Transportation Security

TSA partially complied with the Act by establishing operational processes for routine activities within its Explosives Detection Canine Team (EDCT)  program for surface transportation.  Specifically, TSA has a national training program for canines and handlers, uses canine assets to meet urgent security needs, and monitors and tracks canine assets.  However, TSA did not comply with the Act’s requirements to evaluate the entire EDCT program for alignment with its risk-based security strategy or develop a unified deployment strategy for its EDCTs for surface transportation.  We recommended that TSA coordinate with its law enforcement agency partners to conduct an evaluation of the EDCT program and develop an agency-wide deployment strategy for surface transportation consistent with TSA's Surface Transportation Risk-Based Security Strategy.  TSA concurred with both recommendations.   

We determined that U.S Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) mail inspection processes and physical security at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport International Mail Facility (IMF) are ineffective, showing limited progress since our prior audit.  CBP inspected approximately [REDACTED] percent of the 1.3 million pieces of mail it received during our June 2019 site visit.  CBP also did not timely inspect and process mail from high-risk countries, creating unmanageable backlogs. These deficiencies were largely because of inadequate resources and guidance.  Consequently, more than [REDACTED] pieces of mail were sent out for delivery without physical inspection.  We made eight recommendations aimed at improving international mail processes at JFK International Airport.  CBP concurred with six, but non-concurred with two of the recommendations. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) identified and targeted high-risk cargo shipments, CBP did not always prevent air carriers from transporting high-risk air cargo from foreign airports into the United States.  This occurred because neither CBP nor TSA developed adequate policies and procedures to ensure air carriers resolved referrals timely or appropriately.  We made four recommendations to CBP and TSA to mitigate a number of vulnerabilities in the Air Cargo Advance Screening Program.  CBP and TSA concurred with all four recommendations. 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) does not monitor the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) to ensure it continues to fulfill needed capabilities.  Although the AIT met the requirement for system availability, TSA did not monitor the AIT’s probability of detection rate and throughput rate requirements set forth in TSA’s operational requirements document.  These issues occurred because TSA has not established comprehensive guidance to monitor performance of the AIT system.  Without continuous monitoring and oversight, TSA cannot ensure the AIT is meeting critical system performance requirements—a consistent weakness found in prior DHS OIG reports.  We made two recommendations designed to improve TSA’s monitoring of the AIT system.  TSA concurred with our recommendations.

The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) methods for classifying its Office of Inspection (OOI) criminal investigators as law enforcement officers were adequate and valid, but the data TSA used were not adequate or valid. TSA’s criminal investigators spend at least 50 percent of their time performing criminal investigative duties to be classified as law enforcement officers. The FY 2017 timesheet data TSA used to validate that its criminal investigators met the 50 percent requirement were not adequate and valid as the data were not always timely submitted and approved. This occurred because OOI officials lacked oversight and accountability for the timesheet submission, review, and approval processes. Further, criminal investigators and their supervisors did not always complete and approve certification forms as required to verify eligibility for premium pay. In some instances, incorrect timesheet calculations inflated the annual average of unscheduled duty hours criminal investigators worked to be eligible for premium pay. OOI management did not develop and implement guidance to review these key calculations annually. Without better oversight and valid timesheet data, TSA cannot ensure it is accurately classifying criminal investigators as law enforcement officers. TSA also may be wasting agency funds on criminal investigators ineligible to receive premium pay. We made four recommendations that, when implemented, should help TSA improve data used to classify its OOI criminal investigators as law enforcement officers. TSA concurred with all of our recommendations.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) needs to continue to improve its retention, hiring, and training of Transportation Security Officers (TSO). Specifically, TSA needs to better address its retention challenges because it currently does not share and leverage results of TSO exit surveys and does not always convey job expectations to new-hires. TSA does not fully evaluate applicants for capability as well as compatibility when hiring new TSOs. Thus, the agency may be making uninformed hiring decisions due to inadequate applicant information and a lack of formally documented guidance on ranking potential new-hires

The objective was to determine whether TSA implemented proper procedures to safeguard the secure areas of our Nation’s airports and whether airports, aircraft operators, and contractors were complying with TSA’s security requirements to control access to these areas.

We identified vulnerabilities with various airport access control points and associated access control procedures. We made six recommendations related to standard operating procedures, deployment of new technology, identification of industry best practices, and training.