TSA chief, facing skeptical lawmakers, defends new rule on small knives

Reporter: Wes Venteicher, Washington Bureau

Transportation Security Administration head John S. Pistole on Thursday defended his agency’s

decision to allow airline passengers to carry on certain pocket knives and sporting equipment,

saying those objects don’t present the kind of threat the TSA was created to address.

He faced an audience of lawmakers skeptical about the policy, and the process through which it

was adopted. Although some Democrats on the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on

Transportation Security said they wanted the TSA to reverse or delay the policy, Pistole said

nothing short of Congress sending a bill to the president’s desk would change his mind.

“I think the decision is solid as it stands and we intend to go forward with it,” he said.

Pistole said that with locked reinforced cockpit doors and other security measures in place,

someone could not take down a commercial plane with any of the new permitted items, including non-locking knives with blades under 2.36 inches, hockey sticks and two golf clubs per passenger.

According to the legislation that created the agency, that’s where its authority ends, he said.

“It really comes down to the mission of TSA,” he told the subcommittee. “Is it to prevent incidents

involving inebriated passengers? I don’t think so.”

The TSA has presented the change, which takes effect in April, as adopting standards similar to

those the International Civil Aviation Association put into place in 2010. ICAO’s decision did not

result in any attacks, he said.

“Since that global change ... there have been more than 5 billion airline passengers worldwide

allowed to carry these knives,” Pistole said “We are unaware of a single incident involving these

knives on commercial aircraft.”

He compared it to changes to international and domestic flights years ago allowing passengers to

carry on scissors, knitting needles and some screwdrivers. Critics of those policies predicted a rash

of attacks that never materialized, he said. According to the intelligence community, terrorists aren’t

looking to use such objects as weapons, Pistole said. They want to use nonmetallic improvised

bombs that can get through security checkpoints, similar to the “underwear bomb” used in the

Christmas Day, 2009 failed plot. The TSA’s ban on box cutters, the weapons used in the Sept. 11

hijackings, will still stand.

Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., has come out in favor of the new policy, calling

it a balance of security and efficiency. During the hearing, though, he said the TSA needs to do a

better job of reaching out to stakeholders and lawmakers before making major decisions.

“The open and proactive approach will reduce pushback like the kind we’ve seen the last few

days,” he said.

Pistole said that his decision on the items was a lengthy process beginning with an internal working

group that first met in 2011 and involved input from law enforcement and the intelligence

community, as well as risk analyses for both the airline cabin and the plane itself.

The unions representing flight attendants and members of the federal air marshals have strongly

condemned the new policy, saying it puts their workers and passengers at risk, and that they were

not consulted in advance. Pistole said that the air marshals were part of his agency’s working

group and that because of their input, he made the TSA’s policy more restrictive than what he

originally has in mind and ICAO has in place.

Pistol said he briefed the Homeland Security Advisory Council on the issue last September and

notified a senior member of the flight attendants’ union Nov. 30. However, he admitted that he

could have done a better job of bringing the flight attendants in earlier and explaining the decisionmaking process.

Ranking member Cedric L. Richmond, D-La., said he would defer to Pistole’s judgment on security,

but stakeholders should have been more involved with the process. Other Democrats, however,

said they worried the change could present a threat. Full committee ranking Democrat Bennie

Thompson of Mississippi held aloft a golf club, then a hockey stick.

“I’m trying to conceive how this could not be a risk to the people on the plane,” he said.

Democrat Eric Swalwell of California said that perhaps the agency should not mess with success,

considering the number of attempted hijackings or attacks using sharp objects on domestic flights

since Sept. 11, 2001 is zero.

“That begs the question, can that number get better,” he said. “And the answer is no. It also begs

the question of can that number get worse. And to my mind, the answer is yes.”

Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, said that even if an attack using a knife didn’t bring a plane

down, it “would be a crisis situation” thousands of feet in the air.

“I’d like this to go back to the drawing table,” she said. “And I would like Congress to not have to

introduce legislation, although I intend to. ... You need to stop this now.”

Pistole’s response was that potentially dangerous objects are not the problem — it’s the intentions

of the people who might use them. If someone is determined to carry off an attack using a sharp object, they could use silverware from first class, or a broken glass or bottle.

“There are so many objects already on flights that could cause the kind of harm you’re talking

about,” he said.

The TSA head also wouldn’t give Thompson a guarantee he wanted that the new permitted items

won’t cause passengers or others in airliner cabins any harm.

“When we get into the ‘what if’ category, that’s what risk-based security is all about,” he said.

“There’s no guarantee here.”