Tag Archives: airport security

Civil Liberties, Foreign Policy, Government Accountability, Government Corruption, International, Police Accountability, Police State, Politics, US

TSA Back Under Fire After Failing to Identify 73 Airport Workers with Terror Ties

Video Jun 9, 2015 Barry Donegan 4 Comments

Earlier this month, Truth in Media reported on the fact that the Transportation Security Administration abysmally failed a Department of Homeland Security performance test in which 67 of 70 undercover DHS agents were able to slip through security at dozens of US airports with potential weapons and explosives. In response, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson benched TSA Acting Administrator Melvin Carraway and reassigned him to the DHS Office of State and Local Law Enforcement. Secretary Johnson then promoted TSA Acting Deputy Director Mark Hatfield to replace Carraway as head of the TSA.

Meanwhile, a new Department of Homeland Security inspector general report, released last Thursday, identified the fact that the TSA’s airport employee screening procedures failed to identify 73 workers “linked to terrorism.” Fox News notes that the 73 workers were employed by airlines, vendors, and other airport employers.

“The TSA did not identify these individuals through its vetting operations because it is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related categories under current interagency watch-listing policy,” read the report. The DHS inspector general called the TSA’s airport worker security checks “generally effective,” but noted that some employees slipped through the cracks because the TSA “relied on airport operators to perform criminal history and work authorization checks, but had limited oversight over these commercial entities.”

The report said of the 73 workers with alleged terror ties, “TSA acknowledged that these individuals were cleared for access to secure airport areas despite representing a potential transportation security threat.”

“TSA had less effective controls in place for ensuring that aviation workers 1) had not committed crimes that would disqualify them from having unescorted access to secure airport areas, and 2) had lawful status and were authorized to work in the United States,” read the report.

The report also determined that “thousands of records used for vetting workers contained potentially incomplete or inaccurate data, such as an initial for a first name and missing social security numbers” and that the “TSA did not have appropriate edit checks in place to reject such records from vetting.”

“Without complete and accurate information, TSA risks credentialing and providing unescorted access to secure airport areas for workers with potential to harm the nation’s air transportation system,” the inspector general concluded.

Former TSA official Chad Wolf said in the above-embedded video by CNN, “These are airport workers, so this really speaks to the issue of the insider threat. TSA’s primary way to guard against that is to make sure that these background checks are complete and they’re exhaustive, and what this report says is they’re not complete, nor are they exhaustive.“

International, Politics, US

Increase in airport security ordered for all US inbound flights

Jul 3, 2014 Zach McAuliffe 2 Comments

New bomb threats from Al-Qaeda have resulted in the White House ordering heightened airport security for all direct flights into the U.S. from foreign countries.

The Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson wrote in a statement, ” I have directed TSA to implement enhanced security measures in the coming days at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States.”

No U.S. officials have given a specific reason for the increase in airport security. One counterterrorism official told Reuters Wednesday, the U.S. has been planning on stepping up security at airports for the past month and the increase in security is not the result of any immediate threat.

According to the BBC though, there have been reports of Al-Qaeda members in Yemen and Syria who are in the process of developing bombs which could be smuggled onto planes, passing all security checkpoints. U.S officials are afraid bombmakers in the Arabian Peninsula have updated the designs and schematics of the infamous shoe-bomb, or the bombmakers might be in the process of developing a way to turn smartphones into explosive devices.

President Obama explained in an interview with NBC News on Sunday, “We’ve seen Europeans who are sympathetic to their cause traveling into Syria and now may travel into Iraq, getting battle-hardened. Then they come back.” This would explain why all U.S. inbound flights are seeing improved security and not domestic flights.

“I would say broadly speaking that the threat of foreign fighters is a concern that we share with many counterparts in the world, whether that’s European or others in the Western world, where we’ve seen an increase in foreign fighters who have traveled to Syria and other countries in the region and returning,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, according to FOX News. “And so we have been discussing a range of steps we can take in a coordinated fashion for some time.”

Interviews, Politics, US

EXCLUSIVE: Man Builds Deadly Weapons With Items He Bought AFTER Going Through Airport Security

Dec 10, 2013 Kristin Tate 16 Comments

By KRISTIN TATE

As we reported several weeks ago, a Tennessee man built a firing gun from items he purchased at the airport — after going through security. Since his project received a huge variety of responses from our readers, I decided to reach out to him and find out more.

Evan Booth, a computer programmer from Greensboro, created the gun using items like a hairdryer, lithium batteries, and body spray. He calls his creation BLUNDERBUSiness.
Booth said he decided to embark on this project after the TSA introduced body scanners, which he believes violate travelers’ privacy.

He told me, “People who understand security understand that the current screening procedures exist primarily to put passengers at ease — ‘security theater,’ if you will. They also know that, given enough time, a persistent attacker will succeed to some degree.”

Booth was able to shoot pocket change out of his gun with enough power to blow a hole through Sheetrock.

Here is a video detailing the gun’s construction and functionality:

In addition to creating BLUNDERBUSiness, Booth made several other deadly weapons — also using common items purchased in airport stores.

He sent me some captioned photos of his creations. (My personal favorite is the “Adorable Blowgun.”)

Some have wearily hypothesized that Booth’s creations could only prompt the TSA to make airport security more strict. On my previous BLUNDERBUSiness article, one reader commented, “Pretty cool, but knowing the government they’ll now ban all of those items.”

But Booth claims his project should have the opposite effect. He said, “I hope it helps people understand that trying to ban everything is simply not going to keep people safe at the end of the day.”

“If we’re trying stop a terrorist threat at the airport, it’s already too late,” he said. “And if you’re going to go through all that trouble getting into the terminal, why is all this stuff available in the terminal? I think people have kind of been suspecting that the type of things I’ve built are possible. I just don’t think anyone’s ever taken the time to do it.”

To prevent himself from being investigated by the government, Booth alerted the TSA prior to beginning his project. He emailed the agency to alert them that he planned to make his creations public on his website, terminalcornucopia.com. He sent the TSA his URL (which was private at that point), the password required to view it, and with the following:

“…since this information falls under the realm of common sense, I will be speaking about it publicly. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I don’t think it should be that easy to build an explosive device out of items purchased in an airport. Travelers — as both consumers and taxpayers — deserve to know this information. If that’s a problem, please let me know immediately.

My ultimate goal as a researcher is to work with the TSA to improve our overall security posture. With that in mind, my plan is to launch this website tomorrow at 5pm (EST) unless I hear from someone between now and then. Here’s where to contact me: [redacted] or reply to this email.”

After over 10 hours with no response from a government agent, Booth decided to reach out to the TSA again, this time by phone.

He said, “I didn’t catch his name, but the person I spoke with in the TSA’s general contact center knew about the email as well as its contents — ‘Yeah… the web address with the password.’ When I asked for his thoughts on the content, he responded with ‘I don’t know. We can’t access the internet here.'”

The employee instructed Booth to forward his email to the TSA’s Strategic Communications and Public Affairs office. He never received a response.

“And that was it,” Booth said. ” I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not these reports were being taken seriously.”

Perhaps Booth is right, and no amount of airport security will prevent bad people from doing bad things. After all, banning weapons doesn’t necessarily prevent bad people from getting ahold of them. We all know how well that logic works in “gun free zones.”

Your thoughts?

Follow Kristin on Facebook and Twitter.

Politics, US

Man Makes Firing Gun With Items He Bought AFTER Going Through Airport Security

Nov 27, 2013 Kristin Tate 82 Comments

The TSA better take note: a man in Tennessee has proven that a deadly firearm can be created only with items purchased from retail stores in airport terminals.

Evan Booth, a computer programmer from Greensboro, created the gun using items like a hairdryer, lithium batteries, and body spray. He calls his gun BLUNDERBUSiness.

“If we’re trying stop a terrorist threat at the airport, it’s already too late,” Booth said.

Booth said he decided to embark on this project after the TSA introduced body scanners, which he believes violate travelers’ privacy. He said, “It just seemed so invasive, really expensive.”

He continued, “And if you’re going to go through all that trouble getting into the terminal, why is all this stuff available in the terminal? I think people have kind of been suspecting that the type of things I’ve built are possible. I just don’t think anyone’s ever taken the time to do it.”

Booth was able to shoot pocket change out of his gun with enough power to blow a hole through Sheetrock.

In addition to creating BLUNDERBUSiness, Booth made several other deadly weapons. Also using common items purchased in airport stores, he made a crossbow, blowgun, and spiked club.

To prevent himself from being investigated by the government, Booth alerted the FBI and CIA prior to beginning his project.

Many have pointed to Booth’s gun to argue that no amount of airport security will prevent bad people from doing bad things. Airport security arguably does not work any more than “gun free” zones do.