mr. neffenger: i will share with this committee our findings. rep. mccaul: mr. keating is recognized. rep. keating: thank you. thank you for your service in the coast guard and for your comments here today. you are certainly stressing accountability, and doing the kind of work you did -- it is a difficult assignment but i think you are on target. i just want to concentrate on one area, which has been something i've brought up the last several years. it represents, i think, a tremendous security issue with our airports. it dates back from the time i was a district attorney in massachusetts with the case of a 15-year-old boy stowing away on a commercial airline from charlotte douglas tragically losing his life over milton, massachusetts when the landing gear went down. the fact that he penetrated that security aroused concern, but what followed that issue -- just to put it in perspective, from 2001-2011, there were 1388 security breaches andin 450 domestic airports. what's troubling is that the vulnerability assessment, as the risk seems to be getting greater, are going down. just to gi

mr. neffenger: i will share with this committee our findings. rep. mccaul: mr. keating is recognized. rep. keating: thank you. thank you for your service in the coast guard and for your comments here today. you are certainly stressing accountability, and doing the kind of work you did -- it is a difficult assignment but i think you are on target. i just want to concentrate on one area, which has been something i've brought up the last several years. it represents, i think, a tremendous security issue with our airports. it dates back from the time i was a district attorney in massachusetts with the case of a 15-year-old boy stowing away on a commercial airline from charlotte douglas tragically losing his life over milton, massachusetts when the landing gear went down. the fact that he penetrated that security aroused concern, but what followed that issue -- just to put it in perspective, from 2001-2011, there were 1388 security breaches andin 450 domestic airports. what's troubling is that the vulnerability assessment, as the risk seems to be getting greater, are going down. just to gi

mr. neffenger you are clearly a breath of fresh air and i think the chairman will agree with me on that. we passed a modernization of acquisition legislation to kind of give the department a freer rein. one of the challenges we have is to -- is the culture but we've always done it this way. so we buy technology in tsa that we already know does not address the emerging threat. but because this is how we do. members of congress have raised the question a number of times. i'm glad to see you willing to say how can we get out of this. cia, nasa, some the other agencies, they have vehicles that they use to incentivize the acquisition of new technologies. some of the is you create a venture farm and to purchase participation with those companies so they can continue the development. we tried that for quite a while and i want to talk to you a little bit about that going forward. but as we talk about technology let's talk about how we do processing. some of us have had real problems with it. it appears that the issue became how can we get people through the checkpoint faster, rather than how can

mr. chairman, for holding this hearing. i would also like to congratulate administrator neffenger on his appointment. and i look forward to working with him to advance the mission of t.s.a. another thing is welcome to the fish bowl. t.s.a. was established by congress in the wake of the september 11 attack. it has responsibility for protecting the nation's aviation and transportation system and ensuring the free movement of people and goods. over the years, in protecting aviation systems, t.s.a. has used a number of methods to screen passengers. some of the technology -- technological changes t.s.a. has made, however, have cost taxpayers millions of dollars while failing to adequately address the threat to aviation security. unfortunately, t.s.a. is still having problems with its technology today. for example, last month, it was reported that auditors posing as passengers were able to smuggle mock explosives and banned weapons through checkpoints at various airports across the country. earlier this spring, the inspector general released a report claiming that t.s.a. es not properly manage the maintena