TSA Experiences

[Andrea]

Hundreds More Airport SIDA Badges Missing

New information to an ongoing NBC 5 investigation found hundreds of airport security badges, known as Secure Identification Display Area (SIDA) badges, are unaccounted for across the country.

Working in partnership with the NBC station in San Diego, NBC 5 Investigates found more than 270 SIDA badges missing at the San Diego International Airport in the last two years.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/Hundreds-More-TSA-SIDA-Badges-Missing-304485391.html

[*Anya*]

Investigators able to smuggle weapons past airport checks in 95 percent of tests

JUSTIN FISHEL, PIERRE THOMAS, MIKE LEVINE and JACK DATE via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

8:54 AM, Jun 1, 2015
27 mins ago

An investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News learned exclusively.

The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

In one test an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetometer, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.

Officials would not divulge the exact time period of the testing other than to say it concluded recently.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was apparently so frustrated by the findings he sought a detailed briefing on them last week at TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, according to sources. U.S. officials insisted changes have already been made at airports to address vulnerabilities identified by the latest tests.

“Upon learning the initial findings of the Office of Inspector General's report, Secretary Johnson immediately directed TSA to implement a series of actions, several of which are now in place, to address the issues raised in the report,” the DHS said in a written statement to ABC News.


http://www.newsnet5.com/news/nationa...rcent-of-tests

[*Anya*]

(Washington Post) – The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that he is investigating the leak of classified information from an undercover operation in which investigators were able to slip through airport security with weapons and phony bombs more than 95 percent of the time.

“We have started an investigation to determine where the leak was,” Inspector General John Roth told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The information received widespread attention in the news media and on Capitol Hill. Roth told the panel that he had briefed top officials about his findings without the information leaking to the public.

“I was as disturbed as anyone that this information got into the media,” he said.

He declined to discuss in Tuesday’s public hearing any aspect of the investigation, in which auditors from his department were able to carry weapons or bomb-like material through air­port-security checkpoints in 67 of 70 attempts this year.

Acting TSA Administrator Melvin Carraway was forced from the job last week after reports of the airport-security issues became public. U.S. Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger is awaiting Senate confirmation to become TSA administrator.

Asked whether security at any one airport proved to be more lax than at others, Roth said, “The results were consistent across airports.”

Former TSA head John S. Pistole said last week that some people assigned to test airport security might have had the upper hand because they were intimately familiar with checkpoint operations. He also said that unlike terrorists, intelligence-gathering networks don’t alert the TSA of their planned operations.

“The testers don’t have any special background or training in this area,” Roth said when asked whether his undercover operatives were particularly knowledgeable about overcoming security operations.

The hearing came five days after the release of an inspector general report that said the TSA did not identify 73 aviation industry workers whose links to terrorism should have raised suspicion. Those workers, who had badges that gave them access to secure airport areas, were not identified in the report, and the reasons they should have been flagged were not specified.

The report said, however, that the TSA was “generally effective in identifying credential holders with links to terrorism.” It said the agency had revoked 58 airport badges since 2003 because of security concerns.

“We remain deeply concerned about [the TSA’s] ability to conduct its core mission,” Roth said.

The hearing also focused on the TSA’s Pre-Check program, one of several initiatives that speed 40 to 50 percent of passengers through airport security without the thorough scrutiny that once was common for everyone.

Fliers become eligible for Pre-Check by providing the TSA with personal information and paying a fee. Under Pistole’s direction, other passengers selected at random were allowed to use the faster Pre-Check lines.

“TSA is handing out Pre-Check [privileges] like Halloween candy in an effort to expedite passengers as quickly as possible,” testified Rebecca Roering, a TSA administrator at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and a whistleblower who has revealed details of TSA operations.

She said the TSA was “well aware of the risk” in allowing passengers who have not gone through pre-screening to use the program.

Roering added, however, that the risk-based approach to security implemented by Pistole was appropriate.

“We need to focus on the passengers that really pose a risk,” she said.

Another whistleblower witness, Federal Air Marshal Robert J. MacLean, agreed.

“If Pre-Check is done right, it reduces the time screeners have to spend on non-risk passengers,” he said.

Although the TSA was not invited to participate in Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) spoke up on the agency’s behalf.

“As we all sit and pound the desk and say how bad the TSA is, we have to remember that we keep cutting their money,” McCaskill said.

View the original content and more from this author here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...032_story.html

[Andrea]

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/tsa-is-investigating-how-a-man-boarded-a-plane-at-dfw-airport-sunday-without-a-ticket.html/


"The Transportation Security Administration is trying to find out how a man was able to leave his car outside a Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport terminal, pass through a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint and board a flight without a ticket Sunday night."

[Andrea]

Poll: 87 percent of frequent flyers unhappy with TSA

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/256026-poll-87-percent-of-frequent-flyers-unhappy-with-tsa

"Our survey respondents traverse security checkpoints multiple times each month and are in an excellent position to render a verdict on this subject," he continued.

Forty-five percent of the poll's respondents said they were dissatisfied with their airport security experience. Seventy-six percent said they had used TSA's PreCheck trusted traveler program, where passengers volunteer information about themselves and pay an $85 fee in exchange for five years of expedited airport screening.

Only 62 percent of the poll's respondents were satisfactied with the PreCheck program, down from 80.3 percent in 2013.

[Andrea]

Almost 100 Homeland Security employees have been paid to stay home for over a year

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/10/22/at-homeland-security-almost-100-employees-paid-to-stay-home-for-more-than-a-year/?postshare=4351445521817113

"A year after auditors documented tens of thousands of federal workers on paid leave for at least a month and longer stretches that exceed a year, close to 100 Department of Homeland Security employees still are being paid not to work for more than a year.

<snip>

DHS was one large agency cited by the Government Accountability Office in October 2014 in the first report on administrative leave. The audit, first made public by The Washington Post, found that 53,000 civilian employees were kept home for one to three months during the three fiscal years that ended in September 2013. About 4,000 of them were idled for three months to a year and several hundred for one to three years.

The tab for these workers exceeded $775 million in salary alone, auditors found. They acknowledged that their report almost certainly understates the extent and cost of administrative leave because the figures they examined accounted for only about three-fifths of the federal workforce."

Bolding mine.

[Andrea]

72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/72-dhs-employees-on-terrorist-watch-list/

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.) disclosed that a congressional investigation recently found that at least 72 people working at DHS also “were on the terrorist watch list.”

“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio.

“The [former DHS] director had to resign because of that,” he said.