Transcripts For CSPAN TSA Administrator Others Testifies Be

CSPAN TSA Administrator Others Testifies Before Oversight Reform Committee July 14, 2024

The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time. The full committee during convening to identify, resolve and present vulnerabilities on tsas Security Operations. I know recognize myself for five minutes to give an Opening Statement. Today nearly 20 years since the terrible attacks of september 11, 2001, we are holding this hearing to examine why urgent warnings from independent auditors about security vulnerabilities at the transportation and Security Administration have been languishing for years without being resolved. In 2016 i led a Bipartisan Group of members in asking the Government Accountability office to examine tsas covert Testing Program. This past april, gao issued declassified results of its work. Unfortunately, gao confirmed many of our worst fears. According to gao, nine security vulnerabilities were found in covert tests since 2016, as of september, 2018 none had been formally resolved, end of quote. Not one over the past four years. Gao also found that tsa was not using a risk informed approach, end of quote, to its covert tests. As a result, gao warned that tsa has only limited assurance that it is, quote, targeting the most likely threats. Unfortunately this is part of a larger trend. In addition to failing to implement gaos recommendation, tsa has also failed to address warnings from the Inspector General. As of this month, 36 recommendations made by the Inspector General from 12 reports on Aviation Security remain open and unfulfilled. Several of those are also many years old. I want to thank administrator pekoske for being here. And i support some of the positive steps he is taking, but we need to know why the longstanding vulnerabilities are not being adequately addressed. I thank the witnesses from gao and the Inspector General office for being here and for keeping the focus squarely on these dangers to the flying public. Today we will also examine why the Trump Administration instead of focusing all of their resources on trying to resolve these vulnerabilities is actually gravitating them in front of a weakening Aviation Security by taking tsa out of our nations airports, diverting them to the southern border. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration submitted the 2020 budget request to tsa, for tsa. In that request, the administration warned, and i quote, tsa continues to experience Airline Passenger volume growth at airports nationwide. As a result, the Trump Administration says it needs 700 more screeners at tsa. And it is asking for more funding to hire the screeners, yet at the same time the administration is diverting tsa employees away from their primary responsibilities and sending them to the southern border. We saw several press reports about this a few weeks ago. So the committee sent a letter to tsa to request the exact numbers and locations of the tsa officials who are being diverted. On friday, tsa sent a response to the committee with new information showing the extent of these diversions. According to tsa, they have already diverted nearly 200 employees from airports and headquarters to the southern border, including transportation and Security Officers, supervisors, and inspectors, as well as another 172 federal air marshals. The employees are drawn from more than 50 airports across the country, ranging from small, Regional Airports to largest, busiest airports in the nation. But this is apparently just the beginning. According to the letter on friday, tsa has already approved an additional 294 employees to divert to the southern border. Let me put this quite starkly. On one hand, tsa has dozens of security vulnerabilities that languished for years, but the Trump Administration is asking congress for 700 more tsa screeners to handle huge increases in air travel. Yet on the other hand, the Trump Administration is taking more than 350 critical tsa employees, diverting them away from the primary responsibilities, that is securing our nations airways, and sending them to the southern border. And more may be sent. The administrations actions are not helping Aviation Security, theyre harming it. In fact, in their letter to the committee on friday, tsa admitted that there is, and i quote, a potential increased risk to in flight security, end of quote. I ask unanimous consent this letter be part of the hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. And at this point it seems clear that Congress Needs to step in to ensure that tsa finally addresses the security vulnerabilities and to prevent additional airport workers from being diverted from their primary roles. Today with chairman thompson of the Homeland Security committee i am introducing the covert testing and Risk Mitigation improvement act which would establish standards for covert testing and require tsa to track and report its progress in resolving vulnerabilities as part of its annual budget submission to congress. I look forward to working closely with all of my colleagues to move this legislation as quickly as possible. With that, i now yield to distinguished member Ranking Member mr. Jordan. Thank you. Chairman asked why the administration is sending tsa personnel to the border . Why are they sending tsa personnel to the border . Because theres a crisis. A few months ago in one drug seizure enough fentanyl to kill 150 million americans. He is asking why were sending people down . Because it is a crisis. Whats the democrats response . Speaker of the house says walls are immoral abolish i. C. E. And supplemental waiting of six weeks to address the crisis. Thats the problem. Criticize the administration for trying to do anything and everything they can to deal with the humanitarian crisis on the border. Give me a break. Mr. Chairman, tsa has an Important Mission to keep americans safe, airports in the air. We rely tsa to be one step ahead of those that want to do harm. We learned as you said earlier from gao and Inspector General that tsa can improve, how to evaluate its own security vulnerabilities. I look forward to hearing from administrator pekoske about how tsa can use the work of gao and Inspector General to better secure our country. Aviation security is just one part of securing our home land. The key part is where i started, Border Security. I want to extend my appreciation to men and women of tsa, and all of the dhs components that volunteered to go to the border and help address the crisis. Theres no other word for it. The crisis. Several weeks ago, acting secretary testified to Senate Judiciary committee, identified almost 4800 migrants this year presenting as family units that were determined to be fraudulent. He testified that they uncovered talk about humanitarian crisis, think about this, uncovered child recycling rings, innocent children used multiple times to help different adults gain illegal entry into the country and be released. Also mentioned an example of custom and Border Patrol officials, speaking to a man that confessed to not being the father of the child in his custody. He told officials he paid the mother 80 to take her child so he could gain entry, be released into the country, because he knew under u. S. Law, he would be released into the interior of the United States in 20 days. But for six weeks, there has been a supplemental appropriations bill sitting there that the democrats wont pass. That child was six months old. Acting secretary said in 40 days prior to his testimony 60,000 children entered dhs custody. And were going to criticize the administration for trying to get as many people there as we can to help with the crisis . I want to commend my colleagues from texas, mr. Cloud, mr. Roy, for taking a leadership role, highlighting the emergency on the border. We must get the crisis at the border under control. Seems to me my colleagues in the majority of preoccupied criticizing the president , criticizing the administration. Too preoccupied with trying to decide whether to impeach or not to focus on the problem. Maybe we should focus on the problem, forget about the personalities, and help these kids, help this situation. I urge my colleagues today to do whatever we can, stand up for Strong Border security so we can bring an end to as i said now several times what everyone in this country understands is a crisis. I yield back. Thank you very much. I would like to welcome our witnesses, mr. Charles johnson injure, managing director for Homeland Security and issues at the Government Accountability office. Mr. Donald bumgardner is the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for audits at the u. S. Department of Homeland Security. And the honorable David Pekoske is the administrator of the transportation and Security Administration. If all of you would please rise and raise your right hand. I will swear you in. [swearing oath] let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you, you may be seated. The microphones are very sensitive, gentlemen. Please speak directly into them. Make sure theyre on when you are speaking, of course. Without objection, your written statement will be made part of the record. With that, mr. Johnson, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address gaos findings from its april, 2019 report on tsas covert Testing Program. My Statement Today will cover three areas. The extent to which theyre risk informed, produced quality information, and have been used to address security vulnerabilities. In addition, i will provide an update on actions tsa has taken in response to recommendations. Before i address these areas, it is important to note that threats to Aviation Security persist and continue to evolve. For example, the Intelligence Community has noted that terrorist organizations now have capabilities to plant explosives in personal Electronic Devices like laptops. Why is risk informed approach important . Risk informed approach not only helps Decision Makers identify and vault the threats that exist but also to develop mitigation plans. Tsa uses its covert tests as a means to do so. There are two units within tsa that undertake this effort to do covert testing. The Inspections Office which looks at a wide spectrum of security vulnerability associated with the Security System and the office or Security Operations office which focuses on the screener performance in terms of Standard Operating Procedures they established in checked baggage and check point screening. As such, these tests based on identified or potential risk. With respect to weather the covert tests are risk informed, good news. Tsa has taken steps to improve this area. Specifically the Inspections Office redesigned covert tests to be more risk informed and quantitative. And has taken additional steps to document its rationale for selecting covert tests. Additionally, the Security Operations office redesigned covert tests to address prior deficiencies identified by ourselves and the Inspector General, and more formally incorporated risk into the process, particularly use of intelligence reporting. With respect to tsas covert test producing quality information, not so good news. While tsas Inspection Office redesigned the process to produce quality information, Security Operations unit has not been able to ensure quality of its tests and covertness of tests in particular. Particularly those performed by tsa, personnel at local airports. As such, we recommended that tsa assess its Security Operations office, covert testing process, to identify opportunities to improve qualities of its tests and as i mentioned particularly consistency and undertaking the tests as well as covertness of the tests. We believe this will improve quality of test results, enhancing tsas ability to address vulnerabilities. Good news. Tsa agreed with our recommendation, estimated they will complete this recommendation, implement it within a month from now, sometime by next month. With respect to use of covert test results to identify vulnerabilities, also not so good news. We found although tsa established a Vulnerability Management process in 2015 to review and address security threats, this process in itself had not resolved any of the nine vulnerabilities submitted to the process by the Inspections Office. According to tsa, this process was set up to ensure cooperation of various tso Program Offices with expertise that could assist in addressing vulnerabilities. Among other things, we noted in the report lack of established time frames and milestones to achieve this, particularly for the office to be assigned the responsibility and to mitigate identified threats, has made it more difficult for tsa to effectively use this process to address those vulnerabilities. As such, we recommended that tsa establish time frames and milestones within steps for security vulnerabilities management process, establish procedures for monitoring progress. Good news is tsa acted and revised the process to meet intent of the recommendations. Overall, although tsa has taken some steps to improve covert Testing Program and to address two of the nine recommendations, or actually four of them, two of them we have closed as implemented, we are in process of looking at the information, five remain to be addressed. We believe sustained management attention will be needed to ensure continued progress toward identified and mitigating security vulnerabilities. This is vital to ensuring the safety of the Aviation Security system. In closing, i would like to personally thank the staff that worked on the review and this committee for the opportunity to testify today on our findings. At this point i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Mr. Bumgardner. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our work on tsa security vulnerabilities and persistent challenges. Tsa has a vital but extremely Difficult Mission to protect the nations Transportation System and ensure freedom of movement for people in commerce. Everyday Security Officers at about 450 airports screen approximately 2 million passengers, 5. 5 million carry on items, 1. 4 million checked bags. This responsibility is complicated by constantly evolving threat of adversaries, willing to use any means to cause harm and destruction. Missing one threat can have catastrophic consequences. In the past we shared concerns about vulnerabilities in tsa operations while also acknowledging tsas challenges in areas of improvement. Our more recent work continues to show tsa needs to strengthen its efforts to address persistent problems. Since 2014 we have audited and inspected various security related aspects of tsa, including passenger and baggage screening operations, precheck, federal air marshall service, and it systems. They issued 24 reports to tsa with 138 recommendations designed to reduce security vulnerabilities in the aviation Transportation System. For example, covert testing tinls to reveal persistent, troubling problems. Since dhs oig inception, we conducted thousands of covert tests. We assessed through covert testing checked baggage screening, passenger screening at check points, and airport access controls. Our findings and conclusions from these tests have been consistent with those of tsas internal testing in these areas. Because covert test results are classified, they cant be discussed here today, but we provided the department, tsa, and our appropriate congressional committees with our classified reports. Our covert testing identified vulnerabilities related to people, processes and procedures, and technology specifically. People often contribute to weaknesses inSecurity Operations due to complacency, failing to think critically. Tsa processes and procedures are

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