TSA Audit Discovers Over 70 Air Transport Hires With Terrorism Ties

Audit reveals agency failed to flag employees during vetting process.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is under fire once more after failing to flag over 70 air travel employees for alleged ties to terrorism during background checks. In an audit of the TSA background check program from June 2015, the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General (OIG) admonished the agency for allowing the employees to pass through the vetting process without incident.

According to the redacted report from the inspector general, the agency failed to identify 73 individuals who had terrorism-related category codes attached to their profiles. The individuals were ultimately employed by a number of air travel stakeholders, including airlines and airport vendors. A table included in the report suggests the employees were consolidated in at least five terrorism record categories, but redacted the actual categories and number of employees in each. The inspector general identified the problem as a lack of authorization between agencies.

“This [incident] occurred because TSA is not authorized under current interagency watchlisting policy to receive certain terrorism-related category codes as part of the watchlist extract they used for vetting,” the report noted. “TSA acknowledged that individuals in these categories represented a potential transportation security threat.”

In addition to relying less on airport partners to complete background checks, the OIG noted thousands of applications for vetting were received incomplete. Among the biggest problems were 87,000 applications in the vetting databases without a social security number.

As a result, the OIG identified six recommendations to improve the TSA vetting process and remove potential transportation security threats from the secure area of airports. The recommendations included verifying original documents provided for vetting, pilot an FBI program for continued vetting of employees and internal data quality checks to ensure applicant data is complete at the time of vetting.

In a draft response included with the report, the TSA agreed with many of the recommendations, but did not concur with the idea the 73 individuals were “missed” in the vetting process. “The term ‘missed’ is inaccurate,” the response reads. “In that it implies a fault with the TSA vetting system or manual review process, which is not the case.”

[Photo: AP]