How 9/11 changed Canadian airport security - National Post

The attacks did not reveal merely a gap in airport screening. They exposed a seismic change in the threat model. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /National PostArticle contentA travelling parent with kids cannot take a 460-millilitre jar of peanut butter through airport security. It’s not an allergen issue, but rather it is too large: a spreadable food, treated like a liquid. But any number of containers of it less than 100 ml is OK.

At one airport, a blazer comes off; at another, it stays on. The same thing with shoes and laptops, all according to the rules that can look arbitrary or capricious to onlookers.

For Margaret Bloodworth, the former deputy minister of transport who helped manage Canada’s response on Sept. 11, 2001, that apparent regulatory mismatch is not entirely a design flaw.

Get a dash of perspective along with the trending news of the day in a very readable format.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

“In any human system, there’s going to be some inconsistencies,” Bloodworth said. And in airport security, she argues, the reality is that the machinery itself keeps changing: newer equipment can see things older equipment cannot, while smaller airports may not have the same technology as Toronto or Vancouver.

Still, many travellers’ questions remain: Why must so much of flying now involve a hodgepodge ritual of belts, bins, scans, re-scans and Ziploc-ing bite-sized toothpaste tubes? It goes to the heart of how Canada built a modern security apparatus in a crisis, what trade-offs it accepted, and whether a system designed during an emergency has adequately distinguished genuine protection from permanent habit.

Though the inconsistencies are real, so is the risk that a perfectly standardized system becomes perfectly learnable.

“If you are predictable, then it’s dangerous,” said Jacques Duchesneau, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority’s founding president and CEO, who led CATSA from 2002 to 2008. “If you are predictable, you are unsafe.”

Security can look different from one airport or lane to another, because officials do not want a would-be attacker to know precisely what to expect, he told the Post.