Airport Security Blows
Investigators smuggled liquid explosives and other materials to make improvised bombs past 19 U.S. airport checkpoints in a congressional study that exposed a vulnerability of airlines to terrorist attacks.
The Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress, reported that guards employed by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration didn’t appear in most cases to violate security procedures when they failed to detect explosives. The procedures were implemented after U.K. authorities foiled a 2006 terrorist plot to smuggle liquid explosives aboard trans-Atlantic airlines bound for the U.S.
“The terrorist threat to our airlines is constantly evolving,” Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said at a panel hearing today on the topic. “The question is: is the Transportation Security Administration keeping up? Unfortunately, the news is not good.”
Investigators bought the materials to make the bombs for less than $150 and smuggled them past guards in carry-on luggage or on their persons, the GAO said in the report to Congress.
“Our tests clearly demonstrate that a terrorist group, using publicly available information and few resources, could cause severe damage and threaten the safety of passengers by bringing prohibited” bomb components “through security checkpoints,” the GAO said.
Risk Management
TSA Administrator Kip Hawley told the panel that the agency knows its vulnerabilities and conducts more than a million tests a year of its own transportation security officers.
People should know that “there are vulnerabilities in every system of security and that what we’re engaged in is risk management” by focusing on what can cause the most catastrophic damage, Hawley said.
Improvements since 2005 include the purchase of 250 improved checkpoint machines and the training of 600 behavior-specialist personnel, he said. The agency is seeking money for an additional 500 machines in its fiscal 2008 budget request, Hawley said.
“While that all sounds very good, we still have this report, which is extremely troubling,” Waxman said.
In the GAO test at one checkpoint on March 23, a security guard stopped an investigator and confiscated an unlabeled bottle of medicated shampoo while failing to detect a liquid explosive, the report said. At another airport in June, a guard failed to detect explosive material during a pat-down search of one investigator, the GAO said.
Davis Comments
The GAO suggested improving security and catching smugglers with “aggressive, visible and unpredictable deterrent measures” and more pat-downs. Improved detection technology may also help enhance security, the GAO said.
Representative Tom Davis, the panel’s ranking Republican, said the TSA “must do better.”
“I understand the threat evolves as our enemies learn about our improved security and take steps to react,” said Davis, of Virginia. “TSA has to do the same. In fact, TSA can’t just react; the agency should be proactive and stay on the offensive.”
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