New Details of TSA Dysfunction Revealed
Jeff Edwards November 04, 2015
DCA, Reagan National Airport, Washington, DC - Passengers in the TSA line in an airport
A glimpse at the full scope of failures at the TSA emerged in testimony during Congressional hearings on Tuesday.
The leak of a small portion of a classified Inspector General’s report in May cost acting Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief Melvin Caraway his job. The report found that the TSA had a 95 percent failure rate in undercover tests designed to gauge the agency’s efficiency at detecting weapons and explosives at security checkpoints. On Tuesday, Caraway’s replacement, retired Coast Guard Admiral Peter Neffenger, faced the House Oversight Committee and it soon became clear that problems at the TSA when Neffenger took the reins extended much deeper than the agency’s headline-grabbing failure to detect mock weapons and explosives.
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth, who also testified at the hearing, told committee members that his investigators discovered that security measures at U.S. airports were “simply missing.” Roth described the culture at the TSA during the highly publicized audit as “troubling” and “consistent across every airport.”
Roth, who says he has met with the new TSA head several times since Neffenger took over the troubled agency, allows that things may be starting to improve under the new leadership. “We may be in a very different place now than we were in May when I last testified about this before this committee,” Roth told the members of Congress. “I am hopeful that the days of TSA sweeping its problems under the rug and simply ignoring the findings and recommendations are coming to an end.”
Neffenger testified that his initial concern after taking over at the TSA was addressing the very problems that cost his predecessor his job. “I’m now four months into the job and I’ve traveled to dozens of airports and federal air marshal offices across the country,” Neffenger told lawmakers. “As I have stated in previous hearings on this topic, my immediate priority has been to pursue solutions to the inspector general’s recent covert testing findings which were unfortunately leaked to the media in May of this year and we are making significant progress in doing so.”
Neffenger promised the committee that he would “never take focus off improving the system.”
[Photo: Getty Images]
"I am hopeful the days of TSA sweeping its problems under the rug and simply ignoring the findings and recommendations are coming to an end." Why would they? As long as this pseudo-security force continues to receive public funding, they continue to have no incentive to change.