What Do You Get for $7.55 Billion?

This year the TSA’s performance is better than last year.

Last year, it has been reported, TSA checkpoints failed to detect contraband 95% of the time.

That means for $7+ billion, TSA agents only stopped 5% of the stuff that was not supposed to be allowed on board.

This year, according to reports, the number is in the neighborhood of 80% failure, meaning that the bad guys have a 4 out 5 chance of getting contraband on board.

That makes me feel safer, for sure.

The briefing, before the House Committee on Homeland Security, was classified. I think the bad guys understand that their odds are good in getting stuff through the checkpoints.  The reason the hearing was classified, no doubt, is they probably discussed what types of things were least likely to be detected and techniques that they used.

This year, instead of using specially trained red teams during the test, they used secretaries and clerks.  You would think that might improve the odds of getting caught, but apparently not.

Rep. Mike Rogers told TSA administrator David Pekoske that “this agency that you run is badly broken”.

That would qualify as an understatement.

Of course, none of this is news to those of us in security.

Going back to when Mary Schiavo was the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation, corruption, fraud, incompetence and abuse in the DoT was being exposed.  Schiavo had over 150 convictions during her 6 years as IG.

TSA “red teams” have been trying to sneak stuff through checkpoints for 15 years.  In 2015, the TSA screeners failed in 67 out of 70 tests, according to leaked reports.

This years is a tad bit better, but still, the odds of getting contraband through – including guns and explosives – is insanely high.

It might also be useful to understand that the so-called “9/11” security fee that is added to every airplane ticket has been mostly diverted to other purposes and is not used to pay for or improve security or buy new screening devices.

Because the 9/11 fee is being diverted to items like building the border wall, security at airports is being degraded.  DHS Viper teams that use dogs to secure transportation facilities are being cut from 31 teams to 8 teams, for example.

I think I am going to drive on my next trip – it might be safer.

Information for this post came from ABC.

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