The chairman of a House panel that oversees the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Thursday said that the agency needs to be reauthorized by Congress to help set it on a clear path forward and address leadership challenges.
“While we have been able to advance legislation to address many of the challenges that TSA faces, it is incumbent upon us to provide clearer direction and intent for this often troubled agency in the form of a full scale reauthorization, and find a way to limit the revolving door of leadership,” Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Protective Security, said at the outset of a haring to examine the future of TSA.
Including acting heads, Katko said the agency has had six different chiefs since 2014.
“Without continuity at the top, it is impossible for any organization to successfully implement a long-term strategic vision,” Katko said. “Instead, we have all been left with the many fists and starts of the last few years.”
A committee aide told Defense Daily that the committee is planning to introduce a TSA authorization bill in the coming months. The committee is currently working with its members and TSA stakeholder groups before introducing the legislation, the aide said.
Katko praised the accomplishments of TSA’s former administrator Peter Neffenger, who left the agency when former President Barack Obama’s term ended last month. He cited a new training program for the agency’s front line offers that Neffenger instituted shortly after becoming administrator in July 2015 and the creation of an Innovation Task Force to rapidly insert new technologies into security screening processes for testing as two examples of the kind of “transformative initiatives” that could “languish or disappear altogether with yet another change in leadership.”
Nina Brooks, head of Security for the Airports Council International association, testified before the panel on advances in airport security screening globally, including the Smart Security program that it has partnered on since 2013 with the airline representative the International Air Transport Association.
In 2017 the Smart Security program will be focusing on a number of technologies for potential use at the checkpoint, including computed tomography (CT) scanners for carry-on bags, advances in stand-off trace detection, queue management, passenger tracking, identity management and differentiated screening according to risk, Brooks said.
TSA in the coming months is expected to field-test CT machines at some airport checkpoint lanes. The technology is used to automatically screen checked bags for explosives and TSA hopes that the systems will allow passengers not to have to divest liquids and electronics from their bags because of the automated detection capabilities. The CT systems also provide higher image resolution, making it easier for Transportation Security Officers to visually detect potential threat items in bags.
Katko said that TSA is “behind the curve in technology.” On a trip through a British airport last year, Katko said the use of biometrics was “stunning.” Early in the screening process Katko said a facial recognition was used as part of his passport check and then at the boarding gate facial recognition was performed again to match against the check-in photo before boarding the airplane.
“They have technology like this all over the world and it’s maddening to me that we don’t have it here,” Katko said.
Brooks said one thing TSA could do better is certifying technology faster so that it can be acquired and deployed sooner. She suggested reciprocal certification arrangements such that if European regulators have certified a particular screening system then the TSA’s process could be less rigorous.