The nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said on Wednesday that he would “accelerate” a year-old effort by the agency to more rapidly assess technology in actual operations ahead of obtaining formal acquisition approvals.
David Pekoske, a former Coast Guard admiral and national security industry executive, said the Innovation Task Force “shows real promise” and he would like to get more input from the TSA workforce and stakeholders in ramping up the work of the task force. He was responding to a question from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, at his confirmation hearing.
Pekoske enjoyed bi-partisan support during the hearing and Thune said he hopes to have the committee vote next week to send the nomination to the Senate floor for approval.
The Innovation Task Force was established last year by former TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger to quickly look at ways to enhance checkpoint security at airports while improving the flow of travelers as they make their way through the queue.
The task force’s first initiative, which is still ongoing at multiple airports and in dozens of screening lanes, is the Automated Screening Lanes, which include automated conveyor and bin return systems, multiple divesting stations for passengers, automated diversion of carry-on bags that require additional screening, RFID tags for each bin to better track each passenger’s belongings, and cameras that capture the image of each bin and are displayed beside the X-Ray images of the contents of each parcel.
In recent weeks, the task force began two additional technology evaluation efforts at several airports. One is the use of fingerprint reading technology to see how it can be used to potentially replace the TSA travel document checkers used at the head of security checkpoints to examine passengers’ boarding passes and identification documents. TSA may evolve the biometric pilot to see how well face recognition technology could work in this capacity as well.
TSA is also evaluating technology at two screening lanes at two airports to provide much higher resolution of the contents inside travelers’ carry-on bags and electronic devices than the current Advanced Technology X-Ray systems found at all screening lanes in the United States. The technology is currently used to automatically detect explosives in checked baggage and has been modified to fit within the checkpoint environment and to meet threat screening requirements for those operations.
The computed tomography-based technology at the checkpoint offers to speed screening and make it more convenient for travelers by allowing them to leave their liquids and electronic devices in their bags.
“I’m very excited about those pilot programs,” Pekoske told Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who previously sponsored legislation that was enacted into law to give TSA authorities for the Innovation Task Force. “If confirmed, one of the things that I would want to take a look at is, ‘What is the checkpoint of the future look like?’” He said it would “embed some of those ideas, if you will.”
Having an idea of what future security checkpoints should look like will also provide a “North Star” guide “for the future of the organization,” he said. “You could align your personnel strategies, acquisition strategies, your innovation strategies to get to that goal.”
Pekoske sounds like he wants to kick the tires more often on technology that the agency can apply.
“I think we should be willing to try some things out,” he told Gardner. “If they don’t work as envisioned, then we look at something else. But trying them out is important.”
Although the Innovation Task Force pilots are largely taking place outside the Department of Homeland Security’s acquisition milestones, the agency has maintained that if the evaluations show the need for wider deployments then formal acquisition channels will be used.
One area of concern for lawmakers in the Trump administration’s FY ’18 budget request for TSA is a proposed cut to mobile security teams that are deployed around the country based on threats, high-profile events, and for random security. The administration is proposing to cut the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response, or VIPR Teams from the current 31 to eight.
Pekoske said he supports the president’s budget request but acknowledged that through his Coast Guard work he has personal experience with the VIPR teams and their “positive effects” on security. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the ranking member on the committee, said Congress will have to “save” Pekoske from himself on this issue, adding that the cut won’t “stand.”
The VIPR teams employ various personnel, technology, and bomb-sniffing dogs, which Pekoske said at great at detecting what they are trained to detect and provide a deterrent to would-be threat actors wherever they are deployed.
Pekoske committed to looking into new training centers for K-9 units to help meet increasing demand for them, as long as a center meets the standards and requirements that exist at the current training facility at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.