The federal Transportation Security Administration is on the defensive this week after reporting hundreds of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport security uniforms and identification cards went missing after Sept. 11.
Nearly 250 uniforms were lost or taken in 2002 and 2003 from BWI workers alone, said TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa. But she said those numbers don?t represent a security threat because every one of them had been accounted for by 2004. The uniform itself has been redesigned, and only seven disappeared from BWI last year. However, for at least two years some of them were unaccounted for.
U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Baltimore County decried the reports.
“It only takes one lost or stolen uniform and ID badge in the hands of a terrorist to wreak havoc on this country,” he said.
“I think this is serious enough, if there is a breach [of security], that an independent agency like the FBI should investigate how [it] happened.”
He called on the Department of Homeland Security to tell Congress how the uniforms went missing and confirm that all those lost from BWI were recovered.
He said he was still trying to figure out why so many were lost from BWI in particular.
As reported by WJZ-13 this week, Los Angeles International Airport was the only airport in the country with more uniforms and badges lost or stolen than BWI.
Kudwa said the badges are used only for a worker?s visual identification, and don?t allow them access to any secure places in the airport. She said airport employees are screened when they arrive at work and return from meal breaks, just as passengers are in order to get to their gates.
