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Oral Testimony of Administrator Kip Hawley on Covert Testing

Testimony & Speeches

Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security

November 14, 2007

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lungren and members of the Committee.

I appreciate the opening statements that you both made, and Mr. Chairman, the only thing I would change in yours is where it said “when” TSA tips off to “if.” If TSA were to be tipping off on testing, that would indeed be a serious matter.

I would like to make very clear that the matter is under investigation now, but there is nothing I have learned in the past week and half, or since I was first made aware of this e-mail, that would indicate that there was any intent on anybody's part associated with that e-mail to tip off on covert testing.

There is no tip off and no cheating.

This is very important to us because covert testing is part of our fiber as an agency. As you both mentioned, it is how we stay ahead of terrorists who try to bring IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] through the checkpoint.

We do over 70,000 electronic tests every day on our workforce. We do 2,500 bomb component covert testing at every checkpoint. That means every checkpoint, every shift, every day at every one of the 450 airports that we have. They have actual bomb components they put through the checkpoint.

That is a massive amount of testing. This is the most tested workforce that I know of in the United States, and it uses the best technology, and I have to say they are the best in the world at what they do. So any allegation about integrity associated with that process would indeed be extremely serious.

I would just like to make mention of Mr. Restovich. The 9/11 Commission has very much of value in their report. One of the things that I want to highlight is to talk about information sharing, particularly about working with those at the edge of the network, such as our federal security directors around the system.

When Mike [Restovich] took over as head of security operations in January of 2006, one of his initiatives was to create something called NETHUB that would be able to quickly send out information to the edge of our network - to the Federal Security Directors. That is the organization that sent out the e-mail. The individual who sent out the e-mail in question had no knowledge of covert testing that the IG was at that point performing at TSA. The individual who sent that e-mail had no knowledge of covert testing. Mike Restovich, when he found out about it-he was not the author of the e-mail-when he found out about it, he had it immediately recalled. The elapsed time from when it was sent to when it was recalled was 13 minutes. There was no intent to tip off, there was no cheating, and when the facts are completely in and the investigation is over, I think we're going to find out that there is not a cheating problem or a tip-off problem.

This is so important to us because integrity is the center of everything we do with the American public. Just the allegations themselves got worldwide coverage as if there was cheating at TSA. That was read by our partners abroad, it was read by our enemies abroad, and it's read by our employees. And that is damage that is lasting, because when this whole issue is over, I think there are many issues that are worth pursuing, but it's not an issue of cheating.

A rush to judgment on that, I think does a disservice not only to our people, to the members of the TSA workforce, but also to the members of the flying public.

So I look forward as I have in the past and will continue to, openly, take the criticism but I think that you know that as members of this committee, that when do we do have issues, we get on them and we fix them. If there are issues that come up in the course of this investigation, we will get on them and we'll fix them. But I want to make very clear right now, there is not an integrity issue that has risen from anything I know from this e-mail at this point. Thank you.