Today, Chairman Mike Rogers (AL-03) of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security said TSA’s failure to properly report and monitor security breaches at our nation’s airports is “unacceptable” and must be immediately fixed.

A recent DHS Inspector General’s report found up to 42 percent of all security breaches were not properly reported up the chain of command at TSA. The report was highlighted in a hearing today.

“The traveling public knows all too well about TSA’s shortcomings, but TSA’s lack of understanding of airport security breaches is a critical oversight many folks don’t even know about. Only being aware of almost half of the breaches is unacceptable and makes it impossible to fix the gaps when they are not made known.

“We must make certain the billions of taxpayer dollars we spend screening passengers is not in vain if systemic vulnerabilities exist through the back doors of our airports.

“Ten years after 9/11, TSA must get smarter because terrorists keep changing their tactics. TSA should focus resources to utilize risk-based security rather than the outdated one-size-fits-all approach to assume everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise. With security breaches at our airports, TSA should act immediately to get the situation under control,” Rogers said.

At the hearing today entitled “Access Control Point Breaches at Our Nation's Airports: Anomalies or Systemic Failures?”, the subcommittee heard testimony from John Sammon, Assistant Administrator at TSA and Charles Edwards, the DHS acting Inspector General.   Rogers has served on the Committee on Homeland Security since 2005.  He is also a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.

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