Al Gore, then US Vice-President, headed the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, set up on 25 July 1996. It had been sparked by the Trans World Airlines flight 800 Boeing 747-100 disaster eight days before. The accident, near Long Island, New York, was believed - wrongly as it turned out - to have been the result of an in-flight bomb. The Gore Commission reported in February the following year.
The second sentence in the security section of the report says: "First, it [the threat of terrorism] is no longer just an overseas threat from foreign terrorists. People and places in the United States have joined the list of targets." Almost all the Commission's recommendations were implemented for international flights, but the US Air Transport Association (ATA) said that the effect of the additional security measures would radically change the fast-turnaround nature of domestic air travel.
The ATA particularly objected to "full implementation of bag-passenger matching". The association wanted any aircraft which had been loaded with a checked-in bag to be able to take-off with that bag on board even if its owner missed the flight. Unloading it would delay the flight unacceptably. The ATA's view prevailed for domestic flights.
The report recommended that FAA "red teams" of inspectors should make "frequent, sophisticated attempts" to "dodge" security systems to test them. These have tended, in practice, to concentrate on international flights. Training for security staff was a crucial recommendation, but in practice the industry agrees that the low pay of security employees has created a rapid turnover of low quality workers.
Source: Flight International
