Big gaps found in airport security
WASHINGTON — Think you’re safe on a plane? Federal undercover investigators who sneaked prohibited items with alarming ease past Homeland Security Department airport screeners also have smuggled simulated bombs and weapons aboard planes during tests as far back as September 2002, U.S. audits show.
Results of the latest undercover test are classified, but members of Congress said mock explosives, weapons and other prohibited items went unnoticed in 67 out of 70 tries at Transportation Security Administration airport checkpoints.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who helped establish the TSA in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack and has since become a vocal critic of the agency, said the latest audit results are anything but a surprise.
“I’ve seen far worse. The results I’ve gotten back are even worse than what you see being released here,” Mica said, describing other classified reports that he has ordered or reviewed.
The Government Accountability Office has identified serious security failures by the TSA as far back as 2002.
Investigators in 2007 passed through security checkpoints with “components for several improvised explosive devices and an improvised incendiary device concealed in their carry-on luggage and on their persons.”
A report a year later noted other problems, although details remain classified. That audit said the agency made 43 recommendations to fix security gaps over a fiveyear period.
More recently, Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth disclosed this year that a convicted felon and former member of a domestic-terrorist organization was allowed to use an expedited airport-screening lane. The felon, who had been convicted of murder and explosivesrelated offenses, was approved to use the expedited screening lane despite his background and concerns from a TSA officer who recognized him as a risk.
Roth’s office also conducted the latest undercover investigation and sent a classified report to the department. ABC News first reported the results of the newest audit.
After disclosure of Roth’s latest findings, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced corrective steps within the TSA, including the reassignment of the acting TSA administrator, Melvin Carraway.
President Barack Obama has nominated Coast Guard Vice Adm. Pete Neffenger to lead the agency.
The immediate changes weren’t enough for some lawmakers, including Mica. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., urged a broad review of the TSA.
“It’s just utterly amazing that out of 70 attempts to breach the TSA barriers from taking dangerous things into airports and on planes, that 67 got through,” Schumer said.