with millions of pax travelling through hundreds of airports and roughly one hundred IG tests being performed unannounced (to the FSD or the local airport PD) at any of the dozens of Cat X airports, yeah, it is really covert.

In regards to the arguments I made in other threads about the pervious round of tests and whether these were "red teams" or not and how much planning goes into conducting these tests, the following passage from the news article [emphasis added] is useful:

"But the real test will come this summer. Roth said the inspector general’s office is currently developing protocols for another round of covert testing. The results will be reported to the Homeland Security Committee and other panels.

Just to recap: these tests are highly planned by experts in aviation security and the participants are well-prepared and -trained by those experts on the weaknesses of the systems being tested.

Random kettles, James Bond wannabes, and motivated but run-of-the-mill tewwowists and miscreants will not ever have anywhere near the success rate those conducting the tests will have. That said, the screeners should still have better success rates than they will achieve in this next round of tests. I am expecting successful penetration rates of between 50%and 70%. Still pretty poor.