A “sufficiently notorious” convicted felon and former member of a domestic terrorist group was cleared for expedited airport screening even though a Transportation Security Administration officer recognized the traveler’s “disqualifying criminal convictions.”
The incident was highlighted in the latest of a series of recent reports by Department of Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth flagging problems with the airport security agency’s PreCheck passenger screening program.
The program allows individuals who have passed prior background checks to move quickly through designated lanes of airport security so that security agents can focus on travelers going through the regular lanes. The program has enrolled more than 1 million individuals since it was started in October 2011 and is available at 133 U.S. airports.
In the latest incident, the individual with “convictions for murder and offenses that involve explosives” was allowed to pass through the expedited screening process despite not having been approved for inclusion in the PreCheck program.
“TSA granted the traveler TSA PreCheck screening through the risk assessment rules in the Secure Flight Program,” the inspector general said. Those rules allow “TSA to determine the level of security screening passengers should receive at the airport checkpoint.”
The traveler was recognized by a security agent from media coverage as a convicted felon while “scanning the traveler’s boarding pass,” which generated “a PreCheck eligibility notification.”
The incident was reported by the security agent to a supervisor but the convicted felon was not prevented from boarding a commercial aircraft. A whistleblower subsequently told the Office of Special Counsel that the incident resulted in “a significant aviation security breach” and “identified this event as a possible error in the TSA Secure Flight Program,” according to the inspector general.
Earlier this year, an “unclassified summary” from the inspector general detailed other problems in the PreCheck program, which transportation security officials disputed. That report has been withheld from the media and public.
A transportation agency spokesman defended the PreCheck program as a “positive step towards risk-based security screening,” but agreed that the inspector general can help “in correcting deficiencies in order to meet TSA PreCheck expedited screening goals.”
But the spokesman said the inspector general’s recommendations “fundamentally contradict TSA’s risk-based approach to transportation security” and perpetuates “the ‘equal-threat’ philosophy associated with one-size-fits-all approach” the transportation agency has sought to modify since 2011.
By assuming that “every traveler represents a threat to commercial aviation, and therefore must be screened using the same physical countermeasures creates an environment of increasing complexity and costs, and demands an unending cycle of improved detection technology and more intrusive procedures in an effort to mitigate risks,” the spokesman said.
The House Committee on Homeland Security’s subcommittee on transportation security will hear testimony Wednesday from the inspector general.
Go here to read the full report.
