House to probe TSA’s employee vetting

Lawmakers in the House are planning to probe the vetting of Transportation Security Administration employees after a report found the agency’s workers failed to find fake explosives and weapons in internal tests at almost all of America’s busiest airports. 

The House Homeland Security panel’s Transportation Security Subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday titled “How TSA Can Improve Aviation Worker Vetting.”

Lawmakers are scheduled to hear testimony from officials with the TSA, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Department of Homeland Security’s  Inspector General, who released the initial report about the failed bomb tests. 

{mosads}The report documented a series of undercover stings in which agents tried to pass through security with prohibited items, although much of its findings still remain classified. 

The undercover agents made it through security in nearly all the tests — 67 of 70 — including one instance where a TSA screener failed to find a fake bomb, even after the undercover agent set off a magnetometer. The screener reportedly let the agent through with the fake bomb taped to his back, having missed it during a pat-down.

Lawmakers have sharply criticized the TSA since the findings were made public, and the agency’s interim director was removed from office. 

TSA officials have noted that the bomb tests were conducted by a group of employees who are known as “Red Teams” that are trained specifically in security evasion, but the Inspector General has said that his office does not have special trained teams of testers.