(MintPress) – A report by House Republican investigators shows that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has sidelined $184 million of security equipment in a warehouse instead of putting the pieces to use at the airports they were meant for.
The TSA then “provided inaccurate, incomplete, and potentially misleading information…to conceal the agency’s mismanagement of warehouse operations,” according to the report.
The file continued by stating that the TSA hindered the examination by stalling the investigators’ access to the site and being slow to furnish an inventory list of the warehoused equipment. The report stated that this was in an effort to curb the investigation until the TSA could get rid of the 1,300 pieces of unused equipment before investigators arrived.
“When our guys went down there, the manager told them they’d been trying to move stuff out so we wouldn’t see it,” said a committee staff member.
Even with the deliberate move to get the equipment out of the warehouse, there were still at least 100 more pieces of equipment in the warehouse than were accounted for on the inventory list provided to the committee.
While the TSA is meant to protect travelers from transportation dangers, including bombs and other terrorism attacks, the agency continues to receive criticism from passengers and members of Congress relating to long lines at security checkpoints and controversial equipment.
Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), chairman on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, has criticized the agency, stating that the equipment was not fully tested before the TSA purchased it and did not perform as anticipated.
The criticism has led to the TSA opting to move from mandatory checks to a more risk-based system. However, with the equipment purchased to combat these risks being stored in a warehouse, more questions and concerns are rising over the legitimacy of the agency.
Additionally, the report states that the TSA may have violated the law by providing investigators with an allegedly false warehouse inventory.