Airports Still Vulnerable to Attacks, Study Says

A new report is slamming the government’s security policies at the nation’s airports, saying it cannot keep track of all the security uniforms and badges it issues. Does that make secure areas of the airports vulnerable to terrorists?

The Associated Press’s Eileen Sullivan says the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general reviewed five airports across the country and found “major deficiencies in the Transportation Security Administration’s ability to keep track of uniforms, particularly after an employee leaves the job.”

Although Sullivan says much of the report is not available for security reasons, AP discovered there were four instances where TSA did not report to the badge office that a screener had been fired from the agency. These former screeners had active badges for up to 212 days until the inspector general notified officials about the problem.

“Five other screeners had active badges from 97 to 827 days after they no longer needed to access secure areas,” Sullivan writes. “In 63 other instances reviewed by the inspector general, TSA had not immediately told badge offices to deactivate the badges when the employees left the agency.”

Responding to the report, TSA spokesman Christopher White told Sullivan the agency made changes to increase oversight of uniforms, badges and identification in April, particularly with the badges allowing access to the most secure parts of an airport.