Majority of TSA workers at BWI, Dulles fail recertification test
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
06/24/09 12:05 AM EDT
Half of the Transportation Security Administration workers at BWI and an eye-popping 80 percent at Dulles International have failed mandatory tests that certify them to screen passengers, the agency reported. And while less than half of the TSA screeners at BWI flunked the baggage section of the test, a whopping 90 percent didn’t make the grade at Dulles.
TSA employees believe that many of them are being intentionally failed on the Practical Skills Evaluation recertification test so that the agency doesn’t have to give them raises and bonuses. A letter send by the American Federation of Government Employees to Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano and House Homeland Security chairman Bennie Thompson calls for a nationwide investigation into test standards and the training of TSA screeners.
One screener reportedly failed the body pat-down section of the test in Houston - even though she found all the items that would have triggered a security alarm – but passed after retaking the test and doing the same thing at BWI the next day. "If I failed because they do things differently at other airports, that's not right. Everybody needs to be doing the same thing," she said.
Agreed. But the U.S. government has been at war with terrorists for eight years now. Shouldn’t we be far beyond such bureaucratic bungling by now?
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