Transportation security

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) identified and targeted high-risk cargo shipments, CBP did not always prevent air carriers from transporting high-risk air cargo from foreign airports into the United States.  This occurred because neither CBP nor TSA developed adequate policies and procedures to ensure air carriers resolved referrals timely or appropriately.  We made four recommendations to CBP and TSA to mitigate a number of vulnerabilities in the Air Cargo Advance Screening Program.  CBP and TSA concurred with all four recommendations. 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) does not monitor the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) to ensure it continues to fulfill needed capabilities.  Although the AIT met the requirement for system availability, TSA did not monitor the AIT’s probability of detection rate and throughput rate requirements set forth in TSA’s operational requirements document.  These issues occurred because TSA has not established comprehensive guidance to monitor performance of the AIT system.  Without continuous monitoring and oversight, TSA cannot ensure the AIT is meeting critical system performance requirements—a consistent weakness found in prior DHS OIG reports.  We made two recommendations designed to improve TSA’s monitoring of the AIT system.  TSA concurred with our recommendations.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) needs to continue to improve its retention, hiring, and training of Transportation Security Officers (TSO). Specifically, TSA needs to better address its retention challenges because it currently does not share and leverage results of TSO exit surveys and does not always convey job expectations to new-hires. TSA does not fully evaluate applicants for capability as well as compatibility when hiring new TSOs. Thus, the agency may be making uninformed hiring decisions due to inadequate applicant information and a lack of formally documented guidance on ranking potential new-hires

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not promptly fulfill its first requirement mandated by Public Law 114-278. Specifically, DHS delayed commissioning a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the Transportation Security Card Program in enhancing security and reducing security risks for facilities and vessels. The public law required the assessment to begin no later than 60 days after its enactment. However, DHS did not award a work order for the assessment for more than a year after the deadline.  TSA only partially complied with requirements mandated by the public law. Of the six required actions, TSA partially complied with two and fully complied with four. We have concerns with aspects of TSA’s responses to all of the required actions.

Despite dedicating approximately $272 million to ground-based activities, including VIPR operations, FAMS could not demonstrate how these activities contributed to TSA’s mission. Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) operations, in which VIPR teams collaborate with local law enforcement to augment security at transportation hubs through an increased visible deterrent force.

FAMS could not demonstrate how these activities contributed to TSA’s mission. During our assessment of FAMS’ contributions to TSA’s layered approach to security, we determined that FAMS lacked performance measures for the 24 strategic initiatives and most ground-based activities outlined in its strategic plan. Additionally, FAMS’ VIPR operations performance measures fail to determine the program’s effectiveness. FAMS could not provide a budget breakout by division or operational area.