A Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Report released last week revealed that the Transportation Safety Administration failed to identify at least 73 aviation employees with links to terrorism during their internal vetting process.
The DHS report, simply titled, “TSA Can Improve Aviation Worker Vetting,” was done in order to “identify enhancements to the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA’s) vetting of workers with access to secure areas of commercial airports for links to terrorism, criminal history, and lawful status.”
In their worthy effort to identify ways the TSA can improve their system of screening employees, a shocking 73 individuals who were employed by airport vendors, major airlines and other aviation related positions were identified as having slipped through the cracks of the TSA’s supposedly thorough vetting process.
“TSA did not identify these individuals through its vetting operations because it is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related categories under current interagency watchlisting policy,” the report explained as a reason for the oversight.
In addition to 73 terrorism-linked employees manning airports every day, a NBC report added that “thousands of records used to vet employees contained such incomplete or inaccurate data as lacking a full first name or missing social security numbers.”
The DHS report offered some suggestions to the people who are supposed to keep us safe while in air:
-“Require that airports improve verification of applicants’ right to work.”
-“Revoke credentials when the right to work expires.”
-“Improve the quality of vetting data”
The report reassuringly added that the TSA approved of their recommendations.
It seems that the TSA should be doing a little more work rather than just asking you to remove all liquids from your bags in the security line.
