In a whopping 2,500-word expose, CNN says a whistleblower with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is claiming that U.S. airports are vulnerable as an emphasis on speed over security has become an alarming pattern.
Jay Brainard, the highest-ranking TSA official in Kansas, has notified his agency as well as other federal regulatory bodies.
Brainard says that to prevent long security lines and inordinate wait times, TSA has, among other things, reduced the sensitivity of metal detectors, disabled technology on some X-ray machines, issued orders to keep the baggage conveyor belts moving in certain circumstances and ordered policy changes that result in fewer pat-downs, according to CNN.
“My biggest fear is having something happen that costs American lives, and I didn’t step up and put a stop to it,” Brainard told CNN this week. “It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. We are long overdue for an attack.”
It’s not the first time Brainard has registered a public complaint. Two years ago, he noted that TSA employees had not been adequately tested for color blindness – a key component of recognizing explosives in bags that go through the X-ray machines.
As a result of Brainard’s 2017 complaint, TSA is re-testing its employees for “color vision,” but the process isn’t slated for completion until the end of 2020.
TSA – which was founded in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – acknowledges that US airports remain a target.
David Pekoske, the head of TSA, denied Brainard’s allegations to CNN.
“If you go back and you look at my testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee – my confirmation – so back in June of 2017, one of the first things I said is that security is the most important thing for TSA,” he said. “And that throughput is secondary to our process.”
Read the full report by CNN here.
