NEW YORK: The Transportation Security Administration is imposing more stringent regulations for screening airport and airline workers, four months after federal authorities discovered that a Delta Air Lines baggage handler allegedly was part of ring that smuggled guns from Atlanta to New York.
Announced by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, the rules also come in reaction to a separate incident in which a Federal Aviation Administration employee allegedly used a badge to access a secure area at the same airport Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and then flew to New York with a gun in his carry-on luggage.
“Immediately following the incident” with the Delta baggage handler, “TSA increased the random and unpredictable screening of aviation workers at various airport access points to mitigate potential security vulnerabilities,” Johnson said in his announcement.
Johnson said he had asked the TSA’s Aviation Security Advisory Committee to review the incidents and recommend remedies. Acting on five of the recommendations that can be implemented quickly, Johnson said that airport and airline employees who are traveling as passengers would no longer be permitted to bypass the scrutiny faced by other passengers. Anyone who boards an airplane other than on-duty pilots and crew will be screened, he said.
Airports will also be required to reduce the number of access points to secure areas and to subject airport workers to random screening throughout each workday, he said, adding that the TSA may send teams in unannounced to do random worker screens. Johnson also said the TSA is working with the FBI to continuously track the criminal histories of all aviation workers.
“We’re not creating any new whole-cloth federal regulations,” said Mark Hatfield Jr., the TSA’s acting deputy administrator. “We’re moving within existing authority.”
Hatfield said the cost of the security enhancements to the TSA, airlines and airports was still being calculated.
At least two Atlanta airport workers allegedly conspired to smuggle guns and ammunition onto at least 20 flights bound for New York between May and December of last year. In announcing the charges in December, federal authorities said 153 guns had been recovered in the course of the investigation.
The arrest warrant affidavit for Eugene Harvey, identified as a Delta baggage handler, said Harvey used his security clearance to funnel guns to a passenger named Mark Henry after Henry had cleared security. Henry, identified as a former employee, allegedly carried the weapons on at least 20 flights to New York, the Justice Department said in an affidavit.
The affidavit said that Henry delivered two assault rifles and 129 handguns to other members of the smuggling ring in New York. One of those ring members sold the guns to an undercover New York police officer, the affidavit said.
