4

1 (c) "Administration" means the Federal Aviation

2 Administration.

3

(d) "Administrator" means the Administrator of the

4 Federal Aviation Administration.

5

SEC. 5. To establish, administer, and maintain the air

6 transportation security program provided in section 3 of 7 this Act, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for 8 fiscal year 1974 the sum of $35,000,000, and for each suc9 ceeding fiscal year such amounts not to exceed $35,000,000, as are necessary to carry out the purpose of such section.

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Mr. ECKHARDT. It would not change the delineation of the authority of the FAA respecting screening of passengers in air transportation. It seems to me that the broad general framework contained in 49C (A)6 is adequate and preferable to a more detailed statutory redirective.

That section states at the time the Administrator is empowered and it shall be his duty to promote safety of flight of civil aircraft and air commerce by prescribing such reasonable rules and regulations on minimum standards governing other practice methods and procedure as the Administrator may find necessary to provide adequately for national security and safety in air commerce.

The Administrator has put into effect rules requiring carriers, as a condition of carriage, to require passengers and property intended to be carried in the aircraft cabin in air transportation be screened by weapon-detecting devices just as is required in section 203 of S. 39.

What is lacking is neither statutory authority nor administrative will to accomplish these objectives, but rather the police presence with both the expertise and manpower to aid in the detection of the hijacker, frustrate his plans and to arrest him.

Nothing could afford a better example of this missing ingredient in the antihijacking program than the incident which occurred at the Houston airport on October 29, 1972. On that day, Stanley Hubbard, an Eastern Airline ticket agent, had no difficulty in detecting that Charles Tolar and his son, Bryce Tolar, William Graham, and an unidentified fourth individual, were armed with pistols and a shotgun because these hijackers, displaying their arms, proceeded to storm the gate, and the courageous ticket agent, in a harrowing attempt to protect the passengers on an Eastern airplane's flight, lost his life in an attempt to stop these desperados.

What was needed was a police presence acting pursuant to a delineation of responsibility which would marshal all the skills of crime detection, police intercommunication, and have accomplished ultimate frustration of the crime, and arrest for the unique problem at hand.

Such need was tragically lacking. In the first place, though the FBI had special reasons to believe Tolar and his associates might well be in the Houston area, and they knew they had robbed a bank in the District of Columbia area, the FBI apparently did not engage in any special surveillance of the Houston airport nor inform the airport or Federal or local police authorities of the imminent danger. The FAA had merely given the Houston airport routine information commonly afforded to other airports that the Tolars were aboard and were potential hijackers.

In the second place, there were only 17 armed Federal agents assigned at the Houston airport. Since they have two buildings with four terminal areas, each which would need to be guarded at a minimum, it would take no less than 24 such Federal agents to man these points on a three-shift, 24-hour basis.

In the third place, the means of detection of arms were so close to the entrance of the plane that the use of force to prevent boarding would be about as dangerous to passengers in the accordion walkway as would be the use of force aboard the plane.

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Now, I think that has been remedied because the magnetometers are now placed at the beginning of the long runway at this airport and, what I have noted, this has been done generally over the country. As a matter of fact, after the occurrence, I had raised this point, but not made it public because it seemed to me better those magnetometers be concealed than be made known to those attempting to hijack a plane.

There are other entrances that could evade the magnetometer and it would seem to me it would have been more prudent not to have advertised their presence. Nevertheless, I think the change has been an improvement.

In the fourth place, the police presence was under divided authority and direction, most of the Federal agents being under the Bureau of Customs, at times perhaps two under the FBI and others under the authority of the city police force with, of course, authority also on the sheriff's department, all with no clear responsibility to any coordinating head.

The matter of coordination of activity and assignment is, in my opinion, a major concern to which legislation should be addressed and that is what my bill addresses.

Its essence is contained in section 3A, which is very brief, and reads, "Consistent with the Federal Aviation Administration's general authority and duty to provide rules and regulation necessary to provide adequately for safety in air commerce, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall have the responsibility to establish maintain and direct a coordinated national police effort to curb acts of aircraft piracy and destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities."

Now, it then provides a $35 million appropriation for the program, and that is about it. Now, a brief statement on a few matters of policy. It seems to me very desirable not to create an additional Federal agency with police powers. I have a sort of a natural revulsion to Federal police authority. And I would rather create it in an established agency limited by tradition than to create a new agency defining police powers for that agency.

And, of course, the approach taken in the Senate bill does create such a police agency in the Federal Aviation Administration, defines authority for search and seizure, and so forth.

It would seem to me that the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration to require the carriers to make certain conditions for passage, and then the presence of the FBI with its general authorities to act as the armed police force at the point would be a more desirable approach and one more in line with our concerns about our constitutional rights.

Now, I realize that our constitutional ban of unreasonable search and seizure does not arise from English sporting spirit that gives the fox a chance. But a just reluctance to treat every poor dog as if he were predatory is the real desire, I think, of the fourth amendment.

It would seem to me that that is best protected if the limitation on use of air carriers is imposed as a condition of carriage, and the police force, rather than being given new statutory authority with respect to search and seizure, should operate under the doctrine of Adams, Warden v. Williams, in the Supreme Court of June 12, 1972, in

which, of course, information given by someone other than police authorities may be used in order to authorize police to make a search and seizure and it may be reasonable under those circumstances as long as it is within the general standards of Terry v. Ohio, 329 U.S. 1. That is my suggestion.

The bill I am offering tomorrow is a very brief bill. That is all it does. It runs in no way in conflict with your title 2 which our committee also considered, and I think we are in general agreement with respect to the reach of the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States with respect to hijackers.

But with title 2, I would respectfully suggest that the use of the FBI would be superior to the creation of an additional and alternate Federal police presence. It would also seem to me and on this point my bill would differ from the Senate approach, that general authority to the Federal Aviation Administration as now contained in law would be preferable to a close definition of what the administration should do with respect to its rules with, as your bill includes, a revisiting of the question after a period of time with the suggestion that it might be changed.

It seems to me that the broader authority now contained in law without specific directive would be the preferable legislative approach.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, we had in our bill, as you know, the provision that in the event a person refused to submit to search, that then they could be denied boarding. This would be one way of dealing with the problem.

Now, on the other point regarding the agency, the proposal that you have there that the FBI have authority was in the Boggs-Javits bill last year and the FBI did not support it and declined to testify. That is one instance in which a Federal agency that didn't want more authority. That is very unusual because most of them are glad to have it. At least that has been my experience.

Do you agree with me and others on this committee who have already expressed themselves that it is rather out of question to have this authority assigned to local law enforcement agencies as is done by the executive order that has now been promulgated by the Secretary?

Mr. ECKHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I couldn't agree more. The Houston situation is the best example of it. There are local police at the airport, but the police were not there at the right time. It is virtually impossible for them to know, for instance, if a man has robbed a bank in the District of Columbia area and maybe in the Houston area and therefore there should be special surveillance.

It is also extremely difficult for the police to devise the kind of, or to develop the kind of expertise that deals with a very special police problem that is deeply engaged in interstate commerce. It seems to me if there ever was a place where Federal police authority is called for it is in the case of aircraft hijacking.

Now, I am really on the police question, I am a state's reporter, along with my most stalwart southern colleagues. Of course, they sometimes leave that, believe me on that point, but as a matter of philosophy, I would not extend Federal police authority any more than is absolutely

necessary.

But in this area, it seems to me there is absolutely no way to deal with the totally Federal question deeply engrained in the question of commerce without utilizing Federal police authority.

The CHAIRMAN. Yesterday, we had quite a good example of that in the testimony concerning the Southern hijacking, which pointed out that the aircraft went to a number of different local jurisdictions, landed a number of places and everything happened differently at each place that they landed.

I am sure that this particular incident pointed up as well as anything else the fallacy of the proposal that each local airport have its own law enforcement agency that would handle this problem which, as you indicated in the hijacking problem, is interstate in nature. Mr. ECKHARDT. Mr. Chairman, may I give you another personal example with respect to this question?

I was flying out of the Houston Airport about a month before this hijacking occurred on a trip to Washington. We got to about Beaumont, which is a very, very short hop from Houston as you know, and we then got an announcement that there is some little something wrong here and we're going to turn back, don't get worried, you know. Sure enough we turned back, then there was a reassuring statement that we're going to dump our jet fuel but don't get excited. And as we got off the plane there was advice from the stewardess quietly and privately and incidentally it was very well done because it avoided any kind of panic, when you get off get away from this plane just as quick as you can, so I did.

In a rather undignified-and unparliamentary way I got away from that plane as fast as I could. And the baggage was then taken off and we then discovered that there had been information from Miami that was seemed to be somewhat credible that there may be a bomb aboard.

And then commenced an activity that was about as effective as the procedures in "Alice in Wonderland" for examining the luggage. We were asked-all luggage was lined up and we were asked to go to our own luggage in imminent peril of being blown up by the luggage that contained the explosive, while persons riffled through our baggage.

The man next to me had two sealed cans, apparently, of coffee, but large enough to contain explosives great enough to blow up both terminals and most of north Harris County. Of course nothing was done about those sealed cans.

Then ultimately after a period of about an hour, the passengers were permitted to go on. One of the Eastern Air Lines officials was kind enough in respect to the value of a Congressman to get me on another plane which was probably an overestimate of the value of a Congressman because many others were no doubt just as valuable or

more so.

But at any rate it was an utterly silly procedure and the detonation expert of Eastern who rode back in the car with me said it was. He said, of course, what you ought to do is simply let people quickly go up and claim their luggage and take it off. Take it away.

The thing is; it's now very likely that anybody is going to put a bomb in his own luggage and then get on the plane and fly on it. And then carefully examine the luggage which is left which seems