A congressional investigation found airport screeners employed by private companies do a better job of detecting dangerous objects than government screeners, according to a US House of Representatives member who has seen the classified report.
The Government Accountability Office found statistically significant evidence that passenger screeners, who work at five airports under a pilot program, performed better than their federal counterparts at some 450 airports, Republican Representative John Mica of Florida, chairman of the House Transportation aviation subcommittee, said on Tuesday.
"You get a statistically significant improvement if you go to federal supervision with private screening companies," Mica said.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Congress ordered every commercial airport but five to switch from privately employed screeners to a government work force.
The five exceptions -- in San Francisco, California; Tupelo, Mississippi; Rochester, New York; Kansas City, Missouri; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming -- have private workers supervised by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials.
Mica wants to see that system at all US airports.
Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio, a senior Democrat on the aviation subcommittee, opposes private screeners.
DeFazio, who has seen the classified GAO report, said the difference between the screeners was statistically significant but still slight.
"Neither number is adequate or reassuring to me, and the difference is not very large," DeFazio said.
TSA screeners' ability to find guns and other weapons and dangerous items since the Sept. 11 attacks has been a continuing problem.
The Homeland Security Department's acting inspector general, Richard Skinner, issued a separate report on Tuesday that said the screeners' performance hadn't improved since the previous audit, which indicated screeners had not improved since before the 2001 terror attacks.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS