Transcripts For CSPAN3 20240621

Disorient attackers by shutting off lighting or sounding alarms and pilots can depressurize the cabin and knock out the attackers due to the heart rate. It could save the lives of others on the ground. You can assign air marshals in airports to find terrorists and bombs before they go up in the sky. Hiring thousands of flying air marshals after 9 11 was a natural reaction, but it should have been a temporary detail and not a career. Not very many young and ambition people yearn for a career in the airline seat. They said half the job would be flying and the rest would be time to recover and investigating. 14 years later, air marshals tell me there are still not ground opportunities. We should train federal and local Law Enforcement officers to quickly deploy as a reserve air marshals in order to respond to specific threats. Finally all federal employees are reluctant to report money wasted in dangerous security lapses because they do not want to gamble with their careers, and the tiny underfunded agency, for instance, faa cabin inspector blew the whistle 12 years ago, and her case was remanded to an administrative judge, and she had a hearing 18 months ago, and still the judge has not made a decision. If i had a jury i would have won six years ago. Federal employees are the only workers in the u. S. Who do not have access to jury trials. A restaurant cook reporting spoiled food being served has more due process than an air marshal reporting security lapses that could kill hundreds and crimple the aviation industry. I have availed myself all week to meet with members of congress and my fellow tsa force. Many may think my proposals are risky or crazy, but i am limited to go into detail about how the benefits can greatly outweigh the risks and other air marshals and i are doing our best to think like a suicidal attacker, and i hope we dont need another 9 11 to prove we are accurate. I look forward to answering your questions. I apologize for going over time. We appreciate your testimony and your courage to blow the whistle. Our next witness, Jennifer Grover the director of transportation security and ghost guard issues for the Accountability Office and her work includes assessing the vulnerabilities throughout the tsas screening process. Thank you, and good morning chairman and members and staff. Last week renewed concerns arose about tsas screening systems and whether they are sufficient to identify prohibited items. Tsa has developed a layered security approach that is sound in principle and the reports towards tsas risk screening, but to fully deliver the promised security traditions, tsa must do two things. First, take more rigorous steps to insure each layer of security works as intended, and second put systems in place to continuously monitor their effectiveness. Over many years gio reported weaknesses in staes oversight of screening systems raising questions about whether tsa is falling short on providing security. Tsa has taken steps to improve oversight of the systems but additional actions are needed. Today we will focus on four areas. First the secure Flight Program which matches passenger information against federal Government Watch lists to identify those that should not fly or receive enhanced screening. Second, the ati systems which are the full body scanners used to screen passengers for prohibited items at the check point. Third, the managed inclusion screening process which tsa uses to provide expedited screening to passengers not previously identified as low risk and fourth criminal history checks done to airport workers. Regarding secure flight, we found in september 2014 that tsa did not have timely or reliable information about the extend or causes of systemmatching errors, which occur when secure flight fails to identify passengers who were actual matches to the watch list. And in response to our recommendations, tsa has developed a mechanism to keep track of known matching errors and is considering methods to evaluate overall matching rates on an ongoing basis. Second regarding the ait body scanners. We found in march 2014 that tsa did not include information about screener performance when they were evaluating the effectiveness. Rather tsas assessment was limited to the accuracy of the systems in the laboratory and after a machine identifies a potential threat a screening officer has to do a targeted pat down to resolve the alarm and thus the consistency with the screeners identify all threat items is key to insuring the effectiveness of the ait systems in the airport operating environment. Consequently we recommended they assess the ait effectiveness as the technology and the screening officers that operate it. Tsa concurred with the recommend nation and recently sent updated information about their efforts to address it which are under review with gio. Third, in december of 2014 we found tsa had not tested the Security Effectiveness of the managed inclusion process. As part of managed inclusion tsa uses multiple layers of security to mitigate the risk associated with the randomly selected passengers in a system designed for low risk passengers, however is the security layers are not working as intended then tsa may not be sufficiently screening passengers. Tsa has tested the security used in manage inclusion and reported them to be effective and gio raised concerns about the detection behavior officers. Finally, regarding tsas involvement in airport worker vetting we found in december 2011 tsa and airports were conducting background checks based on limited criminal history information, specifically tsas level of access to fbi criminal history records was excludeing many state records and in response to the recommendation tsa and the fbi confirmed there was a risk of incomplete information and the fbi since reported expanding the criminal history records it provides to tsa for the Security Threat assessments. In unconclusion, tsa made progress progress, and by working with the fbi to obtain access to more complete criminal background information. Yet more work remains to insure that secure flight ait and managed inclusion are working as tsa intends. Chairman johnson and Ranking Member carper, this concludes my statement and i look forward to your questions. Thank you mrs. Grover. I want to start with you, mr. Roth, and i want to be careful in the way i ask the question. Can you speak to the level of preparation, the level of sophistication of the people on the red team in trying to assess the effectiveness of the system . Thats going to be a very difficult question to answer in this environment. I will say that the testers we used are auditors. These are members of the oig workforce. They dont have any specialized background or training in this kind of work but, again to go into more detail about this it would be problematic. There are a bunch of accountants, and i am one as well. Did we see some airports perform better than others so we can see what does work and what doesnt work . I cant get into the specifics of the actual results of the testing and we have done field work in the area but have not written a report yet. The chronology is we do field work and then analyze the results, sort of do the kinds of comparisons you are talking about and then report them out. I will say the results were consistent across airports. I wont go any further than that. I would like to talk about the number of protocols, and how many are there . I see a briefing and i have seen all the acronyms and the point i am trying to make is how overwhelming the detailed Standard Operating Procedures are for individual tsos. Thank you for the question. Yes, sir our number of Standard Operating Procedures off hand, i dont know the specific number but i can say there is a check point sop, and a checked baggage sop, and sop for the ticket documented checker position, and a known crew member sop, and bdo, and a passenger screening k9 sop, and those are the ones i can think of off the top of my head. There are a lot more. How detailed are they . Very detailed. We are humans and its hard to have the training involved of having somebody be able to follow the sops with the volume that we are trying to achieve its a real problem isnt it . There are a number of very specific procedures in the sop. During the training process the sops are separated out so when you are being trained you would be referring to the sop that applies. Some of the sops dont apply to all the officers across the workforce, like the bdo the sop would a normal tso would not need to know about those sops as well as passenger screening and k9 sop, so while there are a number of them you dont have to be proficient in every one of the sops. My concern in the Precheck Program of what i think is a really good idea and most people would agree its a really good idea, but only if completely followed and if we only do complete background checks. Whoever is best able to answer the question in terms of how many people have been cleared for precheck . I have information for about 100,000, and i am not sure thats accurate. Of the number that have been cleared how many went through a thorough vetting that you would expect versus under pressure to, again, accomplish the objective, and how many have been approved in a watered down process. Mr. Grover . I believe there are about a Million People now that applied for precheck, but there are about 7. 2 Million People who have a known traveller number who would routinely get a check on the boarding pass because of their affiliation with certain groups, such as people who are in the trusted Traveler Programs or dod active duty military, and then of course n. , in addition to that, people could get precheck on a onetime basis through the Risk Assessment or at the airport through random collection from managed inclusion. Talk to me about automated the last thing you talked about automated Risk Assessment . Yes, sir. The first thing that tsa does is they check to see if a passenger is on one of the terrorists watch lists. If they are not, then tsa checks to see if the person is already a known traveler, so signed up with precheck and has a known traveler number. If not then all of the rest of the passengers are screened against a set of risk rules that tsa has designed based on intelligence, and based on certain characteristics of the traveling passenger including information about their flight that that specific flight that they are looking at and the individual can receive the precheck on their boarding pass. Anybody else want to comment on the watering down of the vetting process . Just so you understand, tsa has increased dramatically the use of precheck over the last several years. It has gone from a test kind of a case into a situation where between 40 and 50 of all the traveling public gets an expedited screening whether its through managed inclusion or a government trusted traveler program, or whether as mrs. Grover talked about the Risk Assessment rules. Was it conceived with a full vetting process, how many people received the full vetting process to 40 or 50 of the traveling public qualifying for precheck . The tsa recently celebrated 1 Million People who have the applied for precheck through the vetting program, and as mrs. Grover says there are other trusted traveler program, and its similar to precheck and more expensive than precheck, so those folks get grandfathered in and members of congress and other trusted populations get grandfathered in, and you are talking about 1. 8 Million People per day traveling and you are talking about the significant portion of the flying public is that truly unknown to tsa and and they are waving you through. I am out of time. Thank you for joining us today and for your testimony and for your work. Before we talk about some things that tsa needs to do better, lets talk about give us one thing that they are doing well and give us just one thing they are doing well. John, would you lead us off there, please . Certainly. Thats the hazard that i have in this occupation i only focus on the negative as opposed to the pause tv. We never do that in our jobs. People sitting to my left have the courage to see something that has gone wrong and try to fix it and within the tsa population there are everyday thousands of people that get up and go to work and try to do their best every single day and, again when you only focus on the negatives you forget about the overwhelming majority of that population that really wants to do the right thing and cares about their job. Let me interrupt you for a second. When i i fly a fair amount and not as much as my colleagues, and most of my travel is on trains, and when tsa is doing a good job, polite and courteous, and i thank them and they have no idea who i am, they think i am ron johnson. Daytoday, its probably mixed. But thats something you might want to think of. One of the things that makes people like their job, they know what they are doing is important and they feel like they are making progress. People, we just had an interesting study about a month or two ago, it said why people are leaving, and one of the things is as hard as they work they dont get thanked. Its a little thing and something we want to keep in mind. And when somebody is out of order and doing things out of order, i will tell them, and then i tell them who i many a. Let me get to rebecca, give us one thing they are doing well . I think Risk Security is a good procedure, and as long as there is not risks associated with it 99. 99 of the traveling public simply wants to get from point a to point b safely and security and we need to focus on a way to quickly expedite the passengers and focus on the small percentage of people that pose a threat to the Aviation Security and the only way we can do that is using a Risk Security approach. Once again, i really like the Precheck Program and it just blows away hay from that hay stack so we can get down to the one needle. The other program the viper teams, the prevention and response teams. I really want officers down deep in the airports establishing relationships with a guy whose job is to mop up hydraulic fluid. Hold it there and i will run out of time. Good points. Thank you. Mr. Grover. I want to echo what you previously heard and say riskbased security at tsa has the opportunity to offer tremendous efficiencies, so i would encourage them to go ahead and continue to work on that. Good. Most important element of any organization i ever been part of or seen, its leadership. You have great leadership and you have a fighting chance to be successful and if you dont you are probably doomed. John pistol is a good leader, and he has a lot of respect my me and on a bipartisan fit. We will have a hearing and we are doing our vetting right now. Again, give, if the admiral were here and you had an opportunity to say this would be a top priority for you, what would it be, mrs. Grover . I would go back and echo the remarks that chairman johnson made at the beginning and point out tsas primary mission is to insure Aviation Security. Another important competing mission is to insure the free flow of commerce and passengers, and those goals are intention and so at this time when questions have been raised about whether or not the fundamentals are working properly, its important to have a strong leader in place to be able to guide the organization to figure out how to balance those two elements. Thank you. One piece of advice for the admiral if he is confirmed . More emphasis on protecting the flight deck or cockpit. I think the leadership of the agency is one that really focused on wait times and we need to focus less on wait times and be more concerned about detection rates and giving our officers the time they need to process the passengers and bags in a manner they feel is comfortable, the bag does not contain a weapon or prohibited item. John roth . I have the good portion of meeting with the admiral prior to one of his hearings and i think the biggest thing that he needs to understand, and i think he does understand this, is an acknowledgment that there is a significant challenge here. I am not sure that has been embraced tsa wide, so in order to fix a problem you have to fully understand it, and i think he is committed to doing that. My last question is similar to my first two. Give us some good advice. Come back and pick up one good to do list for us. Give us just one great todo for our list, maybe from confirming a good leader, but give us a good one. Understanding the risks you are attempting to manage, and understand the risk behind the technologying and understand the risk behind the management processes and manage against the risks and if you dont understand the risks you will not be able to manage against it. I will take one out of my statement and that has to do with the fact that we have nobody in the field overseeing the numerous contracts that tsa has engaged in and no way to performance the contracts are acceptable, and technical representatives in the field would let us manage the contracts better so we are not wasting taxpayer dollars. I would pass a law that gives flight attendants more training and authority to have passengers save their lives. Thank you. Mr. Grover . Its i would like you to see the top leaders accountable by asking for data on the effectiveness on their operations. What you cant measure, you cant manage. Thank you. I have to give a shoutout to my tsas in the milwaukee airport, and i travel light but i did attend a boy scouting event and they gave me a package i put in the briefcase, and it was a boy scout knife and they caught it. Again, the vast majority of tsa and tso employees that have a difficult task they do stay alert and protect the public. That was my own experience and i got caught. Un senator urnst. Senator carper touched on a lot of the questions that i really had. I do believe there has been an issue with the lack of consistency, and i think its something that tsa has been suffering for from across the various aspects of the organization, and its mission for a while now. But referenced in all of your testimonies, really across the board, is varying degrees of lack of certainty and consistency with people, processes and operations, and these problems whether its the morale of the organization, the personnel or the daytoday operations they are just so< systemic. You mentioned some ideas on where you would like to see leadership go, a couple of suggestions for congress, and bottom line, do you think its really more of a management issue for the admiral and hopefully he will be confirmed shortly, but are these the issues that the admiral can influence through his management style or it something that needs to be addressed through legislation . I would like to hear the perspective that you have on that, one or the other or a combination of both. Mrs. Grover if you would start please. I think its really several issues. I do think there is a concern about morale at tsa, as was mentioned earlier, morale at dhs as a department is low and morale at tsa is lower. That does affect peoples engagement to their work. There are weaknesses in the equipment the tsa uses in terms of its effectiveness, and there are challenges in encouraging a workforce of 45,000 people to do the job properly every day and thats just a lot of people to manage. Its morale and management and attention to the Technical Specifications of the equipment, and i would like to see tsa spending less time on standing up new programs and more time on making sure the programs that they have stood up are working properly. Thats good advice. Thank you. Appreciate that. Mr. Mcclain . A big problem with the air marshal mission is there is nothing going on which is a good thing there is no arrests happening and no casework happening, and as you would get in a cbp or Border Patrol station, you have hundreds of thousands of arrests, hundreds of drug cases happening, so the managers are busy and have things to do but when an air marshal commits an infraction it causes a huge ripple in the water and a lot of local managers dont want to make a decision on something so wait on headquarters to make it for them. A possible solution is to put the air marshals under the purview of a Law Enforcement agency. There is a huge amount of former Border Patrol agents and cbo officers in the air Marshal Service, and they feel like it was when they were under the ins, an agency that had Conflicting Missions and some were to initialize people, and then capture them. Board manbored managers are looking for something to do. You would say to separate the two programs and empower really empower the officers to do more. Many air marshals say why dont we go under the pursue of customs and Border Protection . The facilities are in the airports and the management is already there and it could be a good transition. It happened once before the original air marshal director had put the air Marshal Service underneath immigration and Customs Enforcement and he did that because he saw the air marshals burning out, and you hire the highspeed eager guys and gals and they get out there and are strapped down. Its like pressure cookers. Things happen. He saw it and he saw it was going to be a quick burnout and we put them in ice, and that was a career path. Very interesting. I appreciate that. I do want to address some of what senator johnson eluded to in his statements about the recent media reports that indicated the instructor general or by the Inspector General that tsa failed to identify 73 people flagged under terrorism related activity codes. Undercurrent interagency watch listing policy, i have huge concerns with that as well as most of our public does as well. Employees are often granted special access without having gone through a thorough background check and Inspector General, if you could speak to that just very briefly . We share your concern and summary of what we found is accurate, and theres the large terrorists identity environment and tsa by law did not have access to some of the codes. In 2014, the administrator asked for access and its a process that is taking time so its not quite there yet, but i think they are moving quickly on it. I thank you all very much for your testimony today. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, and general roth thank you for the work you and your team do. I wonder if you could unpack the structure of your administration you have the largest ig officer in the branch, right . No, i think we are number three. How many employees do you have and can you talk about the structure . We have approximately 700, about 670 employees altogether and its broken into a function audit, and we have 220 sreupl null investigators that do internal affairs work and we are the internal Affairs Agency for i. C. E. And then we have a separate section that does both inspections and audits. We do financial and Program Audits and Information Technology audits and do inspections of various things and write reports. You talk about the background of your investigators and auditors, how diverse their experiences are . Quite diverse. Criminal investigators are individuals that grew up that came from other Law Enforcement agency and they are armed and have arrest power like any other criminal investigator, criminal investigator would have, and our auditors come from a variety of places, some within the Inspector General community and some from agencies and some from private businesses and private enterprise, all of whom are governed by the gao standards for standards the socalled yellow book. Do you have a red team that reports to you . We do not. The red team is a term of art the tsa uses to do internal investigations, but we dont consider ourself red teams. There have been 70 attempts by your investigators to smuggle explosive devices or fake explosive devices on to plane, and the failure was 67 out of 70 times, and the public is taking some comfort in the idea that this investigation was supposedly done by super terrorists, and thats the report in the media from the red teams, so the red teams are not yours and this leaked report is yours . I cant confirm or deny any of the specific results or specific methodology in which we did the resting, and as i said, we dont idea ourselves as red team and these are auditors we use members of the Inspector Generals office. I appreciate this, and appreciate the classified briefings you have given a number of us, and what you are saying is in your employee there are no red teams . Correct. Do you understand how the stories are out there that says these were red Team Investigations . We dont. I was as disturbed as anybody by the fact that this information got into the media. We have done a number of classified Penetration Testings with absolutely no incident of leakage. We have started an investigation, a preliminary investigation of this to try to determine where the source of the leak was. Do you have any discomfort with communication strategy of the department that appears to be echoing the media testimonies, and i will quote one from secretary johnson last week, quote Red Team Testing of the Aviation Security network has been part of the tsa mission for 13 years. There are, indeed, red teams at dhs, and you are not going to a nonclassified setting clarifying the nature of the investigation leaked but i think you clearly said your employees are mostly auditors. Thats correct. Last weeks report was just one. Can you tell us a little bit more about the number both classified and unclassified of tsa, dhs ig reports that you have issued since 2004 . I cant give you an exact number. A dozen is my best estimate of what we have done since 2004. We did a series 6 Penetration Testings in 2011, both Penetration Testing to determine the security of the socalled sterile area, just being able to move into the sterile area without any sort of examination covert testing, for example, carry on carry on luggage through the screening process and we did Penetration Testing of the ait machines, the first generation ait machine which is different than the ones we have done most recently as well as Penetration Testing of the checked baggage. Are all of your investigations ultimately briefed to the leadership of dhs . Yes. And you said tsa disagreed with most of your recommendations to the precheck, and you concluded we believe its the failure to understand the gravity of the situation. Can you explain what that means . It involves the Precheck Program, there are a number of different ways you can get expedited screening without having an phreubg nation and fee and your background investigated to become a known traveler. We found some security srupb rau vulnerabilityies vulnerabilities, and we investigated those and wrote reports making eliminations of what would eliminate vulnerabilities, and tsa declined to take the recommendation so we are sitting at water heads as we speak. Do you think its conceivable tsa did not know how grave the situation was until last weeks leaked report . Well candidly i worry about that. I would like to ask the director one question. Are you saying regular passenger screeners have no matrix that have to do with their success or failure rate at getting weapons . That is true. Thank you for being here. I wanted to followup on a couple questions. First of all, to understand that we have not been vetting the workers, the workforce against the fbi database and then as i understand you, mr. Roth saying that in fact we still are not able to fully do that because of actually an access code issue. Could you let us know about this . I have to say, i think all of us are quite shocked by this in terms of just basic common sense of we use that the fbi background checks on people who deal with the public in a variety of contexts, and to not in this context just seems kind of mindboggling that would not have been in place already. Theres a large list the terrorists identity environment which has information of individuals that is both verified and unverified. Its the broader list from which it gets called the terrorists watch list. What tsa did not have access to are certain codes within the larger environment. Some of the information is nonsubstantiated. Once tsa realized, i think around 2014 they did not have this information the director or administrator or administrator or administrate pistol signed a letter, and its in the pb environment to do it. We were able to in the course of our audit run 900,000 names against the database. As we sit now, i think we have some comfort in understanding what that environment looks like in other words, the 73 individuals we believe is the sum entirety of what was missed. We gave those names to tsa as soon as we discovered them and i think they are following up on each of those. So to the extent that there was a vulnerability, i believe it has been closed but it certainly gives you pause that the situation was allowed to continue. It does give you pause because it really only takes one versus 73 in this context, and as we sit here even the fact that there are still a bureaucratic step that is not being expedited i just cant imagine the fbi would not have moved on this with the most haste they could possibly move given especially your recent undercover findings. I think thats something we should followup on just as a matter of pwraourbureaucracy cant hold this up when it comes to basic vetting that needs to be done. The inclusion, what is being done with that . I was interested to see director roaring refer to it as its being given out like halloween candy and i think we all think its an Important Program for public and to the extent we do have a category of individuals that has grown exponentially and may not go through the entire vetting process. If you could share with us what you are able to share here what you think would be better in terms of reforms to focus the precheck process properly, so we are allowing the members of the public to use it that should and still maintaining a thorough sregt vetting of the individuals that we should. The basic principle behind precheck is great because its an idea if you are a known traveller we have to spend less time you on than an unknown traveler, and bringing precheck back to its basic form which is we know who you are. We wrote this report and briefed members of congress, and there is proposed legislation in the house of representatives, its called the secure and expedited screening act hr2127. It directs tsa to bring it back to what it used to be which is somebody looks at you and knows you are a trusted traveler. As opposed to some of the risk rules they now apply. I also wanted to followup, we heard a lot of discussion today about the vetting process, but one thing, because i also serve as the chair of the aviation sub committee, the sit abadges, and wanting to understand your perspective on tsas rule issuing the badges and many are not being kept track of and that responsibility is left to the local airports. What would you assess in terms of this issue . Is that a potential vulnerability and what recommendations do you have in that front . To whomever would like to answer that. Let me just start by saying its an airports responsibility, and there are mechanisms they have in place at the airport level to do regular checks with each of their contractors to make sure the badges can be accounted for, and i believe there is a trigger like a 5 trigger if a certain number of badges have been lost they would all be reissued. There are controls in place but i think its an issue that warrants additional attention. We are doing some work on that, given the news that has been recently out there. We have had other incidents with the badges that cause deep concern . We are doing work with regard to that, going to the sites and figuring whether or not the airport authorities are appropriately and properly accounting for the citabadges and frankly doing testing to see whether or not we could piggy back into a secured area and those types of things. We conduct tests where we will call the airport and report that a employee has been terminated, and that was a special activity we did recently, while we found a couple challenges in most cases when the badge was reported lost or missing, the airport did turn off the access associated with the badge. I thank you for being here. Let me say to chairman johnsons point, you know, i certainly the tsa agents i interact with in manchester on a regular basis i think they are very hard working, so putting together the right process for the people who are trying to do this job effectively every day and making sure they have our support i think is important, and then also insuring those agents that are doing well are empowered to do their job, i think thats part of our function here as well. Thank you all. Senator mccaskill. Thank you. There is no evidence right now that you have that shows that contracted tsa is cheaper or better, correct . I do not, no. You are not aware of any that exists . Correct. The phag tphaupl tur versus ati. Do we have good numbers of costs to operate and speed of use on those two different devices . We have not done any work in that area. I know tsa itself has matrix with regard to that but i dont have that available. Since i feel like i am handcuffed because we dont have tsa here. I will request it from tsa if its available. I am always looking for ait, and i get somebody to touch me a lot or i do ait and so even though you dont know this unless you start asking i go through the preline and then ask them to go over to the ait machine. Now, some airports immediately accommodate you, and others know you cant do that, and every airport is different, like snowflakes, and some say you can lose your shoes on and everything in, and if you have your tsa preboarding pass with you, and others are not, you know, they its kind of a mess. I dont really care as long as i get to go through this instead of this. So i in about 50 of the time, they have the ait shut down and i have to ask for them to open it. They may have one sitting there, and some airports dont even have one sitting there, but it was not until very recently they had one at the terminal at reagan. I am curious if your work has focused on this and maybe the marshal can speak to this too, but why arent we keeping those ait machines going all the time at every facility because we spend a lot of money on them, and i know this is the whole thing of time versus safety. How quickly can we move people through, right . Is that what it is . Yes, thats the essence of the problem. Its much faster to expedite people through a metal detector but this is better security than going through a metal detector. A metal detector will not detect a nonmetallic ied which is one of the biggest threats to Aviation Security. Think of all the travelers going through that that dont know that have knees and hips that dont know how much time they are going to save and how much time tsa is going to save if they go through the ait instead, if they were to ask like i ask. I am worried they are letting me use it and especially at home, they know who i am and you know, thats really wrong. Anybody with a hip or knee ought to be told they should go through the ait to save time and money, and of course, be more safe. I want to keep following up on this. Why cant we have more ait machines . Because we are cutting the budget. So we have to remember as we all sit and pound the desk about how bad tsa is, we keep cutting the amount of money they have. We ask them to do more and do it better. Clearly one of the issues is, in fact, resources and how many people are working. The times i have gotten into Difficult Conversations at the airport about why its not open is because we dont have the stuff to run it. I think thats also an issue. The marshals. Marshals. Are you saying that now, mr. Mcclain, that they arent prebordering the marshals . Have they changed that . Its hit or miss. It depends on where theyre flying from. One thing they all tell me that when they fly from international, origins theyre paraded by the foreign agents. I still see them preboarding. I mean, its pretty obvious who they are. Well, the way it should be done they should be boarding with the passengers. By the way, isnt that better security, also . Because arent they comingling with passengers with more opportunities with eyes and ears and absolutely. To figure out who there might be on that plane that might be a problem. Correct. I mean when they roll up, you know at the beginning of boarding and they go on clearly theyre not physically impaired. Clearly theyre not traveling with small children. Now theyre not in uniform but usually theyre in jeans and i mean you know, its its not like and then theyre sitting in strategic places on the airplane when you get on. So i dont understand why is this something that anybody can speak to . Why do they think its a good idea to put these people on ahead of time . We cant dictate what the Foreign Countries can do. No. But thats just here in the United States. Im not aware of that. I understand that that problem has been that the air marshals have the option 100 option to board with the passengers. But most of the air marshals now are flying long, long routes to places where theyre not theyre mandating preboarding so the janitors see them. The workers on the flight line. I see them on my plane and typically the planes im going on are not longer then a twohour flight and getting on ahead of time. Thats a problem. Is that their option any . Yes it is. Why . Shouldnt they be required to stand in line and comingle . I would like that. Absolutely. At the same time they could be gauging suspicious activity. Right. If you want them wacking around an airport, a Perfect Place and be among the airport is waiting in line with all the passengers. Correct. Is there a reason that theyre being given the option . Do you know, ms. Roering since tsa is not here or ms. Grover or mr. Roth . I dont have an answer to that but we could ask to find out and getting back to you. I mean, its more convenient for them to get on first. Its nice not to have to wait. You dont have to get especially doing i can only speculate but its possible that the air marshals may not want to lose their overahead bin space. Exactly. Just like all of us. I dont know. Just speculating. Especially when youre traveling of an airline like southwest which i fly frequently. You know . Being at the front of the line well, Southwest Airlines its a free for all for the most part. Correct. I bet we could figure out with southwest they could make sure that they dont have some seats at the front. And that all depends on how how smart the flight attendants are going to run that operation. Okay. Well, im i want to stay on the contractor versus employee and continue. Would you all be willing to i need to talk about this but it seems to me that you all ought to start putting in the audit in the report from gao, the budget for the year of which you are doing the work compared to the previous years. I think Everyone Needs to understand that there is a price to be paid for us continuing to cut and cut and cut the domestic side of Homeland Security the domestic side of our national protection. It is a problem that were seeing this year again where were going to create a 40 billion slush fund in the department of defense but yet were going to shortchange port security, airport security, Cyber Security cia, fbi. All in the name of holding on to an illconceived sequestration number so i think you guys should think about doing that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you senator mccaskill. I have to throw out the word prior toization. Priority spending. Rest assured. This is first in a series of hearings on tsa. Ill get a chance at tsa . Yeah. And we can talk about boarding group b on Southwest Airlines for folks. Senator bouldin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this very valuable hearing. Also want to thank the witnesses and especially our whistleblower witnesses for being here to share your stories and your experience. And a special thanks to ms. Roering. You raised the alarm on inadequate precheck background checks and as you are stationed at the minneapolis st. Paul International Airport where as the chairman and i know many of our constituents flying in and out of on their ways the other destinations we appreciate your leadership. I wanted to follow up online of questioning of a couple of the previous questioning that some of the previous senators have went down. With mr. Roth, just so i understand it very specifically, with regard to tsa access to the terrorismrelated information in these databases and in particular the lack of access to certain codes, i thought i heard you say earlier that there was a statutory impediment and then you indicated that it is in the process of being worked out bureaucratically between agencies and i want some clarity for our committee as to whether we need to see legislation on this pushed through in an expedited fashion or whether this is on the verge of being resolved between agencies. Thank you for that question. And my apologies for the confusion confusion. An i understand the process, it is an administrative process that is done sort of within the government itself. There is nt a need for legislation. I think the access to that information is generally governed by statute and doesnt require a statutory fix for tsa to apply to have access to those codes. Only for example, if the committee that decides whether or not tsa has access to the codes for some reason refuses that access, there may be a statutory fix thats needed but until that process goes all the way through, i think thats what needs to occur. While i am on the topic of legislative or policy changes that we should be aware of, i think most of the testimony that ive heard points to leadership points to management, tonights to following the rule that is are already in place or examining that all of which the agency would have the authority to do as it currently stands. Please highlight for me each of you if theres anything in your testimony that we should Pay Attention to that requires statutory change. Anybody . Okay. Thank you. I wanted to have you, ms. Roering, speak a little bit further about this issue of performance metrics that are skewed towards timeliness rather than accuracy. I know you touched on this briefly in response to senator carper. But can you elaborate more on Performance Measures that track wait times and those that track the ability to detect weapons or explosives . And how that reflects or how that affects both safety and tso performance. Thank you for the question senator baldwin. When theres a excessive wait time, which by definition for tsa is currently over 20 minutes in a regular lane and 5 minutes in a precheck lane, theres immediate reporting required through our Coordination Centers to the regional offices and ultimately to headquarters. That report requires an analysis of the individual number of tsos out for training or called sick and scheduled absences. Theres just a lot of focus and a lot of information that is needed to be gathered when we have an excessive wait times. In terms of our monthly testing which is conducted by my inspectors, we brief the fsd basically once a month on the results of the tests. There is no metric associated with it. The test results are shared amongst screening management. But quite honestly, there is just no metric to focus on the detection rates and whether or not that would reflect badly on the fsd scorecard. Mr. Maclean, you have brought to our attention a lot of information about the threat of ieds. And certainly, given the failed bombing attack of the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber and these sort of things, the evolving ability of terrorists to assemble miniature ieds and remotely detonate them or as you described the increased threat of larger ieds in the airport perimeter are huge concerns. Youve already commented a little bit further in the questioning but how do you believe resources should be reprioritized to better protect against these threats . And, if you could elaborate a little bit more about the viper teams that you were talking about earlier and that capacity to help address this threat. Im glad you asked that. I really want the talk about it. Once again, the precheck is done well, it reduces the time that the screeners need to focus on nonthreatening passengers so id like to see those tsos to participate more on viper teams and then the four points that i mentioned on the physical security implementation on the aircraft so that you can get more air marshals on the ground into those viper teams. I love that thought of an these are not teams that i want down there ripping and arresting anybody that they see. This is purely trying to build rapport from the local authorities all the way down to janitors and cooks. For instance, you might have a cook that sees something every day, the same thing but one time he reported it to his boss and might be a knucklehead who says i dont have time for this. Youre not a cop. Quit playing cop. I have Better Things to do. So hes frustrated so you know he doesnt barely speaks english. Doesnt want to go forward with it. But if theres that uniform viper guy who has built a rapport with him, asked him about his family, is very interested in what he sees every day, he might come to him for something thats out of that ordinary. That little thing just may be that ied that air marshals are scared to death to be stuck flying with. Thank you. Thanks, senator baldwin. Senator langford. I thank all of you for your work on this. Millions of americans fly every day and theyre very dependent on whats happening with tsa and the security and you all bring to the table from whistleblowing and basic inspections so appreciate what youre doing to help out the American People on this. Its extremely important. Let me run through a couple different questions here. Mr. Roth you had in your testimony that you repeatedly found that human error often a simple following protoll cois a vulerability vulerabilities. What do you attribute that so . Systemic . Training . Management is that morale . Where is that coming from . I would say its all of the above, senator. I mean i think it does involve training. It does involve morale. It does involve management. You have a large workforce and youre right. It is one of these things that you have to follow the sop every time. If you dont that is where you find the vulnerables. Theres all kinds of accountability built in for time and efficiency. If you go past 20 minutes theres accountability is there struck dhur built in for someone not following protocol. Im not aware of that. Other folks seen that . Is the standard really become a timebased standard at this point . It is a timebased standard but if our tsos dont follow sop the agency treats that as a conduct issue versus performance issue and impacts morale. Sure. Tsa agents and whats happening at department of Homeland Security on the whole is terrible morale on the whole. These are great folks and the people i travel back and forth with in Oklahoma City catch a flight every single week terrific folks. And extremely friendly. Very engaged. They understand the value of whats going on. Great folks but the morale seems to continue to come in time and time and time again bad. That doesnt help us as the traveling public. Let me go through a couple things here, as well. Mr. Roth, also there have been ongoing issues with procurement. With tsa. Both getting equipment thats outdated, getting the wrong equipment, too much equipment stored a warehouse and an ongoing problem. Is it Getting Better . Its hard to determine that at this point. Certainly, the kinds of work that we have been doing shows that this is a continual problem. We just did a report, for example, with regard to tsa maintenance contracts where its about a 1. 2 billion set of contracts over a course of 4 years in which tsa doesnt have the ability to understand whether or not routine maintenance is being performed or whether theyre being billed for things that occurred. Basic sustainment. Correct. Okay. Whats happen og tning on the procurement side . Vendors know theres a large market. Is there a good standard of improvement there to say this piece of equipment is 2 better . Is that enough to be a multimillion, multibillion dollar contract . How are the standards for procurement coming out to affect the effectiveness . This is an emphasis area of the secretary trying to professionalize the procurement process in dhs. Tsa is part of that. I cant speak to current acquisition projects but it is something that, you know, frankly, remains a challenge. I will say, for example, the ait machines, thats a single vendor and there is no real competition within the market for what is a very significant capital purchase. Okay. We have had a lot of conversation this morning about precheck. And about how precheck you have a Million People that have gone through that process of precheck. But we have what was the number . 7 Million People that are now basically authorized to go through it through other variations. Do we need to change the name to Something Else . Because we have a large number of people that are really not being prechecked. Theyre expedited through this process. Am i getting that correct . That go ahead. Yes, sir. Thats correct. Particularly for people who are selected at the airport these are not individuals who were previously identified as low risk and so tsas premise is that they are providing realtime threat assessment through the use of behavior detection officers and explosives detection. But we have raised concerns about the lack of effectiveness data on the bdos. And during the time of our review we found that tsa wasnt consistently using the explosive trace detection as their protocols called for so theres a need for more attention to that. If i remember the report correctly from reading through it, you can correct me on this if i get it wrong, basically evaluated for behavioral detection, didnt come out than random chance did. Yes, sir. Thats right. Okay. So well thats not really precheck at that point. Thats difficult to call the precheck line theres no no check and part of its gone through and a thorough vetting process and part of it is just random chance theyre going through it. So my understanding is this is a faster process because theyve done a more thorough background and i understand mr. Maclean theres great benefit to help separate as you said to be able to blow some of the hay off the stack and easier to find the needle. I get that completely but we cant call it precheck if its no check and precheck combined. Youre familiar with century . Yes. I know Border Patrol agent who applied for century and denied because when he was a juvenile he got into a fight. He cannot have a century pass. So maybe its some things are not being put together and implemented right. Right. But i love the program just because im good with the program. A lot of americans regular fliers, want to go through that and the vetting and to be able to go through a line thats a faster line and prechecktype line. My statement is if its prechecked, have it prechecked. A trusted traveler, i have no problem with that. Aktsive duty military no problem. Folks randomly saying you dont look like a terrorist and put you over there, thats not really precheck at this point. We have another line for that. And we need to be able to evaluate that as well. Theres 73 people and others talked about this, as well. Ig reported that had their code related to terrorism. I would assume that means theyre on the nofly list. These are individuals that tsa had allowed to go through the system as employees kind of behind the perimeter there. They would not be on the necessarily be on the nofly list. The tide list is a very sort of broad list of terrorist identities and verifyer haveverifyied and not verified. Thats a subsection of that tide list. Of that larger list in. Yes. How quickly can that be corrected where that record is tied into tsa and so they can have access to be able to look at both . I dont have that information with me. I know that the specific 73 names we did report back to tsa and theyre taking action on those folks. Will have an idea how fast they could take action on that just to be able to do as a follow up . Im sorry. I dont. Well find out the speed of that and so we can be able to sync the lists together. Thank you. A quick followup on that. Youre saying we dont need legislation. The authority exists and a will to do it . Thats my understanding. Okay. I want to summarize some things we have heard. Were really basically trying to detect two things. Explosives or weapons. The failure with the aits, obviously, we put those in place to try to detect explosives because metal detectors dont and so we use the aits and now weapons are getting through. I mean Pretty Simple solution be either two views through the ait, i dont want to discuss where the failure is but you know, frontal and a sidal view as well as putting a metal detector on the other side . That would be a relatively simple solution and certainly increase the rate of detection. Is that not true . I would assume it would be for weapons. Okay. Then that leaves us with explosives. What work is done in terms of bombsniffing dogs . I have read some things, bombsniffing dogs are extremely effective. Can anybody speak to that . Mr. Maclean youre shaking your head. I was blown away with what a dog can sense. Ive seen heroine wrapped in coffee, duct tape, wrap and sealed and then and then dunked in a tank of gasoline and the tank sealed and secure and the dog still hits on it so if they can do that with drugs, even if they do that with bombs, theyre amazing. Theyre amazing creatures. Ms. Roering . Currently, the Regulatory Program has oversight for the passenger screening canine program an i have witnessed various locations the use of a decoy where an individual be carrying an explosive in a backpack or on their person and every case the dog was able to detect the explosive and also very favorable results with that program. Yes, sir. Tsa has about 800 canine teams total now and they have been found to be effective. Theyre expensive. So is the billions of dollars expending on again security theater. Yes, sir. Again, all let me be clear. I think security theater to an extent does deter. I think we need as mr. Maclean was talking about layered defense. Think outside of the box. We have to think smarter. If you have got a very High Percentage in terms of effectiveness of a bombsniffing dog, i think that solution is pretty obvious isnt it . Inspector general roth, can you speak to that . I think its important for tsa to look at all options and to figure out exactly whats going to work. But try different things. This reliance on this cuttingedge technology clearly has its challenges to it so i would agree with you they need to start to look at other things, as well. Isnt part of the problem as personals, we watch movies and we just you know we always have a Silver Bullet technological solution and finding out that these Technological Solutions are failing at a very high rate. And so maybe we need to step back a little bit and go what actually works and again i would argue a bombsniffing dog, they may be expensive but if we earn 100 rs effective think of how expensive that will be. So i mean do you know how expensive are the units . Can you illuminate the committee on that . So i believe that the startup costs are about 100,000 for the conventional canines and the neighborhood of 220,000 for the psc, the passenger screening canines. And then an annual cost thereafter of 60,000 a year for the conventional canines and about 160,000 a year for the psc canine teams. I would love to have a report that takes those costs multiply those times the number of teams to have full coverage of the u. S. Airports. You look like youre chomping the bit here. Remember every canine comes with an officer. Precisely. Whos got a keen sense of feeling people out reading faces, Building Rapport sometimes a dog with you people approach you or you become more approachable. Again, my point is what were doing clearly isnt working. And so we have got to think outside the box and look for a different solution. I do want to give you the opportunity because you really werent able to tell your story of whistleblowing. I really do want you to tell your story and how you retaliated against because thats been a problem that ive seen repeatedly now in my four years of people that have the courage within the federal government, coming forward telling a story that has to be told and then retall yalted against, has a Chilling Effect on those individuals that we do need to come forward so please take this opportunity to tell your story. Well, in july of 2003 it kind of accidentally fell on my lap. We were, after a lot of problems with us preboarding before the passengers wearing having to wear somewhat of a uniform to get on every flight we were brought in for an unprecedented emergency suicidal al qaeda terrorist hijack emergency briefing. And we were all told that in any moment we were going to be under attack and the flight deck was going to be breached and those aircraft were going to be flown into east coast u. S. Targets and european capitals. Just two days afterwards, all air marshals got an unsecured text message sent to their unsecured phone instead of their encrypted smartphones, a message that theres theres we want everyone to avoid late cancelation fees, therefore we need to have everyone cancel their hotel rooms indefinitely. The gao and the Inspector General discovered that that was going to be the plan for the next until the new fiscal year. So, for 60 days or longer, any aircraft that was going to fly four hours or longer was not going to have an air marshal team on them. So i initially first of all we thought it was sort of a test. We get this text message made no sense to us. Two days after this emergency briefing. So i just wanted to confirm it with the supervisor. And the supervisor told me, he goes, weve run out of money and were going to have to fly puddle jumpers until something happens. This occurred when . When did this briefing in late july of 2008. Okay. So afterwards, i called the Inspector General hotline and i got routed to okay. To two other offices. We need to stand in recess for this committee hearing. We have apparently the Capitol Police is clearing this we should be locked down stay in place . No. Were clearing the flors. Clearing the floors. If you could orderly fashion please exit as quickly as possible. Thank you. More Live Programming coming your way with a the Senate Foreign Relations Committee working on a proposed authorization for military force against isis. This is being introduced by virginia democrat tim caine and Arizona Republican jeff flake live 2 30 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3 and later the House Rule Committee marking up the defense appropriations bill. Members will also consider legislation regarding the labeling of meat that originates abroad. Well join this after the Senate Foreign relations event wraps up. Probably 5 30 eastern p. M. With live coverage of the u. S. Senate and house, here on cspan3 we compliment that coverage with the congressional hearings and public afirs events and then weekends cspan3 is home to American History tv with programs that tell our nations story. Including six unique series the civil wars 150th anniversary visiting battlefields and key events. American artifacts touring museums and Historic Sites to discover what artifacts reskreel about americas past. History bookshelf with writers. The presidency looking at the poll sis and leg sills of our nations commanders and chief. Lectures in history with top college professors. And our new series real america featuring government and educational fim ms from the 1930s through the 70s. Cspan3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by the local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. The Supreme Court term ends at the end of june with major decisions on health care samesex marriage and housing discrimination remaining. Next, legal professionals discuss how the courts decisions in the cases can have Lasting Impact on the country and constitutional law. This runs about 90 minutes. Good morning. My name is winny and im the executive Vice President of external affairs here at the center for american progress. And it is my pleasure to welcome you to cap for this very important conversation. As americans and as progressives, we are well aware of the central role that the United States Supreme Court has played in the history and wellbeing of our country. Their charge to provide a level Playing Field and ensure equal justice under the law has continue continually broadened our nations definition of we the people and expanded the circle of opportunity for americans once excluded and exploited. When the court has met its charge, and propelled progress and equality forward, our nation has been the better for it. Through brown and loving, griswold and row, gideon and miranda, the court has upheld that the promise and protections of our country are meant for all. That our constitution is a thriving and living document and that our Justice System should be fair. Thats why courts matter. But just like the broader story of america the progress facilitated by our courts has not always been consistent or constant. The power to change america for the better also comes with the authority to do the opposite. To restrict access enable corruption and deny freedom to americans left behind by other institutions. And thats why courts matter. Because they can stip the scales even further in favor of the powerful and privileged. After 60 years of advances, a majority of the justices on the court have increasingly and certainly too often reversed the progress of the 20th century. Over the last 15 years, they have corrupted the notion of religious liberty, transforming it from a shield to protect religious organizations and religious minorities to a sword to impose harm on the already marginalized and they have restricted and diminished the voices and votes of every day personals in our elections by gutting the Voting Rights act and deregulating money in politics. The three major cases we are discussing today face the most conservative court in decades. Each of these three major decisions is integral for the functioning and future of our country. A positive decision in any one or two of these cases does not diminish and will not diminish or negate the damage of a negative decision in just one. In their hands this month rests the hopes of thousands of loving and committed samesex couples waiting for decades to walk down the aisle with a person whom they love. In their hands this month rests the ability of the federal government to effectively combat housing discrimination based on Race Color National origin, Family Status or religion. Housing discrimination has remained one of the most persistent and insidious forms of Racial Discrimination since the 1960s and should the Supreme Court strike down the one of the major avenues for recourse, disparate impact claims, theyll provide cover to prejudice and bias that have kept the American Dream out of reach for far too many families. In their hands this june rests the stability and future of the American Health care system and quite literally the lives of 6 million americans who receive subsidies in the federal exchanges. We are no longer merely talking about the Affordable Care act or president obamas health care law. We are talking about whether the American Health care system will continue to work for all or whether one action by the Supreme Court will send our Health Care System into chaos with prices skyrocketing and Affordable Access shut off for millions. The stakes couldnt be higher. Millions of lives hang in the balance. Legal progress is the legal policy arm at the center for american progress. No matter the issue health care immigration, marriage equality, offshore drilling privacy, ethics, the judiciary will play an increasingly Important Role in the lives of hard working americans as well as the success of the progressive legislative agenda. Through legal analysis policy Analysis Communications public educations and convening key stakeholders, legal progress is helping to push the american legal system in a more progressive direction and educate the public about the impact of the courts on issues they care about most. Each of the decisions well discuss today will impact the health, wellbeing and security of millions of americans and to introduce our distinguished panelists it is my pleasure to introduce the moderator of todays discussion, ari melber. Chief Legal Correspondent for msnbc and cohost of msnbcs popular daytime show the cycle and the writer of law and politics covering politics, law and Constitutional Rights on msnbc. Com. In addition to his work on msnbc. Com, ari is an attorney and correspondent for the nation and his writings appeared in the atlantic salon, politico and the american prospect. Ari practiced First Amendment law at a major firm in new york city and worked for the 2004 john kerry president ial campaign and a legislative aide for cannot cantwell. Thank you for joining us ari. And the floor is now yours. Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. So excited about the panel well get under way. You know that the tv show that im on is popular because she said so. And thats thats a good rule ofmwkc thumb. Just keep that in mind. Just keep telling everyone that. I want to do this very quickly which is call up each of our star panelists one at a time. Not unlike a big popular kind of concert or if anyone has been to coachella, you dido the names one at a time. We dont need to do laud applause. Michelle jowando to the stage, Vice President here at legal progress. You heard about what they do. She worked as general counsel to senator gillibrand and served as National Campaign manager at people for the american way. And many other things the i. Im going to keep this moving. Trust theres more to the bio. Robby cap lynn is a partner at paul weiss. A major firm and successfully argued before the Supreme Court for edith windsor. You may have heard of that case. Welcome her. [ applause ] ian mill haweser is a senior fellow here at cap and written extensively about the law. Come on up. Clerked for judge eric clay on the 6th circuit. Lisa rice, come on up executive Vice President for the National Fair Housing Alliance which is very much involved in the fair housing case were going 0 discuss and other civil rights issues. [ applause ] elizabeth taylor, executive director of the executive health law program. She works in the washington office. Welcome her up here. Spent her career advancing justice in the courtroom and the