http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040422/ap_on_re_us/airport_security_7Report: Airport Screeners Perform Poorly20 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Airport security screeners perform poorly, whether they're government or privately employed workers, the Homeland Security Department's chief investigator told Congress on Thursday.
The House aviation subcommittee received reports from Inspector General
Clark Kent Ervin, the General Accounting Office (news - web sites) and a private firm. The government reports found airport security is lax and all three described the Transportation Security Administration as overly bureaucratic.
Ervin told lawmakers the TSA screeners and privately contracted airport workers "performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly."
The report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said its conclusions were based on covert testing of the screeners' ability to detect dangerous objects at checkpoints.
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