During testimony at a House of Representatives hearing Tuesday, the Transportation Security Agency said they found no threat from the 73 aviation workers who slipped through the security screening process.

Stacey Fitzmaurice, TSA’s deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, told the Homeland Security subcommittee on transportation that TSA re-checked the workers cited in an inspector general’s report for having possible links to terrorism and found no threats.

“To be clear, these individuals are not considered to be known or suspected terrorists,” Fitzmaurice said. “The individuals do not pose a threat to transportation security.”

Well, maybe not.

“Even so, lawmakers urged TSA to gain access to the broader government intelligence database that includes people with alleged links to terrorism. TSA expects access by the end of the year.”

How does the TSA know these workers have no links to terrorism if they don’t have access to the database that contains people with terrorists connections?

TSA screens 2 million workers who operate behind security checkpoints in jobs from mechanics to shop clerks. But the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security revealed last week that while TSA checks names against an FBI terrorist watch list, it does not have access to a broader database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

“TSA is not responding in a timely manner to seemingly very important issues,” said Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., the committee’s chairman. “We cannot have a bureaucratic morass in charge of guarding our airports.”

One problem is the bureaucratic hold up for security checking workers. “Inspector General John Roth told lawmakers it took 18 months for his office to jump the legal hurdles to allow it to run the names of aviation workers against the different databases for its report. But he said the task of checking the 900,000 names is relatively simple.”

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/tsa-73-workers-possible-terrorist-connections-pose-no-threat