Unchecked Screeners Hired by TSA

WASHINGTON — In a rush to hire workers, the Transportation Security Administration placed thousands of screeners at the nation’s airports without required background checks, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general said Friday.

Eighty-five of those workers were convicted felons who were later fired.

In an interview, Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said more than 18,000 baggage and passenger screeners who had been working five months or more still had not had fingerprint or other checks as of May 2003. The checks are required by law.

Ervin said the TSA was under pressure to hire screeners to meet “extremely tight deadlines by Congress.” At one point, he said, it was hiring about 5,000 screeners a week.

In an internal review, the inspector general’s office found that the TSA also allowed some screeners to stay on the job for weeks or months after checks turned up criminal convictions.

“Screeners were hired, trained and, in some cases, put to work contrary to sound personnel security practices,” said the report, released Thursday.

The TSA’s acting administrator, David Stone, said the agency had acknowledged missteps and taken action to correct them.