Large color signs banning liquid substances from carry-ons posted early this morning at airport security checkpoints were an indication of a quick but smooth plan of action to respond to new threats that surfaced last night.

Department of Homeland Security’s operational and intelligence divisions worked together through the night to turn information from the United Kingdom about a terrorist plot into new security procedures rolled out within four hours at all U.S. airports.

DHS was responding to the arrest of 21 people in England for planning to detonate explosives with liquid or gel components on at least nine aircraft headed for the United States.

The exact timeline of when U.K. authorities informed their U.S. counterparts about the investigation is unclear, but once the news of arrests hit the department, a well-practiced sequence of events to coordinate action was set in motion.

Training and exercise are at the core of quick action, according to one former DHS official. He said every part of incident management — from secure teleconferences to briefing top officials to public communication of potentially life-saving information — has been thoroughly rehearsed.

Another former senior DHS official said the process of sharing information between governments and along a chain of command is by now “very easy and almost routinized.”

The department also had the advantage of having been through an elevated alert level for the aviation sector before, said Michelle Petrovich, former DHS director of communications for intelligence and operations and now a consultant for Global Strategies Group.

The last time the threat level was elevated for the aviation sector was Dec. 21, 2003, to Jan. 9, 2004. The level was raised to Orange in response to intelligence that al Qaeda or al Qaeda-related operatives were planning another hijacking of aircraft, Petrovich said.

The added international element of the situation involving the U.K. was not a problem because the U.S. has a variety of agreements in place with the British covering issues such as intelligence and communications. These agreements govern cooperation between the two governments to share information about threats and coordinate a response.

The department’s congressionally mandated large-scale terrorism response exercise in 2005, called the Top Officials Three Exercise (TOPOFF 3), involved the U.K. and Canada and contributed to the real-life response, Petrovich said. DHS and TSA also have been able to test their response capabilities after terrorist attacks on the rail system in Mumbai, India, and the transportation system in London, she said.

“This was strong and immediate action, and it was cooperative with — among airlines, airports, law enforcement — to do much more than you can see at the checkpoint,” said Kip Hawley, assistant secretary of homeland security for the Transportation Security Administration, at a briefing with reporters early Thursday.

He asked for patience in the next few days “as the public becomes aware and we all get used to the process.” TSA usually takes “about four weeks to roll out a change at a security checkpoint, and this one came about in a little bit more than four hours in the middle of last night,” he said.

Hawley and officials from the Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC) were in the thick of decision making overnight that happened centrally at the National Operations Center (NOC). This is where operations, intelligence and federal law enforcement professionals are housed together, said a former DHS official familiar with the procedures.

Hawley, DHS intelligence chief Charlie Allen and the NOC staff made recommendations to Secretary Michael Chertoff, who communicated with the White House, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, the official said.

At the same time, the threat information is shared with state homeland security advisors, first with those in the areas that were targeted — in Thursday’s case, Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles —and then to all advisors for the states and territories.

The advisors are then in charge of conveying the information to state and local law enforcement, mayors and others.

Specific to the aviation sector, TSA issues security directives to all commercial airports that describe the threats and the necessary actions to be taken.

TSA-employed federal security directors (FSDs) take the lead at each airport to implement the change in screening procedures. Airport operators and airlines take direction from FSDs and the security directives with little deviance.

The federal government based its “security decision [to ban liquid substances] on specific, credible information. Airlines don’t second guess the security experts, we simply cooperate with them,” the Air Transport Association said.

Although officials have declined to name specific airlines targeted, American Airlines is one of three U.S. carriers, along with Continental and United Airlines, that has rights to fly to and from London Heathrow Airport.

The airlines for their part are trying to accommodate stranded passengers en route to and from the U.S. to London. American Airlines is waiving excess baggage fees for customers that must check extra bags because of the new procedures. The carrier also is waiving fees for changing tickets and allowing refunds for those with travel plans to and from and connecting through the U.K.

Angela Kim can be reached at akim@cq.com.

Related Stories • Terror Focus Stays Fixed on Aviation • New Requirements for Air Marshals That Could Expose Identities • Rethinking Assertion That TSA Has Rectified Air Marshal Problems • Threat Emerging From Suspects Bucking al Qaeda Leadership • DHS Rallies by Swiftly Converting Plot Information into Checkpoint Rules • Technology to Detect Explosive Liquids Slow Getting to Market • Plot Highlights Improved U.S./U.K. Intelligence-Sharing • British Arrests Raise Concerns About ‘Home-Grown’ Terrorists • Lawmakers Split on Response to Airline Terror Threat • Related Documents