Transportation Security Administration officials are heading to the Hill on Tuesday for the first time since a report found its workers failed to find fake explosives and weapons in internal tests at almost all of America’s busiest airports.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday titled “Oversight of the Transportation Security Administration: First-Hand and Government Watchdog Accounts of Agency Challenges.”
Lawmakers are scheduled to hear testimony from officials with the TSA, Federal Air Marshall Service, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, who released the initial report about the failed bomb tests.
{mosads}The report documented a series of undercover stings in which agents tried to pass through security with prohibited items, although much of its findings still remain classified.
The undercover agents made it through security in nearly all the tests — 67 of 70 — including one instance where a TSA screener failed to find a fake bomb, even after the undercover agent set off a magnetometer. The screener reportedly let the agent through with the fake bomb taped to his back, having missed it during a pat-down.
Lawmakers have sharply criticized the TSA since the findings were made public, and the agency’s interim director was removed from office.
TSA officials have noted that the bomb tests were conducted by a group of employees who are known as “Red Teams” that are trained specifically in security evasion.