Editorial: Who’s behind that badge?

Saturday, July 21, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

A t airports, a person wearing a blue shirt, gold badge and pants bearing a stripe down the side could easily be thought of by the traveling public as a law enforcement officer.

If a change by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration takes effect this fall as planned, dozens of people dressed like that will be seen at airports.

But the impression of increased security will be largely false, says the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. That's because the people wearing badges and striped pants will actually be unarmed baggage screeners and inspectors who have no training whatsoever in police work.

During the past 18 months the TSA has been using screeners and inspectors for more than baggage checks. At airports and rail and bus stations across the country, many have been working in security capacities alongside federal marshals.

The officers association, which speaks for about 26,000 federal law enforcement officers, strenuously objects to this tactic and to the plan for shirts, badges and pants that look like police uniforms.

A report in the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger said the association's president wrote this to the TSA: "The teaming up of highly trained federal air marshals with civilian TSA screeners in uniform in front of airports and train stations is a recipe for disaster."

The potential for a problem is twofold. Screeners who look like police officers convey a false sense of security, and if a real threat broke out on the screeners' watch, their lack of training could jeopardize the response.

A spokesman for the TSA, however, says the marshals "are very accustomed to working side-by-side with transportation security officers ... and other uniformed, non-armed personnel ."

Nevertheless, we think the law enforcement officers association has a good point. Members of the group are trying to arrange a meeting with Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Chertoff should hear them out, then cancel that big order for uniforms.