73 US Airport Employees had Ties to Terror

March 17, 2016

A dozen employees at three U.S. airports were identified as having potential ties to terrorists, according to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by FOX 25’s Washington Bureau.

But those 12 workers are just a fraction of 73 private employees at nearly 40 airports across the nation flagged for ties to terror in a June 2015 report from the Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office.

FOIA requests identified two employees at Logan International Airport in Boston, Mass., four employees at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia and six employees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington.

The 2015 report did not reveal where the 73 workers were employed.

The Transportation Security Administration did not have access to the terrorism-related database during the vetting process for those employees, according to the report.

The TSA pushed back on the report as a whole, however, in a statement to FOX25.

“There is no evidence to support the suggestion by some that 73 DHS employees are on the U.S. government’s consolidated terrorist watch list,” national spokesman Michael England wrote in a statement.