Kerwin Wilson, the Transportation Security Administration official who oversees the flight school screening program, said he did not know whether an American on the no-fly list has actually undergone flight training in the US in the past 10 years. He added that once someone receives a flight certificate, he or she is screened against other criminal and terrorism databases regularly. Wilson also cautioned that putting US citizens through these additional security checks could cost more money.
This did not allay the concerns of lawmakers.
Rogers, chairman of the subcommittee that held Wednesday's hearing, said he plans to raise this with the head of the TSA, and if the agency can't fix the problem, he plans to introduce legislation that would.
The TSA said it does not have the authority to do background checks on US citizens who want to train at flight schools unless the person already has a certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.
"In compliance with its statutory authority, TSA conducts background checks for foreign flight school applicants seeking training at FAA certified flight instruction schools and vets FAA certified individuals on a continuous basis," TSA spokesman David Castelveter said.
As it is, the TSA's program to screen foreigners has its own security loopholes, according to the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency.
The TSA screening program does not automatically determine whether a prospective flight student is in the US legally, said Stephen Lord, who heads GAO's homeland security and justice programs. In 2010, law enforcement investigated a flight school in the Boston area and found that eight people at the school approved for flight training by TSA were in the country illegally, and 17 more had stayed in the country longer than they were allowed, Lord told lawmakers. The owner of the flight school was in the country illegally as well.
The TSA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have agreed to share more information with each other, officials from those agencies said.
Source: AP
