Report: 25,000 Airport Security Breaches Since 2001
The Transportation Security Administration has suffered more than 25,000 security breaches in U.S. airports in the past ten years, a House subcommittee on National Security is expected to report today.
The subcommittee, which is under the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and is scheduled to hold a hearing today on TSA oversight, totaled the breaches after reviewing Department of Homeland Security documents on travel starting two months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, says an ABC.com report.
Of the 25,000 breaches, more than 14,000 people were able to access sensitive areas of the airport and some 6,000 passengers and carry-on luggage were able to make it past government checkpoints without proper scrutiny, the report says.
"I think it's a stunningly high number," subcommittee member Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told The Associated Press. "[And] these are just the ones we know about."
In one recent example, a JetBlue cleaning crew discovered a stun gun that was smuggled onto a flight from Boston to Newark. In a statement to ABC News, the TSA said the 25,000 breaches "represent a tiny fraction of one percent" of the billions of passengers screened at the nation's airports since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. "Airports today are safer than ever before," the statement said.
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