Last week the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released the unclassified summary of its latest audit of covert testing of airport screeners’ ability to detect IEDs and IED components in both carry-on and checked baggage. OIG undercover personnel conducted unannounced, clandestine testing at eight domestic airports between late May 2007 through August 2007.

Meanwhile, questions have been raised by intelligence authorities and lawmakers about whether high screener turn-over and some screeners at congested airports having been told to speed up the screening process have contributed to some of the problems DHS’s OIG discovered.

There’s no way to independently scrutinize the impact of these concerns though because the OIG’s report is classified. The summary assures, however, that the IG’s conclusions about “the strengths and weaknesses of the Transportation Security Administration’s [TSA] procedures, equipment, and supervision to ensure that Transportation Security Officers are able to prevent threat items from being introduced into the sterile areas and checked baggage systems of the nation’s airports” have been discussed with senior DHS officials “and appropriate congressional committees.”

DHS’s OIG also is not divulging “the number of tests conducted, the names of the airports tested,” or “the quantitative and qualitative results of our testing” – all that also has been classified.

Clearly, though, problems were found. DHS’s OIG stated that “as a result of our testing, we made six recommendations to TSA, which concurred with all of them.”

In contrast, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in November disclosed that its covert testers were able to sneak liquid bomb-making components past screeners in carry-on luggage 19 times in 2007. In 2006, they were able to get past screeners 21 times with incendiary devices and bomb detonators that could have “caused not insignificant explosions.”

Indeed. The two senior GAO officials involved in the testing told lawmakers the liquid bomb and other explosives components they were able to carry on board passenger jets could have been assembled in as little as ten minutes. And if successfully detonated, they could have potentially caused a “catastrophic” explosion.

“Our tests clearly demonstrate that a terrorist group, using publicly available information and few resources, could cause severe damage to an airplane and threaten the safety of passengers by bringing prohibited IED and IID components through security checkpoints,” GAO said.

That both GAO and DHS IG undercover testers succeeded in getting prohibited explosive materials past screeners proved that gaps in security existed.

“Given our degree of success, we are confident that our investigators would have been able to evade transportation security officers at additional airports had we decided to test them,” GAO stated.

“We understand the challenges TSA faces in balancing security risks with the efficient movement of passengers; however, from a strict security standpoint, current policies allowing substantial carry-on luggage and related items through TSA checkpoints increases the risk of a terrorist successfully bringing an IED, an IID, or both onto an aircraft undetected,” GAO concluded. “Even if current carry-on luggage policies are left unchanged, our testing shows that risks can be reduced through improvements in human capital, improved processes, and continued advances in technology.”

GAO briefed TSA officials on August 16, 2007, and September 5, 2007, to discuss its findings.

“TSA officials indicated that they did not disagree with our suggestions in principle and that they would examine them closely to determine whether and how they should be implemented,” GAO reported, adding, “they acknowledged vulnerabilities in human capital, processes, and technology.”

Similarly, DHS’s OIG said in its February report that TSA didn’t substantively disagree with its findings, either, and that as a consequence TSA “is enhancing the effectiveness of screening by expanding the unpredictability of screening measures.”

“When fully implemented,” DHS’s IG said, its “recommendations will improve an already strong passenger and checked baggage screening process.”

Still, some intelligence and security officials and members of Congress are concerned that the high rate of turn-over among TSA’s screener workforce and the consequent burden it sometimes puts on short-handed airports to quickly move passengers through the screening process is causing short-cuts to be taken and inexperienced new screeners to miss things veteran screeners have learned to identify and look for.

A USA Today investigation last month found that the turnover among airport security screeners is among the worst in the federal workforce despite a $100 million effort to improve salaries and work duties.

One in five screeners left between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007, federal Office of Personnel Management figures revealed. The turnover rate was the same for the previous same 12-month period. Attrition for the rest of the federal government was eight percent in 2006-07.

“Twenty percent [turnover] is pretty high,” said former DHS Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin. “You want people who are as sharp and experienced as possible, and that’s why it’s a concern.”

Airport screening checkpoints are “chronically short-handed,” Rebecca O’Bryan told USA Today. O’Bryan quit her full-time screener job at San Jose International Airport in January. “You’ve got these inexperienced people who are really slow using the equipment. It slows everything down,” she said.

But it’s clearly been a problem for some time. Three years ago HSToday.us reported that screeners at airports across the country said during interviews they were having to work longer hours and extra shifts because of understaffing, and were sometimes called to work on days off because of the lack of manpower to meet workloads.

(Also see the HSToday.us report, “Reasons for TSA Understaffing, Strains on Screeners Outlined in Report”)

In more recent interviews with screeners around the nation, they said increased security measures have put a strain on the existing workforce, including having to cut short scheduled breaks because of staffing problems.

Similarly, a screener at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, one of the busiest in the nation and an international hub, earlier told USA Today that “If there's a long line … [managers] cancel breaks.”

The New Jersey Star-Ledger reported in late February that “security screeners and supervisors at Newark Liberty International Airport are being pressured to move as many as 200 passengers through checkpoint lanes every hour to minimize wait times, according to security officials at the airport.”

The 200 passengers-per-hour goal has never been widely publicized, although TSA acknowledged it, and it has surprised some aviation security experts who assert 18 seconds of screening simply isn’t enough time – either for the screeners watching the x-ray machines or the Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs) who may be questioning flyers looking for hints of deception and dishonesty.

At major international hubs like Los Angeles and JFK airports, evidence indicates delayed flights into the US have especially put strains on screeners trying to process long lines of passengers arriving in the US who must go through TSA security before catching their domestic-bound connecting flights.

Upon returning from France last summer on a delayed flight to JFK, I encountered a TSA screening checkpoint where screeners were scrambling to process passengers through only two screening lanes because two of the normally four lanes were shut down because of “technical problems” and manpower shortages, several screeners confided. The screeners on hand when I arrived were visibly tired, stressed, and obviously taking well-reasoned shortcuts – they allowed me through with prohibited quantities of liquids, just as they did my traveling companion.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, screeners at Hartsfield-Jackson told it the pressure to shorten lines had resulted in missing some of the training mandated by TSA. Screeners said they were threatened with disciplinary action or dismissal if they didn’t sign a form each week stating they had received the training. Rather than the stipulated three hours a week, some screeners say their training has been reduced to minutes.

TSA officials have dismissed most such allegations, some of which are the subject of on-going investigations by the DHS IG’s office.

In an effort to help ease gridlock at security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan International Airport's Terminal A, TSA has established multiple “self-select lanes.” There’s a "families and special assistance," "expert," and “casual" lane.

The Diamond Lane Self Select Program debuted last month in Salt Lake City and Denver. Last week it was rolled out at in Spokane, Washington and Orlando.