After TSA Airport Failures, Security Versus the Economy
The recent DHS Inspector General test of TSA airport screening processes revealed a 95% failure rate. To improve, tradeoffs will have to be made, and they all have costs. How much the failure rate changes will depend on how...
DetailsHuman Factors – A Prerequisite for a DHS CVE Office
The proposed Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Act of 2015 (H.R. 2899) could benefit from a bit more study and debate. The bill would create a CVE Office within DHS, filling a hole that should not exist in DHS. It...
DetailsLeaving Government But Not the Mission – Saull Departs Capitol Hill
Bradley Saull recently announced that he was leaving the House Homeland Security Committee staff, where he has worked for the past two years, to join the Professional Services Council. He may be leaving the government, but thank goodness he...
DetailsInconsistent Wait Time Data from DHS
DHS needs a uniform policy across all components on disseminating high quality, objective data that provides utility to all who use it. The data needs to be transparent and reproducible. With regards to the collecting and posting of wait...
DetailsFixing the TSA FOIA Request Backlog with Risk Taking
There were about 160,000 unanswered FOIA requests in 2014, with the Department of Homeland Security accounting for 65%. The federal government has a culture of risk aversion, but there are four reasons why taking a smart risk in answering...
DetailsAfter TSA Fails IG Red Team Test, Accountability at DHS
As much as I like Mel Carraway, it is difficult to disagree with DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson's decision to reassign Carraway, the (now former) acting TSA Administrator. The news reports of an Inspector General (IG) investigation finding serious problems...
DetailsNominee to Head TSA Soon? Not Soon Enough
In advance of an oversight hearing on TSA by his subcommittee today, Rep. John Katko (R-NY) wrote to President Obama asking for the White House to fill the TSA Administrator's position "ASAP." DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said last week...
DetailsDHS Vacancies Need to be Filled – And It Should Not Be Too Hard
Last week’s Senate Commerce Committee announcement about an upcoming hearing on TSA’s FY16 budget request inferentially noted that the White House still had not sent the Senate a nominee to replace former Administrator John Pistole. The Commerce Committee has...
DetailsThat Was the Week That Was – The 2015 Version
March came in like a lion with a long list of news items, including Clinton e-mails, DHS funding and Boko Haram allegiance to ISIS. What could happen next?
DetailsDHS Inspector General John Roth on CBP UAVs
This morning, Tom Temin interviewed DHS Inspector General John Roth about the report his office issued, which severely criticizes the DHS CBP Office of Air & Marine’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for border surveillance purposes.
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