Audit finds airport employees with possible terror ties

A report by the Department of Homeland Security shows that dozens of airport employees around the country had possible ties to terrorism that were missed in the vetting process during hiring.

An audit showed 73 individuals with terrorism-related concerns that were not uncovered.  They worked for major airlines, airport vendors and other employers.  Two of the employees reportedly worked at New York's JFK Airport.

The report claims that the TSA did not identify the individuals because it is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related categories under current interagency watch listing policy.

TSA acknowledged that the individuals were cleared for access to secure airport areas despite representing a potential transportation security threat.

The investigation identified thousands of TSA data records containing potentially incomplete and inaccurate biographic information on employees.  It found that the TSA relied on airports to gather complete information from applicants.

Some of the potential problems, 1,500 records included first names with two characters or less.  14,000 records showed no alien registration number for immigrants and another 75,000 contained no passport number for immigrants.  87,000 active aviation workers did not have Social Security numbers listed in TSA records.

The TSA tells Fox 25 that since the report came out in June, it has been given access to all terror-related databases.

Full report:  https://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/2015/OIG_15-98_Jun15.pdf