The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has programs in place to report and track security breaches at the nation’s airport but lacks a comprehensive program to gather information about all of these breaches so that it can monitor trends and make improvements to security, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s office says in a new report.
“The agency does not provide the necessary guidance and oversight to ensure that all breaches are consistently reported, tracked, and corrected,” the IG says in its report, Transportation Security Administration’s Efforts to Identify and Track Security Breaches at our Nation’s Airports (OIG-12-80). “As a result, it does not have a complete understanding of breaches occurring at the Nation’s airports and misses opportunities to strengthen aviation security.”
The redacted report was issued in response to a request by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) for the IG to investigate security breaches at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and to compare the incident rate of security breaches at the airport to other airports in the New York City region and comparable airports nationwide.
The IG says that the TSA has taken corrective action to address incidents identified by Lautenberg at Newark but only took corrective action for “42 percent of the security breaches shown in their records.” Of the six airports the IG reviewed related to security breaches, the agency took corrective action on 53 percent of the breaches.
The types of security breaches include a man gaining access to the secure area of Newark, a dead dog being placed on a passenger plane without security screening, Transportation Security Officers not detecting prohibited items in carry-on bags and not conducing additional screening of passengers identified for such screening, the IG says.
TSA concurred with the IG’s recommendations, which include refining its definition of what is a security breach so that it can be understood and reported throughout the agency and to develop a comprehensive oversight program to track and analyze events and then take actions to close vulnerabilities.