mr. witkowski? >> thank you mr. chairman. the afa has talked about several other important aviation security issues that need to be addressed. one of them is the communication device, discrete communication device in emergency situations because every second you lose any of your response is going to be putting you more at risk for a terrorist attack or could tsa be looking at this issue because it was required to be looked at it than the homeland security act almost 10 years ago and i understand that they have been looking at different types of devices that could be used for communication with the flight deck of the flight attendants. but we were never invited or included in those discussions directly affecting the flight attendant security aboard the aircraft. we did participate in a panel that looked at the federal air marshal communication system and we contributed to that quite extensively but as far as the flight attendant issue which we understood they were discussing we were not included and we felt we should have been

mr. witkowski? >> thank you mr. chairman. the afa has talked about several other important aviation security issues that need to be addressed. one of them is the communication device, discrete communication device in emergency situations because every second you lose any of your response is going to be putting you more at risk for a terrorist attack or could tsa be looking at this issue because it was required to be looked at it than the homeland security act almost 10 years ago and i understand that they have been looking at different types of devices that could be used for communication with the flight deck of the flight attendants. but we were never invited or included in those discussions directly affecting the flight attendant security aboard the aircraft. we did participate in a panel that looked at the federal air marshal communication system and we contributed to that quite extensively but as far as the flight attendant issue which we understood they were discussing we were not included and we felt we should have been

mr. witkowski? >> thank you mr. chairman. the afa has talked about several other important aviation security issues that need to be addressed. one of them is the communication device, discrete communication device in emergency situations because every second you lose any of your response is going to be putting you more at risk for a terrorist attack or could tsa be looking at this issue because it was required to be looked at it than the homeland security act almost 10 years ago and i understand that they have been looking at different types of devices that could be used for communication with the flight deck of the flight attendants. but we were never invited or included in those discussions directly affecting the flight attendant security aboard the aircraft. we did participate in a panel that looked at the federal air marshal communication system and we contributed to that quite extensively but as far as the flight attendant issue which we understood they were discussing we were not included and we felt we should have been

mr. christopher witkowski.owski. >> thank you chairman rogers and ranking member jackson-lee for holding this hearing and allowing us to weigh in on the safety and security issues that are important to flight attendants and national security. and we thank mr.-- for being here as well. my name is christopher witkowski and i'm director of the health and security department of the association of flight attendants cwa who represent more than 60,000 flight attendants and 23 u.s. airlines. before i begin i would like to mention flight attendants and air an integral part of the crew in terms of safety and security and have been subjected to the same level of screening and background checks as pilots yet only pilots are being included in the test of the known crewmember screening process that allows expedited crewmember screening at security checkpoints. we thank the committee for their support of flight attendants and we hope this committee will continue to exert pressure on tsa to include flight attendants in the pro

witkowski off of what we can know. >> excellent. my tennis up and i look forward to asking her questions. the chair now recognizes the ranking member for any question she may have. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have so many. i ask you to help me with your answers so that i can ask all of these questions based on some very, very important testimony. the continuing theme i heard this they need training, training and access to information to help us be able to interpret the threat is around us and i thank you for that. i think it's going to be important as we move towards an authorization bill. if i might ask, mr. risch specifically, i have the privilege of representing houston, texas has the motto rather not answer every alliance to residential neighborhoods to near schools and a lot of facilities where people are engrossing and cake icing. some if you could create a training program for this marinade, what types of things that you focus on? me to be vigilant and watch out for twiki in a real opportunity in airport goes to the right people selection can be be taken. i think what you need is a clustered environment, when a structure is very an individual workers cannot and coworker