TSA Allowed at Least 11 Airport Employees With Criminal Backgrounds To Receive Security Badges

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

(CNSNews.com) -- The Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) mismanagement of a program responsible for issuing security badges to aviation employees resulted in at least 11 individuals with criminal backgrounds obtaining badges that allowed access to secure areas of U.S. airports.

An aviation employee is anyone who is allowed unescorted access to secured areas of airports. This includes airport employees in addition to TSA Officers.

According to a Feb. 22 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Ins... (OIG), the TSA’s mishandling of the program caused a backlog of security badges that had yet to be issued.

As a result, the TSA permitted airports to issue security badges to employees without conducting federally required background checks between April 20 and June 1 of 2012.

The OIG concluded that there still may be individuals with criminal records who are working in secured areas of airports.

“TSA did not track which airports temporarily issued badges without the required background checks. Therefore, individuals with criminal records may currently have access to secured areas in our Nation’s airports,” the report said.

The TSA required airports to conduct follow up background checks following the exemption period, and deactivate the security badges of those who shouldn’t have received them.

Badges should have been deactivated if a background check disqualified an individual or yielded no results after 14 days.

A survey conducted at the request of OIG contacted the 446 total airports in the United States -- 290 airports responded, 168 of which reported using processes other than federal background checks.

The survey found at least 11 individuals among five different airports in the United States who received security badges despite having a criminal record. Of those 11, six had their badges deactivated and five still had secured access beyond 14 days.

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