ms. fitzmaurice: we are working ms. fitzmaurice: we are working on it what's important to understand is that we do receive the terror screening database, and those are the individuals that are deemed to be threats to transportation security. we do vet all of the aviation workers against those and we have taken action on those. what we are seeking to do now is gain access to additional information that will assist us in providing fuller contact of who these individuals are and potentially identify unknown associations. mr. katko: the point is, i ask you to take it back to your supervisors and make the point crystal clear to him, mr. rogers and i have made it clear to him, the fact remains t.s.a. is not responding in a timely manner to seemingly very important issues. as it stands right now, were it not for the i.g. report, i highly doubt we would be any closer to getting access to the tide database. the tide database identified 73 people you didn't know about that may have had ties to terrorism. your determination whether

ms. fitzmaurice: yes. t.s.a. receives watch list information that is maintained by the f.b.i.'s terror screening center. that information is the information we primarily use in our vetting process that. is who the federal government has deemed to be known or suspected terrorists and meets the reasonable suspicion standard which is why that has been shared with us for the watch listing purposes. what we are seeking access to is additional intelligence related information that is contained in the nctc's tide database. it's important to understand that the information that is in -- that the information on the watch list but not everyone in tide is a terrorist and meets that reasonable suspicion standards to be put on the watch list. mr. katko: the fact remains there is at least 73 individuals that have -- had potential ties to terrorism that were not identified because you did not have the appropriate information, correct? ms. fitzmaurice: that's correct. we are seeking access. we did review all of the cases

ms. fitzmaurice to testify. stacey fitzmaurice: good morning, chairman katko, ranking member rice and distinguished members of the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to testify about tsa's aviation worker vetting programs. tsa conducts security threat assessments for more than two million workers requiring badged access to airports. these individuals undergo terrorist watchlist checks, as well as immigration, status, and criminal history record checks. they give us near real-time notification of any changes to the list of known or suspected terrorists so that we can take appropriate action. both the ig and an independent review of dhs's vetting process deemed tsa's vetting to be effective. tsa has made key enhancements to aviation worker vetting to projects that began in 2012. these include the ability for airports to upload immigration and identity document to conduct more robust identity identification and immigration checks and implementing logic to reject information. airpo

ms. fitzmaurice and ms. grover, thank you for being here. i would like to hear from mr. roth. >> chairman ranking member and members of the subcommittee thank you for inviting me here. federal regulations requires that individuals working in secure airport areas undergo secure background checks and they are required to do so before granting them a badge that allows them unescourted access. that is a terrorism check a finger criminal report check and evidence of authorization to work in the united states. the airports use this and submit to vetting to the tsa through a contractor. once the tsa receives the data it matched it to the terrorist screening database to identify individuals with potential link do is terrorism. tsa vets airport workers every time it receives a watch list update. based on this review tsa may direct the airport to grant, deny, or revoke a credential. we found tsa was general leo effective in identifying individuals with links to terrorism but we did uncover resign weakness. the nationalal terrorism center performed a data match of over 900,000 airp

ms. fitzmaurice: that is correct. >> does that scare you? ms. fitzmaurice: we are looking at, and concerned with where we have erroneous, and the missing information. we are taking actions, we have implemented logic and ever system. >> i appreciate that. i really do. i travel usually twice through the busiest airport in the world. to think that we may have people walking around in that airport who we don't even know what the name is. we don't have the social security number, isn't that something -- look, i am ok. i am confident i can take care of myself. i want to major my son is ok. my youngest son is coming up tomorrow. should this be taken care of immediately? ms. fitzmaurice: we are taking actions for continued improvement to improve the data quality for the betting systems. mr. carter: i just can't believe that in a world's busiest airport, we could have people walking around on escorted -- unescorted, whose social security number we don't know or their names. we are talking about this? we have to be at the phone right now. we have to figure

ms. fitzmaurice: i apologize. i do not have an answer for you. >> when we are looking at the numbers on the vulnerability studies of the aspects of this we found it's less than 3% being reviewed. this morning we found out that only 1%. is there a need to have more accountability and needed to enforce the operations of the airport authority's? when they can look at the recommendation and what has been found and we are not even clear if anything has been done. in the the minnesota airport authorities they are pointing at the federal government other law enforcement are pointing fingers. it's dangerous and it's going to get us nowhere and that's what we have been dealing with for the last few years. do you think there is a need to put teeth into what the tsa can do with airports? >> you raise a good point and we haven't done any work on that but it's something we would be willing to consider purchase irrespective of whether they follow up and actually find out for example. when they find noncompliance would do they d