ABC reports:
An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.
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.Adam B. Lerner reports at Politico:
This test was “an abominable failure,” said former TSA Administrator James Loy, who led the agency from 2002 to 2003. He took the results as a sign that “when things go well for a long long time the likelihood of complacency rearing its ugly head and kicking in is very real.”
“Maybe enough time had gone by without a [terrorist attack] where that complacency gene had kicked in,” he added.
