As the Transportation Security Administration continues to pour money into airport security, the agency continues to prove it is ill prepared for the next threat and all to often wastes taxpayers money and time. Over the past few years, I exposed security flaws at DFW that occur at an alarmingly all to common rate.
A passenger security screening checkpoint was left unattended for 90 Minutes.
Armed undercover TSA agents repeatedly cracked security by sneaking weapons through DFW security gates.
Employee portals to secure areas of the airport are left unattended.
TSA spent 30 million dollars on passenger screening machines that had to be put in storage because they don’t work.
Those are just a few of the security flaws I uncovered at DFW. Following my years of covering what has become an out of control agency, the TSA now faces a serious problem of employing over zealous agents who repeatedly infringe on the individual rights of passengers.
I was one of the first reporters nationwide to report on the controversial “enhanced pat down” technique. Once again, common sense has been lost. Groping kids and strip searching elderly passengers in Depends is ridiculous. The TSA needs to be reined in so it can get back to the business of keeping our skies safe by using legitimate screening techniques and technology that target terrorists not travelers who follow the law.
TSA, The Latest Agency to Waste our Money
The TSA tried to keep its latest waste of tax dollars quiet. That’s an impossible task once I get on the case. I refused to give up and demanded the information that revealed, More than 200 machines once touted as a high-tech response to keep the skies safe have been quietly removed from service.
The 207 Explosive Trace Detection portals purchased by the Transportation Security Administration are now sitting in a government warehouse.
The $150,000 machines were designed to blast passengers with a puff of air and then analyze the particles it shook loose searching for any sign of explosive materials. “When they worked well, they were outstanding,” said Larry Wansley, the former head of security for American Airlines.
The problem is, the units rarely worked.
“With the testing that was done in the labs, they really couldn’t simulate an airport environment, and that was the joker in the deck,” Wansley said.
The TSA would not agree to an interview, but a spokesperson confirmed that dirt, debris and humidity commonly found in most airports rendered the units useless. The agency now acknowledges that it spent nearly $30 million to purchase and maintain the so-called “puffer machines.” The outrage… less than half of the units were ever deployed.
In 2008, the TSA started to remove the 94 units that were deployed across the country. The last remaining machines were removed from service last year.
The bottom line is the TSA wasted $30 million in a rush to put untested technology into service before conducting the necessary research.
“When you’re talking about spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money, you have to wonder why these things have not been tried and tested and trued up in some form or fashion,” said Katrina Pierson, co-founder of Tea Party Review Magazine.
“There is so much government waste,” Wansley said. “This is just another example of the $500 crescent wrench — same thing.”
TSA and Government Waste
The TSA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on so called “High tech” screening equipment. The only problem is the the TSA found out the equipment doesn’t work properly, so now hundreds of expensive bomb detection machines sit in storage. The taxpayer losses again.
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Security at DFW
DFW is one of the busiest airports in the world. While at NBC5 I prided myself on exposing its security flaws in an effort to force DFW officials to institute changes to make air travel safer.
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More Security Flaws
More airport security flaws exposed at DFW airport. This was one of my NBC5 investigations that revealed a potential hole in security when it comes to keeping terrorists out of secure areas of the airport.
View more videos at: http://nbcdfw.com.
