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Mr. OBERSTAR. Our final panel today, should get the subcommittee award for patience, Mr. Arik Arad, General Manager, International Consultants on Targeted Security; and Mr. Steve Gardella, Jr., Consultant, Strategic Security Services, Incorporated, an acquaintance of several years standing who enlightened this member and other members of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight on various aspects of airport security and airline security, and has the distinction of single handedly having stopped an airport takeover, with great risk to personal life, showing enormous personal courage, and skill. That makes you an all the more credible witness.

Mr. GARDELLA. Thank you. Thanks for remembering. No one else does.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I have never forgotten. It was very graphic testimony, which we received in Executive Session.

Mr. Gardella, we'll start with you.

TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN L. GARDELLA, JR., CONSULTANT, STRATEGIC SECURITY SERVICES, INC., AND ARIK ARAD, GENERAL MANAGER, INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANTS ON TARGETED SECURITY

Mr. GARDELLA. Thank you very much for inviting me to be here. Like everybody else, I've been sitting here most of the day and listening to most of this testimony. Mine might be covering the same subjects, but I want to be limited. We have some well known people here that are more articulate than I am, and my mentor, Dick Lally, and the other people from the FAA will probably help me to some extent.

But what I do want to tell the committee, in coming here, there are certain areas that should be addressed immediately and I have some solutions, I believe, that would enhance the security for airlines. I noticed today, also, that the FAA was getting quite a beating and unnecessarily so. However, I don't think that the FAA is a business organization and can respond like they want to respond because of the politics involved. And I don't think the FAA should be beat up over that.

Behind me also is Dick Lally from ATA, who's been the articulate catalyst with the airlines, and does a tremendous job. But I think he is under somewhat constraints. Also behind me is a man by the name of Homer Boynton, formerly of the FBI, and does American Airlines a very fabulous job.

But the areas that I'd like to address here is number one, is card access. And that's been discussed quite at length. I think that the system that is in process today is one that is deplorable because 10 years ago when I was in the industry, we recommended another system, one that the Armed Forces uses, that is one of the best and still used today. And it fell on deaf ears.

The other area that I would like to elaborate on by questions is explosive detection. As you know, Congressman, I'm also a consultant to SAIC, and a few other organizations.

My main concern here tonight, where I think something should have been yesterday, and it should be implemented tomorrow, and it was not mentioned today. And that is our air freight system.

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