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TSA Tests Consistently Evade Own Airport Screenings
ABC News reports on internal live-testing of TSA airport passenger screening procedures that successfully evaded detection of concealed weapons and explosives prior to boarding 95% of the time.
The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.
According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General's report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.
In one test an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetometer, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.
Officials would not divulge the exact time period of the testing other than to say it concluded recently.
While this report is alarming by itself, a TSA blog post from March 2013 commenting on the results of a previous test explains that the methods employed in these regular tests are deliberately designed to be unrealistically hard, and that the TSA's motivation is to drive improvements in security procedures ahead of terrorist capabilities to evade them:
The goal of the Red Team is to build tests that push the boundaries of our people, processes, and technology. We know that the adversary innovates and we have to push ourselves to capacity in order to remain one step ahead. With that said, our testers often make these covert tests as difficult as possible.
You might be wondering why our testers run tests that our Officers are prone to fail? It's because we want to see if our procedures, technology, and policies are or are not working. We also are constantly looking for ways to improve our performance. When a test is failed, we don't simply check a tick mark in a box and move on. Nor do we take punitive measures as this testing is a learning experience. The results are shared with TSA leadership at the airport and HQ, as well as the officers who were part of the test, noting areas for improvement where warranted.
Update
More news on this same story, now the Acting TSA director has been reassigned.
Just one of many news hits include: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/tsa-failed-undercover-airport-screening-tests/
Washington (CNN) The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that the acting administrator for the Transportation Security Administration would be reassigned, following a report that airport screeners failed to detect explosives and weapons in nearly every test that an undercover team conducted at dozens of airports.
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @03:14PM
...the methods employed in these regular tests are deliberately designed to be unrealistically hard...
So make the tests easier and the TSA will catch more of the test contraband. Problem solved.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday June 05 2015, @06:22PM
By unrealistically hard they probably mean the object was sent through the X-ray machine in a coat pocket or left in a waistband or rear pants pocket, and not just left out in the open and labeled gun, bomb, or knife in big red letters. Or at least that has been my experience, but god forbid you have a metal chassis film SLR with some nice lenses, then it is off for extra enhanced screening including a pat down, getting wanded, swabbed for explosives, a game of 20 questions, and them digging though all your stuff while swabbing all of it for explosives.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @03:23PM
Because the people who really do want to smuggle bombs and weapons onto planes won't make them "unrealistically hard" to find.