New TSA Chief Vows to Improve 96% Failure Rate on Weapons Detection

VADM Peter Neffenger, (U.S. Coast Guard photo)

By Harriet Baskas

If the new head of the Transportation Security Administration gets his way, all airport screeners will be retrained within 60 days to better detect explosives and spot weapons and more passengers will enroll in the agency's expedited security checkpoint program.

And one day travelers will be able to use fingerprints or some other biometric identifiers instead of paper or electronic boarding passes.

Peter Neffenger, who has been on the job as TSA administrator for four weeks, went before the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday and said it was a "huge concern" that the agency's officers failed to identify bombs, weapons and other security threats 96 percent of the time during recent undercover testing. 

"It greatly disturbs me to know that we had that failure rate at the checkpoint," he said.  

Full article available here: New TSA Chief Vows Improvement

Source: NBC News