, which I think is an issue, is that there was no guidance
given to people about how they should respond. Yes, they can look
on the website, but if you are announcing a change in the threat
level perhaps you should tell people in general terms what they
should be looking for. That was the only issue that I would like
to mention.
Q74 Chairman: Because there was a
lot of speculation following this over the weekend. You cannot
just say the threat level is going up. You have got to be able
to say, "And, as a result of that, we would like you to do
X, Y and Z".
Colonel Kemp: I think that would
be a sensible thing to do, yes, and it has been done in the past,
in particular, in relation to the previous campaign by Irish terrorists
against us. We could use that perhaps as more of a model than
we do for a response to this situation.
Q75 Chairman: Mr Baum, do you have
any comments on the security level?
Mr Baum: I am more concerned when
the threat is lowered afterwards because from what we do know
about terrorist groups that are out there they do not necessarily
carry out their attacks when the threat is at its highest level.
It is when it is at its lowest level and when we are not expecting
it.
Q76 Chairman: And we rely totally
on the character of the British people, which is what the counter-terrorism
Minister put to us. It may be that people might feel relaxed as
a result of a reduction in the threat level?
Mr Baum: I think the general public
has to maintain its vigilance at all times. Obviously, the Minister
is privy to information that I am not privy to and has felt the
need to increase the threat level, and I think it is a good thing
that we are in the know but I do share Colonel Kemp's view that
we need to know what to do when that threat level is raised.
Q77 Patrick Mercer: Colonel, you
run the security for a busy estate. What would be useful to you,
in charge of security? What measures would be of use for the public
to carry out when the threat level rises?
Colonel Kemp: I think the important
thing is that they are guided on what to look for, not just in
terms of suspicious objects but also suspicious behaviour of people,
and that they have a means of communicating those concerns rapidly
to the right place. I often get reports of people who report concerns
but are not able to find the right person because the local bobby
might not be quite the right person to report it, so there does
need to be something along the lines of a hotline to report it,
which I think I am right in saying we do not have nationally at
present, or, if we do, it is not widely known. The other point
I would make, which relates to something Philip Baum said, is
that I do think it is right that we should vary the threat level.
I think the threat level has consistently been as it is now but
it has gone up and down a few times and, having been involved
in a previous guise in making judgments and decisions on threat
levels for the UK, the Government, and JTAC and MI5 in particular,
do take extreme care in deciding when to bring the threat level
up and down. I think that is important but I think it is important
that when possible it is brought down again while at the same
time not lulling people into a false sense of confidence. You
just cannot maintain a heightened level of vigilance all the time,
so I think that is a key point.
Q78 Chairman: Thank you. Could I
now move on to body scans and could I ask you both individually,
when and in what circumstances should body scanners be deployed?
Mr Baum: I have been a long-time
proponent of body scanners. The technology has been around for
many years, but I think we need to be very careful about how we
use them. We need to use them intelligently and to decide, based
on some form of passenger profile, which technology we are going
to use to screen which passenger. We need to be very careful but
there are different types of body scanners out there using a variety
of different technologies, and I would like to see an environment
where we deploy a range of different types of body scanners at
the checkpoint and, particularly with regard to airport security,
make security unpredictable so that when we arrive at the airport
we do not know which technology is going to screen us. However,
what we must make sure of is that we start to process passengers
more quickly through the airport. My biggest concern at the moment
is that we are creating long queues. Body scanners are significantly
slower than their predecessors in "archway" metal detection,
so we have got to speed up the process but we have got to do it
intelligently, and we need a range of solutions that can look
at current threats and future threats. I would just point out
that body scanners have been installed at airports, including
UK airports, for a few years. Customs authorities use body scanners.
There are to my knowledge four through-body, that is, transmission
x-ray, body scanners at London Heathrow; there are 7 millimetre
wave systems in UK airports screening passengers at airports when
they get off aeroplanes, so customs authorities are profiling
passengers. Customs authorities are using body scanners and have
been doing so for many years, and we are doing all these checks
after people have got off aircraft. We need to do it before they
get on.
Q79 Chairman: Thank you. Colonel
Kemp?
Colonel Kemp: I agree with pretty
much all of that. I think it is very important that we have multiple
sensors; we do not just rely on a particular technology. Airports
have the advantage of being able to carry out point scanning checks
on every single person that is going to board an aircraft, which
other security regimes do not necessarily enjoy to the same extent,
but I do think that in addition to that there should be a wider
level of security so that on an airport's concourse and routes
by which people approach airports security should be stepped up
in those areas, including the potential use of terahertz body
scanners around the approach to the check-in point, where people
can perhaps be looked at at random. It would be publicised and
known so that it would provide a level of deterrence that does
not exist at present because you assume that you are going to
get there and you are going to be subject to a specific test.
There should be a wider level of checking carried out against
all people coming into an airport. It is obviously very important
that the privacy issue is addressed but I think technology does
exist—I know it exists—where that issue can be addressed
and privacy can be maintained, even using these very detailed
scanners. I would like to come on to this perhaps later on in
another question, but I think we must not rely on technology alone.
Q80 Mr Davies: On this issue of privacy
and body scanners, I cannot understand why nobody seems to have
suggested two body scanners, two queues, one for men, one for
women, and let the women go through one which is monitored by
women. That is more or less what happens with "pat downs".
I have not seen it suggested anywhere. Would this not be a solution
that overcomes this?
Mr Baum: First of all, with regard
to the body scanners, generally the person who sees the screen
cannot see the passenger as well, so you are not getting a visual
view of the passenger and, on the screen, a visual view of the
passenger with no clothes on. Secondly, I would point out that
the technology today can show an outline image of somebody without
any facial features. One of the systems uses a stick figure and
can simply superimpose threat items onto that stick figure, so
a lot of the privacy issues are over-emphasised, possibly by the
media, rather than being a genuine concern.
Q81 Mr Winnick: Mr Baum, you are
in favour—we have seen some articles written by you—of
profiling passengers. In fact, you dismiss objections as political
correctness. Would it really be possible to accurately profile
passengers along the lines you have advocated?
Mr Baum: It is possible, it is
doable and it has been proven to work many times, which is possibly
what we cannot say about, for example, x-ray technology for screening
for explosives. People have been identified carrying out attacks
using a profiling system. Some of them were referred to by Lord
West earlier, like Anne-Marie Murphy. Even Richard Reid, the shoe
bomber, was identified the day before he boarded his American
Airlines flight as a possible threat to the flight because of
his appearance and behaviour. It has proven to work on a regular
basis and the best examples of profiling working are not on the
basis of race, religion, gender or colour of skin.
Q82 Mr Winnick: As I understand from
your answer, he would not be a person, obviously a Muslim, dressed
as such and with an orthodox beard? You are not suggesting that
sort of person should be profiled as such?
Mr Baum: Absolutely not. Again,
these questions that are often put by the media perpetuate the
idea that that is what it is going to be about. We should be profiling
on the basis of somebody's appearance and behaviour, also on their
passport and ticket details and what we know about them, but we
must also recognise that aviation security is not just about counter-terrorism.
It is about preventing any unlawful attack against civil aviation
perpetrated by criminals, psychologically disturbed individuals
and the terrorist community. We are creating a lot of unhappy
passengers who are perpetrating acts of air rage on board aircraft
and they could one day bring down an aircraft. We need to identify
all threats on the ground, and profiling caters for that and for
the future threats. That is the beauty of profiling. It looks
to the possibility of a chemical or biological weapon. It looks
to the possibility of an internally carried device.
Q83 Mr Winnick: Could I put this
to you, Mr Baum, that the necessity to take every form of precaution
for everybody, including Muslims or Jews or anybody else, Hindus,
Sikhs, Christians, is obviously absolutely essential? That is
hardly in dispute. Do you not think you are being somewhat provocative
when you talk about profiling because inevitably that is seen
as ethnic or religious profiling, which is not only totally undesirable
but you yourself said would serve no purpose as such?
Mr Baum: I do not think it is
being provocative; I think it is simply stating that it is a system
and process that has been proven to work for very many years,
and we have got to decide what we want. Do we want an effective
security regime or do we want just something that is a deterrent?
Deterrence is an important part of the process. My concern is
that we keep looking for another piece of technology to add on
to the system and to rely on technology. Ultimately we need to
rely on human beings. It is human beings that are going to operate
these systems, including if we were to start supplying equipment
to Nigeria, which is a country I am going to tomorrow, working
on a consultancy project there, including in Yemen. It is not
simply giving them the equipment; it is training the staff to
operate the equipment.
Chairman: Absolutely.
Q84 Mr Streeter: Do you think enough
is being done to outsource security away from airport terminals
and concourses? Are we over-focusing on that particular place?
Mr Baum: I have long felt that
we tend to view aviation security as something that happens at
the security checkpoint rather than it being a continuum from
the moment somebody makes their reservation until they reach their
destination. Air crew are part of the security web but there are
a lot of people that could be flagged up before they arrive at
the airport. For example, Mr Abdulmutallab should have already
been identified as somebody who would have warranted greater screening
before he even arrived at Lagos Airport and before he arrived
certainly at Schiphol. He had paid for his ticket in cash in Ghana
for a journey that started in Nigeria. He had no luggage for a
two-week trip. His visa was issued in the United Kingdom and he
was not even travelling through the UK. There should have been
loads of alarms.
Q85 Mr Streeter: You want us to rely
on human beings. It is human beings that made these mistakes;
they did not spot him.
Mr Baum: First of all, there are
different component parts of the jigsaw puzzle. For that we could
have used a computer-based system, an analytical tool, to flag
up that passenger and that should have happened, but I also believe
that we are depriving a lot of the screeners of the information
that we used to be privy to. We do not have tickets now. People
are using e-tickets. They are arriving at check-in with less information.
Everything is becoming automated. I think we also need to look
at who is performing the security duties. We do not outsource
customs or immigration. Those are government agencies, government
employees, that carry out those duties. Many airports around the
world are relying on contract screening personnel who are relatively
low paid to perform duties that could ultimately prevent a war
in which thousands of people could die, and I think we need to
be serious about whom we deploy.
Q86 Patrick Mercer: Your earlier
answer, Colonel Kemp, I thought was fascinating. I asked you what
you would appreciate being imposed or what measures would be helpful.
Why do you imagine the Government does not require these things?
Colonel Kemp: Does not require
---?
Q87 Patrick Mercer: You said spotting
dangerous articles, reporting them. You talked about the fact
that you were not aware of the existence of a hotline. There is
a hotline, actually. The fact that you do not know it and I do
not know it I find quite remarkable. I think you served in Northern
Ireland. You will remember that the hotline there was everywhere:
the sides of vehicles, the sides of police stations, et cetera.
Why do you imagine our Government does not take these sensible
and basic precautions?
Colonel Kemp: Interestingly, I
had a discussion with the equivalent of our police head of counter-terrorism
from New York who was saying to me, "Do you have a problem
with the number of measures that the Government imposes upon you
as a commercial organisation and forces you to do and forces you
to pay for?", and I said, "The opposite is true. The
Government does not really impose very much in the security world",
and I think that is an issue. I think the Government perhaps has
not really fully accepted the real seriousness of the situation
we are in compared, for example, to the US Government, which in
a sense is understandable given the relative devastation of the
attacks the US has suffered compared with us, but I do think there
ought to be more regulation and control over counter-terrorism
measures throughout the whole country, not just in government
institutions.
Q88 Patrick Mercer: Thank you, and
how useful, gentlemen, do you find the concept of watchlists and
no-fly lists?
Colonel Kemp: They are very useful
if applied correctly. In terms of the point that Mr Streeter made
earlier on about we are using human techniques, some of this is
human, some of it is automated. You have got to have the right
mentality, you have got to have a constant state of vigilance
and you have got to have a constant focus on the problem. We have
seen, both in terms of the US security regimes and our own as
well and other countries', that the foot sometimes comes off the
accelerator here. These things are important but are only as good
as the intelligence that feeds into them and only as good as the
conscientiousness with which the information is spread around
the place.
Q89 Patrick Mercer: Interestingly,
and Mr Baum I am sure will pick this up, when we were at Smiths
Detection yesterday the point that Smiths made to us was that
one of the reasons that Israeli airport security is so very successful
is the amount of time, training and selection they invest in the
individuals who are security operators.
Mr Baum: Certainly in Israel they
tend to use university students to perform the profiling techniques,
so, rather than going to work in a coffee shop to earn their extra
keep, they go and work at the airport for a couple of years. One
of the aims is not to retain staff; they want them to leave after
two years, and they go on to be doctors or lawyers or whatever
it is they are going to go on and do. It is a different calibre
of person.
Q90 Chairman: It is a kind of national
service, is it?
Mr Baum: It is not national service.
This is after the army when people have gone to university. They
are simply trying to earn some extra money. You are therefore
recruiting intelligent people and you know you are only going
to have them for a short time, so they are not going to get bored.
I am not so sure we would necessarily want to go to our university
students here to recruit them at airports.
Colonel Kemp: I think the key
point is post-military service. They are all experienced security
people in many ways.
Q91 Mr Davies: Is there a danger
that all this technology is going to do away with the human element
of "pat downs" and so on? Is that something we should
be concerned about?
Colonel Kemp: I think you have
got to use both. Technology is very important but I believe that
the human aspect is even more important and that is why the profiling
that Philip Baum has described is very crucial, but also I would
extend that. I think it is what he means anyway, but I would extend
it from strict profiling to behaviour pattern recognition to everybody
who is involved in airport security or the check-in process and
any staff process being able to identify specific signs of behaviour,
not for the colour of the skin or the type of dress but looking
for suspicious ways in which they act.
Q92 Mr Davies: Perhaps you are aware
but British Transport Police insist that all officers, including
special constables like myself, undergo a one-day training, something
called BASS, Behaviour Assessment and Security Screening, which
is precisely that, not through ethnicity or anything like that
but looking at body language.
Mr Baum: And we are not only looking
at passengers; we are looking at airport employees as well because
I think that is one of the major concerns that we also need to
address. Many airports are like cities and there is a criminal
element that works airside at airports. We need to be evaluating
not only the passengers but the people who have access to the
airside areas and profiling carried out effectively evaluates
situations as well as people.
Q93 Mrs Dean: Can I ask you both,
do you think it is wise that the Government announced the measures
that it is taking?
Mr Baum: I think that aviation
security is all too predictable. I find it fascinating that when
we go through an airport security checkpoint we see technology
with the manufacturer's name emblazoned on the side and you can
simply go to the internet and find out the spec of that system.
I think that we should not know what is going to happen to us.
I think we should know what we are allowed to carry but that ultimately
the aviation security system should be unpredictable. The problem
is that the vast majority of the general public do want to know,
and in fact everybody has got their own aviation security story
and their own aviation security experience, and I am concerned
that it is because they have certain expectations.
Q94 Mrs Dean: Colonel Kemp?
Colonel Kemp: I agree with that.
I think the really important issue, though, is that it is important
that we do not know the technical details of what is happening
to us but I think at the same time there is obviously a need for
reassurance about whether these ray machines are going to harm
us and also it is essential that information is put out with a
view to deter. For example, if I go on an aircraft I have got
no idea if any of my hold baggage is ever scanned. I do not know
if the airport authorities make any announcement about that, whether
they scan a proportion or whether they admit to that or not, but
I think it would be useful to have that kind of information put
out, not necessarily the proportion but the fact that either it
is all scanned or some is scanned, because again that might deter
me.
Mr Baum: It is an international
requirement now.
Chairman: A very good point.
Q95 Mr Streeter: I am sitting here
worried not so much about what is going on in airports but in
our ferry ports, which is slightly outside the scope of this inquiry.
If I take my car on board a ferry from Dover or Plymouth or somewhere,
is anything screened? Does anyone know if I have got bombs in
my boot? Are we not leaving the back door open?
Colonel Kemp: I am not by any
means an expert on port security but I do know that there is certainly
screening for radiological devices as you come into ports.
Q96 Mr Streeter: For every car?
Colonel Kemp: For every vehicle
coming through, as I understand it. Obviously, I could not swear
to that but I believe it is the case, and I know that technology
exists where you can carry out, for example, explosive particle
detection tests on vehicles coming through if you desire, and
also, of course, the technology exists to carry out x-rays of
vehicles.
Q97 Mr Streeter: But they do not.
Colonel Kemp: I do not know what
they do in ports but I know what is perfectly possible.
Chairman: But it is a good question.
I think we should write to ports authorities to find out precisely
what the security is.
Q98 Martin Salter: Similar comments
were made after 9/11, I remember, by congressmen and senators
in the United States, but does the attempted attack on Christmas
Day represent a failure of security or of intelligence or both,
in so far as that system failed at all?
Colonel Kemp: It is a combination
of the two because there was some intelligence about the man which
was known to the authorities and that was not acted upon, which
I think represents to an extent a failure of security. Also, on
the point that Philip Baum made about profiling and behaviour
pattern indication, this is just one example. There are so many
comparisons between the Christmas Day attack and Richard Reid.
For example, neither of them had hold baggage at all. Why were
they not examined further because of that? The lessons were not
learned from Richard Reid on that particular issue. I think the
other problem with intelligence is that there is not enough focus
in our national apparatus, and I say this from experience. There
is only focus on one aspect of intelligence and that is the hard
intelligence you have. Not enough focus is given to understanding
and learning lessons from what has happened in the past because
we know that with Islamist terrorism, the same way as with Irish
terrorists, they tend to repeat successful, or in some cases unsuccessful,
attacks, and the third area at the other end of the spectrum is
that not enough work is done on what could happen. There is not
enough what we call "red-teaming" done whereby potential
scenarios, even if there is no intelligence about them but the
things that could happen, are looked at with real rigour and then,
if necessary, security measures are introduced to counter them.
Mr Baum: Could I just interject
to say that on a positive note I think that Britain can be very
proud of its approach to aviation security. It has one of the
most highly respected aviation security regimes in the world.
The problem is at international level, that the international
standards for aviation security are extremely low and are based
on identifying suspect or prohibited items and not looking for
intent. That is the paradigm shift that we need to make. We have
got to remember when we are dealing with terrorists and any other
types of threats to civil aviation that we are dealing with people
and we need to identify which people are going to carry out the
attack.
Q99 Chairman: This is one of the
problems. That is why we were pressing the Minister, some may
believe too harshly but I think properly, to say that the international
standards are just not there and it is all taking far too long
waiting for some document to come out of Brussels. It is absolutely
vital that we have these international standards, not necessarily
within the EU, but take a country like Yemen or Nigeria, which
is where the Detroit bomber started his journey. The fact is they
need help, do they not?
Mr Baum: One of the challenges
is that it is all very well trying to increase the standards but
somebody has got to pay for it at the end of the day and aviation
security is a very expensive business. You have got to have a
regime in place that can work in the Côte d'Ivoire and in
the Solomon Islands and in the United States and in the UK, and
in coming up with a baseline it is always going to be significantly
lower than possibly we are going to put in place here.
Q100 Chairman: In the end who is
to blame for this person arriving all the way across three continents
and almost landing in Detroit? Who was to blame for that?
Mr Baum: I do not think one can
put the blame on any one individual. I think that it was—and
this is to use President Obama's saying—a systemic failure
of the aviation security system. It is because of our reliance
on certain technologies, the checkpoint that was introduced in
the 1960s to combat hijackers armed with guns and grenades that
wanted to go to Cuba. We have moved on since then and yet the
aviation checkpoint has not changed much since then.
Q101 Chairman: Colonel Kemp, can
we put the blame on anyone for Christmas Day?
Colonel Kemp: I think in some
ways it comes back to this business about the human being not
being able to sustain focus. In the American intelligence service
we saw problems. We should take it on our own shoulders for perhaps
not passing on all the information we have available. Every single
little thing feeds into a big picture and one little piece of
information could tip the balance between someone preventing you
from flying or not, so I think it is a large number of different
areas of failure.
Q102 Mr Winnick: Colonel Kemp, those
of us who are laymen find it somewhat difficult to understand
that the father of the person who is accused of wishing to commit
mass murder alerted the American authorities but no action was
taken. When we talk about security co-ordination and the rest
of it in the system and what matters is political correctness,
at the end of the day the absolute efficient steps that were necessary
to protect people from being murdered simply were not being taken.
Colonel Kemp: I agree with that.
We have made significant progress here, in the US and in other
countries in security and counter-terrorism security since 9/11,
huge amounts of progress, but, of course, it is not perfect. I
just would repeat what I said before, that it comes down to the
human factor and the regime they are operating under and people
keeping their foot on the accelerator. You cannot afford to let
up, and, particularly within the US, clearly that happened.
Mr Winnick: Using one's intelligence
as well.
Chairman: Indeed. Colonel Kemp, Mr Baum,
thank you very much indeed for coming to give evidence to us today.
It has been extremely useful.
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