FOR OPPICI A.

L U3G ONLY

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Susan Baer, New Jersey Airports General Manager for the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey

Type: Interview

Date: October 24, 2003

Team: 7
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Lisa Sullivan

Participants (non-Commission): Susan Baer; Ed Begley, Counsel for Port Authority for
NY and NJ; Amy Revina, Counsel for Gallagher Gosseen Faller and Crowley; Michael
Crowley, Counsel for Gosseen Faller and Crowley; and Karl Lunan, Counsel for Port
Authority of NY and NJ
Participants (Commission): Sam Brinkley, John Raidt, and Lisa Sullivan
Location: NY/NJ Port Authority Building 1 at Newark Airport, New Jersey

(Ed Begley, Counselfor Port Authority began told Commission staff that he sent a letter
to General Counsel (Marcus) yesterday indexing what documents will be provided to the
Commission in response to team 7 's Port Authority Document Request No. 2. The letter
addressed documents in development by the Port Authority for its awn us and have not
been shown to any outside entity at the time, which regard security of all Port Authority
facilities. The format for exchange of the documents in question has not been decided
yet, There is litigation going on right now that has to be decided first in order to ensure
that security at Port Authority is not compromised by the sharing of such internal
documents.
Begley also wanted to know if the Skyscraper Committee had been involved -with team 7 's
work to date.

Background
Susan Baer has been the General Manager of New York and New Jersey Port Authority
airports since June of 1998. This includes Newark Liberty International Airport, Tetcboro
airport, and all general aviation airports in the area. Before 1998, she was General
Manager of La Guardia Airport in New York from 1994-98. For the Port Authority, she
has also managed the Lincoln Tunnel and bus terminals.

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She is the self described, "Mayor of Newark." Her office holds the FAA certification for
operating the airport. The overall safety and security and operations of the airport are
among her responsibilities. The facilities have their own police, sanitation and electrical
components. The airport leases out space to the carriers. The leases are long term for a
number of the airlines. Before 9-11, part of the process for leasing space requires that the
air carrier desjgrialg_the_security for their leased space. Federal standards set by FAA
provided the<^^meters"T3i5 security and operations. Certain "Must Dos" had to be met
by the carrier in contracting a security company. Then the FAA would send testers to
"audit" the degree to which the airline through its security contract was meeting the
federal standards. This was an ongoing process.
Exclusive Area Agreements

Before 9-11, carriers had a role in meeting the security standards laid out in Federal
Aviation Regulation 107. Exclusive Area Agreements were signed by the airport, the air
carrier, and the FAA stating that a certain carrier had exclusive control and use over
certain areas of the airport that they leased. This agreement included securing access
control and doors. Therefore, it was the carriers' responsibilities to respond when certain
alarms sounded in their exclusive areas. -&t^&*£+- &M/£ Y^^j^J& ££
Carriers needed approval from Port Authority to lease space to other carriers. Primary
carrier would take responsibility for terminal and was responsible for the lease of specific
gates to other carriers.
Port Authority law enforcement at the airport responded to screening checkpoint
incidents in matter of seconds. As Baer put it, sometimes more cops would reposnd than
the security company might want." The security companies used by the carriers would
handle door issues^
Baer stressed the competence of the PA police force: "If something was found amiss.,
every phone has a sticker for PA police. Everyone would call it."
Testing of the System

PA had a program of their own to test the security measures at the airport, in addition to
the FAA regimen. The testing included the Exclusive Area Agreements.
Baer said she had a "zero tolerance policy" in response to someone without an ID in the
sterile area, or a door was left open, Records of the tests were shared with the individual
carriers, and Baer would work with the carriers to improve weaknesses in the system as
necessary.
Her security manager, Bob Cody, reported to her through the operations unit. The
security manager had an additional staff member to monitor and maintain the security
measures in effect. This included the ID office, access control measures, and the
implementation and adherence of FAA requirements. Of Cody, she said he was a very

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knowledgeable and competent manager. John Jacoby, her manager of the operations
side, has been promoted to her deputy.

Of security briefings, Baer said she got them as issues came up. On a monthly basis, she
met with the carriers and others involved with the security at die airport. This Consortia
was a coordinated effort set up after the TWA 800 crash. She said the Federal Security
Manager (FAA regulatory role) participated, as did the C ASFO on occasion. Local law
enforcement and the FBI would also brief the gpoup from time to time. Minutes were kept
of these meetings but they were never detailedG&fe/orgitf to ask for this from Dulles ^
about the consortium^ Within the PA, periodically meetings were held at a high level to
discuss security at all the PA airports. It was high priority, even before 9-11.

Newark airport became a category X airport shortly before 9-11. The airport had already
been operating and treated as a cat x airport for some time, in the sense that annual
comprehensive assessments of the airport were conducted every year. The biggest
change was the promotion Russell White received from CASFU to FSM.
On that note, Baer commented that she was fortunate that White was an active member of
the airport community.
•r
Nothing she was aware of gave her the impression that security was lax at Newark,^ 9- <^-—
1 1 or now. She received the same information from the SDs and ICs as every other . «
airport manager. Nothing she received singled out Newark as a target for terrorism. » Lj^Jk;
From a vulnerabilities and threats standpoint, nothing that suggested terrorist
communities were active in her area.
Certainly, the PA police (a day doesn't go by she doesn't talk to the chief) creates a I
report (synopsis) each day and has regular discussions on particular cases with him.
Newark "has always had" an active security and crime watch program. The airport
encourages people to report suspicious activities. She stated, "If anyone knew anything
(about the plot or potential threat), they would have done something."
There exists a record of every officer dispatched at the airport. The Joint Terrorism Task
Force, and the investigation that took place immediately after 9-1 1, captured that
information. Begley said he may have to reach out to the Task Force on behalf of
Commission to obtain that police record. Baer felt confident that report was already
done. She added that the PA police has a fairly sophisticated system of record keeping in
place. Karl (??) has been in contact with the police official here that would know that
information.
Credentialing
9/11 ..... 5

Classified The process is very clearly articulated by the FAA regulations. The General Manager's
Information 0£^ce audits Ti. The Port Authority goes beyond those measures to ensure that _
Credentialing is done correctly: |
I I At the end of 2000, they began fingerprinting all applicants.
When gaps in the background investigation were found, there was an FAA generated list

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of applicable explanations to prove that person was not in prison. Fingerprinting was the
most reliable way to ensure this. That point of credentialing and background test was
only to determine if the applicant had ever been incarcerated in the United States; she
stressed it was not to uncover any potential terrorist affiliations.

Baer did not recall anyone applying for a job at the airport and being turned down
because of a failure to meet the background check requirement, nor did she remember
anyone repeatedly attempting to get a job at the airport.

In the event an applicant was not hired, Baer was notified as to why the person was not
credentialed. Again, she didn't recall instances of this. In the case of employees hired by
the air carriers and the screener companies; she only received notifications on applicants
the carriers were sponsoring. In those instances, the General Manager's office just
"signed off' on the request to credential someone, as long as the background check was
completed (TRUE??). <^u/v^/(U*'AVT - /VjOA^^A ,^/^iw^y\.^^|/JJ(/^::s 4x3

Commission staff requested that Port Authority results of SfBE-ACCESS (SIDE X)

challenges be provided to the Commission, dating back to 1998.

Baer does not recall hearing that the carriers or the security contracted for screening ever
performed self-assessments.
Baer believed that video coverage of the terminal occurred but H was not recorded. This
would have been an expense incurred by the individual carriers leasing the terminals.
Continental Airlines kept tapes of some of their screening points for liability reasons.

Baer said that there was discussion prc-9-11 of the value of security cameras. Some
footage of PA police responses to calls had proven valuable in the past,

I 9/11 Classified Information I

Threats and Vulnerabilities

When asked what she thought are the biggest threats and vulnerabilities to the airport,
Baer's response was that in her position, "you don't sit around thinking about the worst
thing that could happen."

Aircraft incidents are the worst case scenario.

From a security point of view, based on all the info sent to the airport in the years prior to
9-11, the number 1 threat to the airport was "a car bomb on the frontage." This was what
she gleaned from the intelligence sent to her from the FAA through SDs. Most of the
information was about events in the Middle East. There was some intelligence on lEDs
as well.

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The federal government determines what security level is maintained by the airport. She
is not privy to the information used to make that determination, at the national level. In
her own words, she gets the "watered down stuff that can be sent to everyone." She went
on to say that "there are the security measures you must implement that become onerous
pretty quickly," implying that the national SDs were not tailored to her airport and
became unwieldy at times. She had to implement them and seek approval from
regulatory persons on duty.

She does not recall seeing the presentation prepared by Pat McDonnell on intelligence
threats.

On 9-11

On 9-1 1, the airport was at aviation security level 2 with modifications (to this point, ft
was later clarified that the aviation security level was at 3 with modifications).
Announcements about unattended cars; alertness among employees (such as the skycaps)
for suspicious people were examples of additional precautions taken. At Newark in
particular, because of construction, they had to have a police officer stationed at the
frontage to make sure that people kept moving.

There was no curb side check-in after 9-11.

A lot of stuff had happened before she found out one of the flights had taken off from
Newark. The WTC was smoking, which was 6 nautical miles away. They could see it
from the vantage point of their old building. Police said the plane hit the Trade Center,
She went to the ops office on the 4th floor and tried to get information on where the plane
came from.

She watched the second plane hit the Trade Center. "Within a minute," the decision was
made to close the airport. Unlike the rest of the airport world, she could see it. She was
on the phone whMaGaurdia and Kennedy to find out if they had any information. She
didn't know where they were coming from. Planes were allowed to land, "No plane
leaves until we get some clarity," she remembers saying. She can not remember when she
found out that UA 93 took off from Newark.
When asked about the information that she received that day, "Nothing was from reliable
security people." According to her, she was pretty much operating on logic, what made
sense at the time. She remembers getting the press release about the Pentagon attack.
The commmanding officer of the police left message with security that UA 93 was from
Newark, She was in the operations center at the time. Shortly after that, came the order
to ground planes.

"Thousands of people at Newark got off the planes and also wanted to leave that day,"
she said. They let taxis back in to take people out. Employees that were needed were
allowed to get in to the secure areas of the airport.

COOZ '
 Snow equipment and contractors' equipment was used to close the access points.
Complicating matters was the huge resource drain because of officials going to assist at
ground zero. <$"
htijAs^
On that day, the FSM was /presence. He or she was encountering the same problems
with getting useful information from authorities. "He went to av sec 4 but that didn't
make much of a difference," she said.
She remembers calling over to United (the local folks) at one point to see if there was
anything airport could do. By then, the FBI was on the scene working with detectives
and United. Nothing was done to screen those passengers that got off the plane. They
would have walked away. There was no mechanism in place at that point.
Airport did not even think about reverse screening of passengers. They were dealing with
the human needs of all the passengers. All the tunnels were closed, the bridges. The idea
at the time was for the planes to go to the closest airport.
After Action Reports, Recommendations:

Newark - Baer did not do an after action report. "By the time we could have gotten to
that, it wouldn't have made any sense," she said.
What was a concern at the time and would have helped was getting better information
from a national source (from the FAA security folks). Because she was at a loss, her
decisions on that day she characterized as "reactive to the events." If she knew a little
better what was happening, maybe she would have screened passengers coming off the
planes. Without the knowledge of what was going on, she could only have so much
foresight, she said.
Certainly, there have been calls from all sources about how to do this better. Quickly the
congressional decision to establish TS A demonstrates that. Baer reported that her team
has been working closely with them and the new players. "It is not perfect," she said. She
is lucky in that the FSD is great and working with her is a good thing. "She has been
willing to share; there have been frank discussions." Initially, Baer thought there was a
lack of clarity on roles because Congress established the TSA so quickly. She described it
as this: "set up an entity with wide power, lacking ability to fulfill it, aad wjithouual]dng_
to others about the use of that power;"
For instance, she found out in a meeting that Marcus Arroyo can shut down the airport.
She didn't know that. It isn't a turf thing, she said. It's a question of jurisdictional lines.
Notification processes, and conditions. It hasn't been properly articulated.
"Admiral Loy is getting promoted to something in DHS. He's made great strides but..,.
There is a ways to go," she said.

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She thinks the TSA "needs to bite a big bullet and implement CAPPS IE." In the
automated age, airline reservations systems could be better coordinated.

9/11 Classified Information

There is a need to integrate the information that they do have, while maintaining the
confidentiality.

JR: "SDs are intrusive; costly mandates..." She thinks the FAA is going to the trouble
credentialing someone. At some point, trust needs to be granted. Screening every person
that needs to go out to an airport concourse ("take off your shoes, yada yada...") is
counterproductive. She questions what the appropriate level of screening should be for a
credentialed person. Certain people should be taken out of the screening loop each time
they go out on the ramp.

She talked about the need to keep people flying, system could run smoother at the airport

Unity of Command issues-

She doesn't know if you can create a federal bureau that can do all of it. That wouldn't
necessarily make the situation better, she thought. "TSA has law enforce authority but no
funding for it," she remarked. Port Authority police have overall law enforcement
responsibility for the airport. She doesn 't know if it's better to federalize it. She
commented, "there is something to be said for knowing the environment and the
passengers that affects the security judgment of security personnel."

She thinks the problem was more (still is) a focus on an outdated paradigm. The system
was looking for what was tested- grenades, handguns, etc - they were looking at the
hijacks of the seventies. "The traditional model was never updated. In comparison, the
Israelis look for terrorists, not weapons. We still look for weapons. Given what it was
supposed to do, it did it well. Detected the lEDs."

Baer does not recall the FAA security test results ever showing that failures at Newark.

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