Lawmaker Concerned About 'Trust-But-Don't-Verify' Security Loopholes

Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, responded Thursday to the release of a July report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General, Richard L. Skinner. The report identified dangerous security gaps in the policies DHS uses to ensure the safety of commercial cargo carried on passenger planes.

"This report is a scathing indictment of the Department of Homeland Security's current policies for verifying that bombs, explosives and other dangerous items are not slipped into cargo containers carried in the belly of a passenger plane," Rep. Markey said. "The Department's own Inspector General has confirmed concerns I have repeatedly raised about dangerous cargo security loopholes, including the failure of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to ensure that air carriers are complying with screening requirements and TSA's reliance on paper records rather than physical examinations of cargo," Markey said.

In the report, "Transportation Security Administration's Oversight of Passenger Aircraft Cargo Security Faces Significant Challenges", the DHS Inspector General concluded:

• "The TSA's  inspection process may not accurately represent the extent to which air carriers comply with cargo screening requirements."
• "The current level of oversight does not provide assurance that air carriers are meeting congressionally-mandated goals of tripling the amount of cargo screened for passenger aircraft…Consequently, the process increases opportunities for the carriage of explosives, incendiaries, and other dangerous devices on passenger aircraft."
• "TSA information reported to the Congress regarding air carrier compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements may be inaccurate."
• "TSA's security programs are not clearly written, allowing ASIs (TSA's Aviation Security Inspectors) and air carriers to interpret and apply the regulations differently."

Markey is the primary author of the air cargo provision included in Public Law 110-53, the law to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which requires -- within three years -- the screening of all cargo carried on passenger planes at a level of security commensurate to the security applied to airline passengers' checked bags, according to a statement by the lawmaker.

"As TSA develops the system to screen all the cargo carried on passenger planes, I am extremely concerned that some of the same weaknesses exposed by the Department's Inspector General could undermine the new system's effectiveness. I am particularly troubled that a so-called 'Certified Shipper' program being developed by TSA could be plagued by the same type of 'trust-but-don't-verify' security loopholes uncovered in today's report," he said.

"I will be closely monitoring TSA's implementation of the new 100 percent cargo screening requirements."

FMI: www.tsa.gov, www.dhs.gov, http://markey.house.gov, Read the report