HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE RELEASES “AMERICA’S AIRPORTS: THE THREAT FROM WITHIN” REPORT
March 22, 2017
On February 6, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee released a report entitled “America’s Airports: The Threat From Within.”
The report makes nine recommendations to airports, airlines, DHS and their workers to mitigate against threats posed by terrorist and criminal elements seeking to infiltrate airport access points; most of which involved ways to further protect secured areas of airport facilities. According to the Committee’s website, key findings of the report include:
- Inconsistencies across the aviation system as to how airport and air carrier security officials educate credentialed populations (i.e. personnel with access to secured areas) on responsibly using their access and reporting suspicious activities.
- Conflict between industry and government stakeholders makes it difficult to implement needed improvements to aviation security.
- A majority of airports do not have full employee screening at secure access points and are unable to demonstrate the security effectiveness of existing employee screening efforts.
- Recent insider threat examples are legitimate, such as an attempt to detonate a bomb at an airport, gun and drug smuggling, an expressed willingness to smuggle explosives, as well as employees who became involved in terrorist activities overseas.
The report can be found at: https://homeland.house.gov/app/uploads/Americas-Airports-The-Threat-From-Within.pdf
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6665).
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