Undercover federal agents managed to smuggle fake explosives and weapons through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints 67 out of the 70 times they tried to do so at dozens of airports around the country, the Associated Press reports. As a result, Melvin Carraway, the acting administrator of the TSA, has been reassigned and the entire agency has to tweak its airport-security protocols.
Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, of which the TSA is an agency, reassigned Carraway to a new post within the department and appointed Mark Hatfield acting deputy administrator of the TSA until a new leader is selected. Johnson also issued a number of measures that the TSA has to take in order to close the loopholes that allowed undercover agents to pass through security checkpoints with fake bombs strapped to their backs.
Some of those directives include revisions to the screening processes; conducting more training for security officers and supervisory staffers; retesting and re-evaluating all equipment used to screen passengers; and conducting more random, covert operations so that undercover agents can continue to find loopholes.
Read more at the New York Daily News.