(Image source: BoardingArea)
BY KYLIE MCGIVERN
ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN
You're watching multisource US video news analysis from Newsy.
25,000 security breaches at American airports over a decades’ time.The TSA is under fire - again.
ABC reports, that includes 14,000 cases of passengers getting past security roadblocks.
TSA: “There are still, despite the expenditure of 20 million dollars plus since 9/11, lots of security gaps that remain in aviation.”
Reporter: “This report comes as a stun gun was discovered Sunday on a JetBlue flight from Boston to Newark. Just last month a Nigerian American went through checkpoint and onto a flight without a proper ticket or identification.”
The TSA says breaches can range from passengers accidentally leaving their luggage on a conveyor belt, to those with an intent to avoid screening. The Tennessean explains a TSA spokesman’s take on the findings.
“The term ‘breach’ is broadly defined and can mean accidental violations that pose no real danger to the public... Many of these instances were thwarted or discovered in the act...These events were reported, investigated and remedied. …”
And CBN reports - TSA claims the data is misleading, with the thousands of breaches amounting to just a fraction of 1 percent of screened travelers.
“Certainly it’s a small percent given the large number of people screened. On the other hand, we know from hard experience, 9/11, that only one security breach can be catastrophically fatal.”
The belief that all it takes is one breach, has propelled Utah Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz to take action.
He oversaw a Congressional hearing on the issue Wednesday - and here’s what he had to say.
“A lot of what we have been participating in here, in my personal opinion, has been security theater and is not truly done the job to secure the airports to the degree that we need to. And I think one of the personal challenges that we have as a nation, is ‘how do we become more secure, and yet less invasive?’ That we don’t give up every personal liberty in the name of security. And we have to find that proper balance, it’s a difficult one knowing that the threat is real.”
Transcript by Newsy.
