Baggage Checkers Breach Security at LAX
One dozen people worked as security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport for as long as seven months despite having criminal records, including felony possession of a weapon or explosive, according to documents released Wednesday.
The employees, all of whom have been fired or placed on administrative leave, had access to restricted areas at LAX, including baggage sorting stations and runways.
It’s the second time that officials have acknowledged a breach of security among LAX screeners since the federal Transportation Security Administration took over the role of checking passengers and baggage at the nation’s airports in November. Earlier this year the agency fired 26 screeners at LAX after discovering that they had criminal records.
The TSA, which hired about 60,000 people last fall in a rush to meet congressional deadlines, failed to run some employees’ fingerprints through a national crime database and lost background questionnaires, The Times reported last month.
At LAX, officials asked to reprocess TSA employee fingerprints after six screeners acknowledged on their applications for security badges that they had criminal records. Airport officials said they didn’t originally check the screeners’ fingerprints, as they do for all other airport employees with security clearance, because the TSA assured them that its employees’ records were clean.
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office released a list of “TSA employees that were certified by the TSA as not having a disqualifying [criminal] history that the [airport’s] Security Badge Office later determined did have a disqualifying criminal history.” The list came in response to a public records request by The Times.
The employees had been convicted in the last 10 years of crimes ranging from aggravated assault and burglary to fraud and drug-related matters. Federal law prohibits those convicted of at least one of 37 crimes -- including murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and aircraft piracy -- from working as security screeners.
Seven of the 12 LAX screeners have been fired and five are on administrative leave pending the outcome of an adjudication process, said Brian Turmail, an agency spokesman. The TSA “has taken immediate and appropriate action” as the employees have been identified, he said.
The revelations come as the city agency that operates LAX finishes re-fingerprinting the nation’s largest screener work force. The effort to recheck about 2,500 federal employees at LAX began May 19 after airport officials expressed concern that not all TSA screeners had cleared background checks. The airport has fingerprinted 2,191 screeners and plans to finish its work by June 20, according to city records. Fifty-nine cases are pending further review.
City officials said the numbers might understate the problem of faulty background checks, because at least one screener turned in his badge rather than have his fingerprints taken. Dozens of other screeners have quit in the last couple of weeks.
“This validates the recommendation of the airport police chief to do a fingerprint-based check of criminal backgrounds of the screeners -- as we do for all other airport employees,” said Paul Haney, an airport spokesman.
The TSA turned down a request by Airport Police Chief Bernard Wilson to re-fingerprint LAX screeners earlier this year, saying it wasn’t necessary.
The agency reversed its position in May, saying it understood that airport officials only wanted the information to complete their records. City officials disagreed, saying they have concerns about the validity of the TSA’s background-check process.
Local officials aren’t the only ones concerned about the TSA’s hiring process. Following reports in The Times and the Washington Post, the agency came under intense scrutiny from congressional officials, who called a hearing into its hiring practices. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General is also conducting an investigation.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is also redoing background checks on screeners at its three airports. Airports in Florida and Minneapolis also found employees with criminal backgrounds, according to Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.)
At a congressional hearing June 3, TSA officials testified that they fired 1,200 screeners working at the nation’s 429 commercial airports after discovering that the screeners had criminal histories. The agency also said it had not completed background checks on 18,000 of 55,000 screeners currently on the job.
At the hearing before the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, TSA chief James Loy described a complex four-part hiring process used by the agency to check for any criminal histories among employees.
This process relied on fingerprints or a person’s name, a background investigation by a private firm and a more thorough check by the Office of Personnel Management. It’s the fourth part of this process, which rechecks information that screeners had given the Georgia-based firm ChoicePoint during the hiring process, that is not complete, TSA officials said.
In addition, the agency acknowledged Wednesday that “a number of individuals still need a fingerprint check.”
“As Adm. Loy explained to Congress, 98.9% of the fingerprints are completed,” Turmail said. “This means that slightly more than 1% weren’t readable, or maybe they were readable when they were taken and they got smudged during transportation to the FBI.”
The TSA took over passenger and baggage screening at the nation’s airports last fall from private companies hired by the airlines after Congress enacted a sweeping overhaul of airport security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
