Security screeners at Kennedy and Newark airports have consistently failed to find weapons and bombs being smuggled by undercover operatives posing as airline passengers, The Post has learned, lapses made all the more alarming by the Paris terror attacks.
One law enforcement source familiar with security procedures at the New York area’s two international airports blasted the bungling by Transportation Security Administration workers, revealed in a chilling report made public just days before the ISIS strikes in France.
“The abject and consistent failures of TSA screeners should frighten everyone, particularly when they are considered in terms of recent terrorist acts that occurred in Paris,” the source said.
Eight airports around the nation flunked secret safety tests conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the report.
DHS Inspector General Joe Roth didn’t identify the airports when he detailed the “disturbing and troubling” findings during testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Roth said the locations of the airports had been classified as “secret” to prevent potential damage to national security.
But sources told The Post that they included both Kennedy and Newark, as well as major hubs in Atlanta and San Francisco.
A law enforcement source blamed the potentially catastrophic problem on “mission creep” by the TSA.
Screeners have begun using “behavioral analysis” to try to identify suspicious fliers and then question them — instead of alerting investigators trained in interrogation skills, according to the source.
Additional reporting by Bruce Golding