TSA orders more airport employee screening

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is increasing the amount of screening that airport employees face in the wake of a series of recent breaches. 

The Department of Homeland Security, which operates the TSA, said Monday that agency is bolster the screening of airport workers in response to a 2014 incident at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport involving an employee who was arrested for smuggling guns into areas beyond the facility’s security checkpoints. 

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the changes, which include screening airport workers like regular passengers when they are traveling for personal reasons, are the result of an intensive review of the security of U.S. airports after TSA checkpoints.  

{mosads}”Today, I am announcing that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will take additional steps to address the potential insider threat vulnerability at U.S. airports,” he said. “These steps follow a 90-day Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) comprehensive review conducted at my request in January 2015. I also asked the ASAC to identify other trends to determine if additional risk-based security measures, resource reallocations, new investments or policy changes are necessary.” 

Lawmakers have called for the TSA to make changes to airport employee screening since the Atlanta incident was first reported in December. A separate incident earlier this month involving an Alaska Airlines employee who fell asleep in the cargo area of an airplane that later took off also raised concerns about the screening of airport workers. 

Among the changes being implemented by the TSA are requiring airports to collect fingerprints for employees every two years so they can be matched to criminal databases and increasing the number of random screenings of employees when they are reporting to work. 

The agency is also calling for airports to cut down on the number of access points to secure airports.  

Johnson said Monday that the TSA acted quickly to bolster airport security after the Atlanta incident, even before the review that led to Monday’s changes was complete. 

“Immediately following the incident in December 2014, TSA increased the random and unpredictable screening of aviation workers at various airport access points to mitigate potential security vulnerabilities,” he said.

Johnson said the panel found that “100 percent physical employee screening would not completely eliminate potential risks, but would divert critical resources from other critical security functions to mitigate other risks.

“I want to thank the ASAC for their work in developing their recommendations in such a short time frame,” he said. “Their recommendations validate TSA’s risk-based approach to passenger screening and will help strengthen the overall security of our commercial aviation network. I am confident that the potential insider-threat posed by aviation industry employees will be significantly mitigated as a result of these recommendations.”