mr. maclean: late july 2008. i called the inspector general hotline and i got routed to the two other officers. sen. johnson: we need to have standard recess for this committee hearing. the capitol police is clearing this. we should stay in place? we are clearing the floor. if you could move in an orderly fashion and exit as quickly as possible, thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] sen. johnson: i would like to gavel this hearing back in. it is unfortunate what happened here as we were concluding. a threat was called in. in today's world we have to take the threats very seriously. i want to commend the capitol police for asking -- acting responsibly and swiftly. we cleared the floor. fortunately, the threat was determined to be false. that is the world we live in today. it is very unfortunate. suffice it to say, this is going to be the first of a s

mr. maclean: i am glad you asked. i really want to talk about it. once again if the pre-check is done well it reduces the time that the screeners need to focus on nonthreatening passengers. i would like to see those tso's who participate more and then the four points that i mentioned on the physical security implementation on the aircraft so that you can get more air marshals on the ground. i love that thought -- these are not teams that i want down there ripping and arresting anybody that they see. this is purely trying to build rapport from the local authorities all the way down to janitors and cooks. for instance, you might have a cook that sees something every day, the same thing, but one time he reported it to his boss -- it might be some knucklehead who says, i don't have time for this, you are not a cop, quit playing cop. i have got better things to do. so he is frustrated. he barely speaks english. he does not want to go forward with it. but if there is that uniformed fiber -- viper guy if there is that guy who has built their rapport for hi

mr. maclean: late july 2008. so afterwards i called the inspector general hotline and i got routed to the two other officers. sen. johnson: we need to have standard recess for this committee hearing. apparently the capitol police is clearing this. we should stay in place? we are clearing the floor. if you could move in an orderly fashion and exit as quickly as possible, thank you. >> i would like to gavel this hearing back in. it is unfortunate what happened here as we were doing this hearing, the threat was called in. in today's world we have to take those threats seriously. i'd like to commend the capitol police for acting quickly and swiftly. fortunately, the threat was determined to be false but again, that is the world we live in today. suffice it to say that this will be the first in a series of hearings in terms of the challenge that the tsa has in trying to really succeed in its dual mission of keeping the station safe, identifying every possible threat, preventing those things from harming any american.

mr. maclean you're shaking your head. >> i was blown away with what a dog can sense.i've seen heroine wrapped in coffee, duct tape, wrap and sealed and then and then dunked in a tank of gasoline and the tank sealed and secure and the dog still hits on it so if they can do that with drugs, even if they do that with bombs, they're amazing. they're amazing creatures. >> ms. roering? >> currently, the regulatory program has oversight for the passenger screening canine program an i have witnessed various locations the use of a decoy where an individual be carrying an explosive in a backpack or on their person and every case the dog was able to detect the explosive and also very favorable results with that program. >> yes, sir. tsa has about 800 canine teams total now and they have been found to be effective. they're expensive. so is the billions of dollars expending on again security theater. >> yes, sir. >> again, all -- let me be clear. i think security theater to an extent does deter. i think we need as mr. maclean was talking about layered defense. think outside of the

mr. maclean? >> well a big problem with the air marshal mission is there's nothing going on, which is a good thing, there is no arrests happening and no casework happening, and as you would get in a cbp or border patrol station, you have hundreds of thousands of arrests, hundreds of drug cases happening, so the managers are busy and have things to do but when an air marshal commits an infraction it causes a huge ripple in the water and a lot of local managers don't want to make a decision on something so they wait on headquarters to make it for them. so, i think a possible solution is to put the air marshals underneath the purview of a pure law enforcement agency. there is a huge amount of former border patrol agents and cbpo officers in the air marshal service, and they feel like it was when they were under the ins, an agency that had conflicting missions one was to naturalize people and then capture them at the border. so they feel that's a problem. there's so little case work so little to do th

mr. maclean? >> thank you chairman johnson ranking member carper and other members of the committee. the spleem court and my role as a national whistleblower for the national law enforcement officers association, which is not a union, dozens of tsa federal air marshals come to me with their concerns about aviation security threats. this is a huge responsibility. being a voice for those tasked with stopping terrorism. the public wants to enjoy the miracle of flying on airliners. they are tired of complaints and want their tax money spent wisely on realistic measures. the 9/11 attack should have proved how volatile it is inside a crowded, pressurized thin tube traveling 40,000 feet up in the sky. the air marshal's biggest concern, bombs. improvised explosive devices. bombs. if a terrorists group puts thought into it, it's easy to sneak bombs onto jets to blow up at high altitude. bombs won't just pass through checkpoints but unwillingly or unknowingly by workers bringing in a megaton of workers. that cargo includes food, drink condiments cooking oil and cleaning products and then all o

mr. maclean: in july 2003, it accidentally fell on my lap. after a lot of problems with us preboarding before passengers, having to wear somewhat of a uniform to get on every flight, we were brought in for an unprecedented emergency suicidal, al qaeda terrorist hijack emergency briefing. we were all told that in any moment we were going to be under attack and the flight deck was going to be breached and those aircraft were going to be flown into east coast u.s. targets and european capitals. just two days afterward, all air marshals got an unsecured text message sent to their unsecured phone instead of their encrypted smartphones -- a message that there is -- we want everyone to avoid late cancellation fee, therefore we need to have everyone cancel their hotel rooms indefinitely. later on, the gao and inspector general discovered that that was going to be the plan for the next, until the new fiscal year. so for 60 days or longer, any aircraft that was going to fly four hours or longer was not going to have an air marshal team on them. so i in