The Transportation Safety Administration has placed five of its employees on administrative leave after sensitive airport screening manuals showed up online this week.
This latest blunder, while embarrassing for the TSA, is also a serious breach that could help terrorists skirt the inspection process.
Keep reading to find out what sensitive information was leaked and what it means for your safety.
TSA allegedly posted the document in question on the Federal Business Opportunity site without taking adequate steps to protect the sensitive security information it contained. Instead of actually deleting the information from the file, they simply covered it up with a black box. As a result, some people were able to recover the original text and post it to their own Web sites.
Find out: Additional TSA Security Measures: Progressive or Oppressive?
The document clearly states that it contains sensitive security information that may not be disclosed to anyone without a "need to know." Among other things, it explains the settings on X-ray machines and explosive detectors at airports and the modus operandi for screening specific passengers, including prisoners, federal air marshals, law enforcement officers, diplomats, and others.
Notably, the manual instructs agents to give additional screening to passengers with passports from 12 countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) unless otherwise directed. It also says that flight crew members in uniform with valid IDs do not have to follow the same restrictions on liquids, gels, aerosols, and footwear.
The Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on the incident Wednesday morning. In addition to taking action against the TSA employees responsible for the indiscretion, Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the TSA is conducting an internal review to ensure a similar incident never recurs.
Throughout the hearing, TSA officials downplayed the significance of the leak. While some committee members called the manual a "textbook" for terrorists, TSA officials maintained that there was nothing in the report that a potential enemy couldn't otherwise find out by simply observing screening procedures at airports.
Napolitano claimed that the leaked information was out of date and that travelers were never put at any risk.
The committee has suggested bringing in an independent federal agency to review the incident. They have yet to identify the person who ordered the sensitive material to be posted.
By Dan Bence for PeterGreenberg.com.
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