All The TSA Needs, He Said, Is More Money For More Screening Equipment

It's not the people. It's the equipment.

That's the word from Adm. David Stone (USN, Ret.), lame-duck leader of the TSA, in the keynote address at a conference of the American Association of Airport Executives. But more equipment may not be enough. Two recent government reports found screeners lack necessary training and have failed to improve in spotting dangerous weapons.

"TSA lacks adequate internal controls to provide reasonable assurance that screeners receive legislatively mandated basic and remedial training, and to monitor its recurrent training program," reported the General Accountability Office in its finding, issued Monday. "Specifically, TSA policy does not clearly specify the responsibility for ensuring that screeners have completed all required training. In addition, TSA officials have no formal policies or methods for monitoring the completion of required training and were unable to provide documentation identifying the completion of remedial training." The report was quoted by GovExec.com.

That finding came just two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's office issued its report saying the TSA simply isn't making progress in improving screener shortcomings already pointed out in previous audits.

"[D]espite the fact that the majority of screeners with whom our testers came in contact with were diligent in the performance of their duties and conscious of the responsibility those duties carry, the lack of improvement since our last audit indicates that significant improvement in performance may not be possible without greater use of new technology," the report said.

Stone's response?

"It really is unfortunate that people take the results and blame the screeners," he said during a recent visit to DFW International Airport in Grapevine, TX.

The TSA, in response to the IG's report, also renewed its appeal for better funding to buy next-generation technology.

"We agree with the IG's conclusion that significant improvements in performance will only be possible with the introduction of new technology," the agency said in its reply. "That said, we will continue to seek incremental gains in screener performance through training, testing and management practices."

But the number of skeptics at think tanks and on Capitol Hill seems to be increasing.

"We have spent millions of dollars--arguably billions of dollars--since 9/11 to make aviation security as a whole much safer. And we have relatively little to show for it, as far as the performance of screeners is concerned," said Clark Kent Ervin, a former Inspector General for the DHS, in an interview with GovExec.com.

House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) disagreed that throwing more money at the TSA would improve screening efficiency. All that's produced so far, he said, is "an army of screeners... a Soviet-style, centralized bureaucracy that has resulted in great inefficiencies and inflexibility with little improvement in screener effectiveness. This money could have been much better spent on better... technology."

FMI: www.tsa.gov