Reports to highlight airport security flaws

WASHINGTON – Two upcoming government reports will show the quality of screening at airports is no better now than before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a House member who has been briefed on the contents.

The Government Accountability Office – the investigative arm of Congress – and the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general are expected to soon release their findings on the performance of Transportation Security Administration screeners.

“A lot of people will be shocked at the billions of dollars we’ve spent and the results they’re going to see, which confirm previous examinations of the Soviet-style screening system we’ve put in place,” Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., told the Associated Press on Friday.

Mica chairs the House aviation subcommittee and was briefed on the reports.

Improving the ability of screeners to find dangerous items has been the goal since the government took over the task at about 450 airports in early 2002 and hired more than 45,000 workers. But earlier investigations showed problems persist.

On Jan. 26, Homeland Security’s acting inspector general, Richard Skinner, testified that “the ability of TSA screeners to stop prohibited items from being carried through the sterile areas of the airports fared no better than the performance of screeners prior to Sept. 11, 2001.”

Skinner told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the reasons the screeners failed undercover audits had to do with training, equipment, management and policy.

A year ago, Clark Kent Ervin, then-inspector general of Homeland Security, told lawmakers the TSA screeners and privately contracted airport workers “performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly.”

Screeners are tested by the inspector general’s undercover agents, who try to smuggle fake weapons and bombs past security checkpoints. Their performance also is measured by the Threat Image Projection system, which puts images of threat objects on X-ray screens while the screeners are working and identifies whether they identify the threats.

The TSA, which did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment, has said in the past that the tests used to measure screener performance are much more rigorous than they were before the Sept. 11 hijackings.