committee will come to order i would like to thank everybody for being here today as we tackle this important subject i would like to begin this hearing by stating the oversight committee mission statement we exist to secure two fundamental principles first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second americans deserve an efficient effective government that works for them our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a essence one of my fundamental concerns is the need to secure our airports we have a true threat in the united states of america but at the same time we also need to u our freedoms and our liberties our civil liberties oftentimes i think there is a false choice that is given that we need to give up our personal privacy in the name of security and that is the part we are going to talk about today i would like to welcome ranking member tierney and members of the subcommittee and those of you watching our live webcast at oversight house gov i want to thank you all for joining us we will seek testimony from private sector and government witnesses on the united states security programs and policies and their relationship to the fourth amendment of our constitution the united states continues to face real and serious threats from al qaeda and other terrorist groups since terrorists have exploded american airport security checkpoints and by all accounts will continue to try to do succeeded in two thousand and six british intelligence foiled a plot to detonate liquid explosives aboard ten different transatlantic flights plots that would have undoubtedly caused a tremendous loss of life and terror on december th two thousand and nine another terrorist also known as the christmas day bomber attempted to blow up a northwest flight over detroit again passengers aboard the flight along with a faulty device thwarted another tragedy on october twenty nine two thousand and ten al qaeda operatives packed a printer cartridge full of explosives and shipped them to the united states aboard a ups airplane good intelligence not effective screening saved the day in each of these instances brave passenger effective intelligence and a little bit of luck averted mass tragedies but this is not good enough the federal government has reacted to each of these events with programmatic reforms and recommendations the creation of the department of homeland security being the most notable these actions opened new lines of communication between agencies and redirected american efforts to protect the flying public the american public is familiar with many of these reforms enacted at our nation's airports these changes are what bring us here today over the past ten years americans have sacrificed freedom and convenience for greater airport security we remove shoes surrender our sunscreen submit to full body scans and enhanced pat downs the committee has an obligation to ask whether these policies actually truly enhance security we have an obligation to ask tough questions and when needed find solutions we must assess whether federal screening procedures can be done with greater efficiency and greater effectiveness we must examine whether federal government has a common sense layered and threat based approach to airport security and is it truly securing the american public we must also determine whether the department of homeland security is maximizing available resources alternative strategies and innovative techniques we need to look into behavior detection intelligence gathering and analysis explosive trace detection looking into vapor weight dogs and how they could be effective in airports these are some of the other security based techniques that should be included in the discussion what separates the united states of america from the rest of the world is our ability as a people to ask tough questions of those in the public policy arena will examine effectiveness and health risks associated with full body imaging devices we will hear from privacy experts and average americans about the naked images that are secured in those whole body imaging machines and talk candidly about the enhanced pat downs that are now being implemented we will ask tough questions about alternative screening methods and their role in the debate we will examine the evidence and look at what has been said by the tsa and compare it to what is actually being done in short i am proud of the united states chairman and thank all the witnesses for being present here today past incidents have demonstrated that al qaeda and its affiliates are looking for other more creative ways to attack the united states commercial airline industry and our traveling public as a nation i think it falls on us to determine what human economic and psychological costs of a terrorist attack on a commercial airline warrants extraordinary defense measures and how costly intrusive and inconvenient we are willing to have those measures be none of us likes to take off our shoes or throw away our water bottles or empty our pockets of change simply in order to board a plane but most would be willing to take the sacrifice if there is a reasonable certainty that such actions would help prevent other terrorist attacks following the christmas day bomber attack in two thousand and nine w funding and some encouragement from some in congress tsa procured and deployed body scanning machines on a national scale according to the tsa administrator and two tsa witnesses that were scheduled to be here today these scanners represent the best available method to detect metallic and nonmetallic threat items concealed on a passenger such as the christmas day bomber we should be willing to explore whether or not that is in fact the case we must also weigh this technology against americans legitimate privacy interests by now we all seen copies of body scan images that show much more than any of us would like to publicly reveal has the tsa taken significant enough steps to address these concerns i understand that there is also additional technology available and in testing as we speak that would these concerns altogether if this is the case i would encourage tsa to expedite the testing of that technology and deploy it as rapidly as possible if it is effective in identifying anomalies it is worth nothing that according to a cbs poll conducted in november of two thousand and ten an overwhelming majority of americans eighty one percent approve of the use of whole body scanning devices at u s airports that fact doesn't take away from legitimate privacy concerns that we all share but it helpful data point about how much sacrifice most americans are willing to make to prevent terrorist strikes from happening again one of our witnesses doctor brenner has also raised serious concerns about the potential health risks associated with wide scale employment of body scanners i look forward to discussing with doctor brenner his analysis that is seemingly at odds with studies conducted by the national academy of sciences the food and drug administration the american college of radiology and the british health protection agency tsa has a difficult and unenviable task at one moment they are criticized for not doing enough to detect and stop potential threats at another moment they are criticized for doing too much or not doing it in the proper way our role is to provide constructive oversight that can help t mister chairman i came today with the intent of questioning witnesses from the second panel from the transportation security administration about this subject and i appreciate first of all you and transportation security administration i would like to request of the chair and maybe in consultation with the ranking member how we can proceed in the future to have and i understand they have submitted some written testimony but for the purposes of appearing before this subcommittee answering appropriate questions and some of them will evolve from the testimony that will be aisle how we can demand and ensure their appearance before the committee in the future that is the nature of my parliamentary inquiry or my inquiry at this time but i think it is very important that this subcommittee  hear from those individuals who are involved with again the question before us today and this is the tsa oversight part one whole body imaging so for the future either by subpoena or  a senior members of their administration that they would attend we were given notice late last night something that i physically was able to see yesterday that it was their intention now not to atte d i find that to be an embarrassment to the agency i think it is highly inappropriate and i assure you that the tsa will appear before this committee they should appear today i will give them the benefit of the doubt until we begin to swear in the second panel but at that time should they choose not to attend at their own choice after confirming that they would attend having people fly in from around the country as far away as alaska and other majority insisted that they be seated alongside non governmental witnesses who represent the electronic privacy information center and that organization is actually engaged in multiple lawsuits just probably not appropriate so i think with some flexibility you could have them in here at any moment and i think that we need to be very careful and i think mister issa has been most chaffetz thank you in response to the gentleman if i may if they wanted to appear they could they should and they would the problem is that they have elected not to appear as the gentleman knows members on the panel take questions from members of congress they don't take questions from the person seated next to them in order to give members the proper opportunity to question both those that are criticizing the tsa and then allow for a timely response from the tsa i think is most productive for this committee and therefore i had elected to seat them on the same panel just two weeks ago we had the state department we had the department of defense we had the  special inspector general all seated together on the same panel both complained oh they wanted special treatment they wanted to go first they didn't want to have to wait they didn't want to have to but we talked to them explained the situation and as was complemented i hope this is a fair characterization a complement from the ranking member saying this was a swift and efficient hearing it was a productive use of the members time and we got through that hearing without incident i think that is a good with people who are suing you you don't want the optics of having to say i am not going to answer that question or that is an inappropriate question given these circumstances i don't think that is fair to put people in that position i think in this case where there is litigation putting them on the panel with the other litigant probably is a step too far and i think we can reach an accommodation on making sure the prerogatives of the house are retained in getting witnesses to take what panels we want them on in what order we want them on but making an exception in the matter of litigation and giving them a separate opportunity and if that were the case here today i think they would have come they would have testified we subjects were brought in here and quite frankly they were brought in to promote a lawsuit that the chairman was very well aware of the pat tillman case the same thing happened it is not our intention as the  knows and as i know he worked hard to facilitate any confrontation about a litigation this will not happen on my watch or the chairman's watch what we will do is we will insist on our right to seat people on a panel we believe is appropriate we make exceptions current members of the house and senate current full cabinet officers and certainly any persons directly from the executive branch would be seated separately out of deference to  their current status we will continue to work with the ranking member and mister cummings has been very reasonable in supporting us when he thought we were right and asking for changes when he thought we were wrong the gentlelady from alaska has come a long way i want to hear what she has to say i would have happily had tsa sitting next to her my understanding is there is no lawsuit but there certainly is a legitimate claim that tsa is not living up to the promises they made for how these scanners would be used and how they would do their job so i look forward to that i will work with the ranking member i would note that although every member has the testimony from tsa it will not be placed in the record since they did not appear there will not be any unanimous consent to place it in the record you will all have the opportunity to read it and we will look forward to that testimony and appropriate rebuttal when the tsa comes mister chairman i thank you for holding this hearing certainly with fifty seven thousand and counting tsa employees  countless people including the gentlelady from alaska who comes from a city in which you can only leave the city in the winter i guess by dogsled but most of the year by ship or by aircraft it is essential that those air travelers have an opportunity to efficiently effectively and privately be able to go through screening and get onto the aircraft that bring them to the rest of alaska and the lower forty eight so mister chairman this is important as we all heard here today this is a very bipartisan issue that we get right after what we after merely a decade have not gotten right and i thank you for your attention your continued attention as this title says this is number one we will be back here as long as it takes in our oversight role the same goal let me emphasize that we share the same goal keeping airline passengers safe and secure with as little inconvenience or invasion of privacy as possible the whole body imaging technology we are examining was introduced following a terrorist attempt to blow up a northwest airlines flight in december two thousand and nine using non metallic explosives let that sink in in response to the threat posed by the so called christmas day bomber and others tsa introduced a number of new security measures including whole body imaging by the way congress fully supported this effort by funding the procurement of hundreds of these studying available technologies and other processes tsa has concluded that advanced imaging technology is an effective method to detect threat items concealed on passengers while maintaining efficient checkpoint screening operations tsa continually evaluates these technologies their software and associated screening procedures to ensure that they are effective against established and anticipated threats while continuing to protect passenger privacy civil if you have an incident particularly coming after the christmas day bomber incident and if they did not try to address that issue in the most effective and efficient way and the most noninvasive way as possible and somebody was harmed or god forbid killed then people would be screaming at them so as we conduct our oversight it is important to understand that the tsa professionals charge with protecting the traveling public have determined that this technology is necessary to detect the very real threats posed by al qaeda and their affiliates our role in this effort should be to provide constructive oversight to help t strike the right balance between the need for security and concerns about convenience cost health and privacy and i want to make it clear as our ranking member has every member on this side of the aisle and i am sure on the other side of the aisle our number one concern is the safety of our traveling public and at the same time striking a balance so that we have procedures that protect them but do not go too appear today that i would prefer that when they appear we submit that to the record we would also at that time have the opportunity to examine and question those witnesses based on th e submission of their testimony so i will continue to object to the submission of their testimony at this time may speak to the objection mister chaffetz yes mister tierney i think we all understand that we want the tsa people to come back and testify that is a given and i don't think anybody objects to the notion that they will be back and testify i think we have sort of unique circumstances that they ended up not being here today they did circulate their testimony last night by email to all the members i think it is helpful for us in questioning here today if we are going to ask a question to be able to refer to something that is on the record and keep the record intact i think it is helpful also for people that might look back at this hearing to have a  full account of all of the different positions that might be available here and still reserve the right to bring them back but i do note that it wasn't the fact that they wouldn't testify it was the fact that they had circumstances with confronting litigants on the same panel that we may or may not disagree on  i don't believe it is we have not yet got to the second panel we have not yet confirmed whether or not they are going to indeed show up there was a unanimous consent aviation subcommittee you never know what the good lord has in store for us but i was made the chair in two thousand and one somewhat later than usual in the appointment of chairs but then we were confronted  with the attacks of september th and had to put in place a security system for transportation for our country travel is one of the most important things we can do particularly for aviation we have seen th e threat still exists i think that these folks have seen the damage they can do to our economy to our society to our way of life and they are still determined to come after us and i think therefore it is very important that we have in place systems that work i helped initiate a number of the programs in fact asked them to look  advanced imaging technology and i am supportive of using advanced technology for determining threats and risks my concern is well first the manner in which and i don't have the opportunity to question the tsa representatives the manner in which these pieces of very expensive equipment were acquired and i would hope that the committee and committee staff if they are listening  would review very carefully the acquisition this was somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars furthermore i am very concerned about the testing in the past when we worked and i see mister cummings there  we were always consulted by tsa in the major acquisition and deployment of new screening technologies i don't think that that was adequately done in this purchase i am concerned about the testing results spend half a billion dollars and then another half a billion dollars for additional personnel and it doesn't work as it should even the initial deployment of portals is a joke have had five administrators in five years this administration chose not to appoint someone actually i think they named several who were cast aside but the first appointment didn't come until about eight or nine months into the president's term that needs to be changed there are more than two hundred personnel in tsa making more than the administrator the administration now has an army of three thousand seven hundred and seventy personnel in washington d c making an average of one hundred and five thousand dollars a person i was taken aside the other day by someone who just left tsa he said he worked in a department where ten secretaries made more than one hundred thousand dollars this is an agency crying out for reform and i think it is very sad that they would choose not to show up today i know that this is one of those difficult balancing acts that we face in a country that treasures its privacy treasures its liberty but also wants to protect its citizens and that is the challenge we face in this subcommittee today with each successive terrorist attempt against our airports and airplanes the tsa has responded with new and usually more inconvenient technology to address the threat from removing our shoes at the x ray machines to limiting liquids and gels to advanced imaging technologies that are able to screen whole bodies for suspect material i don't deny there is a clear need for security as the attempts by would be terrorist richard reid and  serious concerns over protecting the rights of our citizens and ensuring that the technologies we use are fully effective and safe recent studies suggest that the whole body imaging technology currently in use may be ineffective detecting concealed explosives such as those used in the christmas day bombing attempt in two thousand and nine as well as suggesting that the backscatter x ray technology in these ait devices could be a higher risk to health than indicated i believe that we should work together to find more effective screening mechanisms through the greater deployment and use of explosive trace detection technology that could better detect explosives and preserve the modesty and personal rights of american citizens that is why i was proud to introduce the protect the lives of americans now through enhanced screening or the planes act last congress this legislation calls for more intelligent use of screening technology to ensure safety at airports i look forward to the testimony of the witnesses today and i hope that this hearing sheds light on why technology has to be the best answer to terrorist threats from the tsa and how we work together to protect the a series of hearings starting today to analyze tsa's efforts to increase airport security since the christmas day bomber incident is the type of hearing this committee should hold to ensure the government is working on the best interests of our constituents in light of the thousands of constituent concerns and alarming press accounts we have heard it is critical this committee revisit airport security policy tsa must develop effective policies and processes that keep the traveling public safe and maintain our nation's security while keeping in mind passenger safety air transportation is one of our nation's most essential infrastructures and the policies and activities to the transportation security administration have a direct impact on more of our constituents than almost any other federal agency in my home state of arizona phoenix sky harbor international airport is a primary airport one of the ten busiest in the nation and among the top twenty busiest in the world sky harbor airport has a ninety million daily economic impact last year they saw thirty eight million five hundred and fifty four thousand five hundred and thirty passengers come through the airport and two hundred and seventy six three hundred and thirty eight tons of cargo coming in and out and over four hundred and forty thousand aircraft passing through with the heavy volume of passengers cargo and aircraft phoenix sky airport was one of the first test sites for the whole body imaging scanners in two thousand and seven today there are nearly five hundred imaging technology units at seventy eight airports the implementation of the whole body imaging scanners in phoenix sky airport has not been without controversy there have been numerous press accounts documenting passengers and these new scanners and i have heard concerns from many of my constituents directly there have been various local press reports mentioning that passengers are concerned with the lack of privacy and who may be viewing these images i think we can all agree that we need to effectively protect air passengers while at the same time respecting passengers rights as a medical professional practicing for over twenty five years i am also concerned about the potential health risks posed by the machines tsa reports on radiation exposure have been challenged by a variety of independent studies i look forward to hearing the witnesses testimony on the scientific data as it is critical that the health of our constituents are carefully considered when analyzing tsa's security efforts it is important to note that the whole body imaging technology is not cheap it is estimated that the total cost for this program will be about fifty dollars million for two thousand and thirteen at a time when everyone is forced to cut back i think it is only fair to ensure that if the federal government is going to spend the money on this initiative it better be very effective finally we must ensure that we have a consistent fair and uniform policy across the board no one airport should operate any differently when it comes to security or how to handle passengers my constituents are telling me that simply is not the case the federal government must strike the proper balances between security and policy i would like to thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee today and contributing to the committee's work to reexamine t transportation security officers who may indeed screen anywhere from two hundred to four hundred or five hundred people in a shift we have some very very busy airports  that handle huge volumes of people so one of the areas of interest that i have is on their behalf on behalf of our tsos to make sure that this repetitive  exposure even though it is alleged to be low level exposure to the radiation the low level radiation given off by these scanners i am concerned about their safety i have heard from a couple of the employer groups i guess it is not their official union yet but the nteu and also the american federation of government employees who have asked that some of these workers just to allay their fears be allowed to wear a dosimeter which is a device which will record the levels of exposure to radiation which the wearer encounters and i think that is a reasonable approach however it has not been embraced by tsa that resistance is similar to the resistance that we had a couple years ago when we had the   and a number of the airports along the mexico border we would not allow them to wear masks we would not allow them to use purell on their hands in between the  screenings and pat downs of people coming across the border so we allowed those officers to be exposed to a hazard that i think they should not have been exposed to and when i say we would not allow it the department of homeland security and tsa leadership would not allow those workers to protect themselves and yet those workers were going home every day to their families so you see the lunacy in that screens and i think the most profound deterrent to recklessness with respect to the screening process and the images that can be stored on these systems is to provide a cause of action for the public if tsa knows that they can be sued and serious damage can result to them as a result of their lapse handling of privacy issues then they will be diligent about protecting the public's privacy if they can do it if they can mishandle private information like that and these images and there is no consequences then they will do exactly that experience and reason agree on that point so on those points health risks and privacy issues i hope taken to travel a great distance to be here today so we thank you for your presence pursuant to committee rules all witnesses will be sworn before they testify would you please rise and raise your right hand do you solemnly swear affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth subcommittee i wanted to first of all introduce myself my name is sharon cissna and yes i am a state representative state house and have been with the legislature now seven terms i am in my seventh and represent district twenty two which is in fact the district in the state that has the universities and medical systems that actually serve the whole state so my focus really is health and education those are the two focuses i have i have another thing that actually brings me here and that is that i fit a profile of the people that are harmed by the pres in a situation where like so many other alaskans i went down for a second opinion to seattle and got back that medical procedure done went out to the airport not having a clue that there had been any changes in the screening devices and seatac had just put it in this was in early november and because in fact i am what i like to consider a veteran of breast cancer i fit that profile that instantly is going to have the full very invasive hand search and this is not something that i have talked to many people about but i am going to talk to you now about it because i think it is really important and i think this actually as i have listened to your conversation brings something that we really don't oftentimes look at when we are talking  about the total world of our country we don't often we look at the economy we look at statistics we look at that kind of thing but oftentimes we don't look at the individual lives of the people that we are serving and what actually is affecting them and how it isn't oftentimes in the research that we see and we see this especially in alaska because we don't have enough numbers to really make it work and that is the research that shows what kind of harm is really being done when if you have very few numbers it doesn't fit into research and yet people are being harmed in my case it was because as a teenager i experienced bad touch and have spent my adult life working on making sure that assault doesn't happen to the kids that i have come in contact with which having worked in the mental health field for a number of ever talk about or think about or even test i am fairly sure of that so when in fact i went through the screening device i was in front of the woman who tried to tell me that i simultaneously was going to go through the new hand pat i consider it feeling up and i am sorry but i am going to refer to it that way please accept that i  went through this and that is the way i feel about it she was also telling me very rudely as a matter of fact that i had to simultaneous to whatever she was going to do to me and she wasn't really explaining that because i think she was trying to remember she had just been trained she was learning it showed but simultaneously i was supposed to be watching my baggage and at that point i look over at my baggage and other people's bags are now piling on top of mine and someone is going through my bag trying to figure out i am sure if it was theirs i start moving towards it and she yanks me back and very rudely tells me stand still keep your eye on your bags yet i am supposed to now sit stand and put my hands in certain ways to have her feeling me up and it was very intensive all right that happened for several weeks after that i would love to know if there is someone i could bill for the time i lost because of my emotional state that actually was i think the emotional state that happened after that was very similar to what happens with probably anyone who has been through assault and i even wonder if in fact am i running way past the time  weeks of very disrupted time over the response to that all right moving forward again very quickly to february the th not very long ago  i suddenly find myself having gone back to the doctor and finding myself at the airport again and thinking something had changed at the airport find myself with the full body scan which i haven't worried about i have heard many people worry about it but what happened after that was i faced the woman and my husband and i had talked about it i had vowed that i was not ever going to go through that again i said no what i found out after having said no and having really felt better after that because i actually was starting to protect myself and i to this moment feel very proud of having done that i suddenly put myself right in with all of the huge numbers of people who have been harmed and i have received well over one thousand letters emails facebook is alive with this it is amazing how many people have stopped me every single day many times a day with their stories of how they have been harmed and i sent in my  statement that i emailed you folks many of the comments that were made but i have also witnessed exactly how alaska does deal with this and the minute that i got back to alaska the thing that was amazing to me was that my legislature had passed a sense of the house on how i had done the right thing that it was the right thing for me to have done and they have put out a resolution that is to come to you and it goes through all of the different things that and the most important is how important air travel is to us but how our alaskans have been harmed we travel four times what the rest of the united states does all the other members of  our citizens that travel and i think i am supposed to be ending here i hope you will read the rest of my comments and any other questions please ask mister chaffetz thank you and thank you for that testimony we will put the balance of your testimony into the record one of the hallmarks of the united states of america is our commitment to the fourth amendment unreasonable search and seizure from your personal viewpoint you are also a state law maker how do we find that balance and what was your personal experience there are many that argue well if you choose to go on an airplane then you choose to give up those rights can you share with us your perspective ms cissna thank you very much mister chair and mister chair it is absolutely true for alaskans that we don't choose we don't have a choice i did make my way back to alaska after that event at the airport on the th of february but it took four days it took four days and i was really lucky because i was able to find in canada someone to fly me to prince rupert  then i was able to take the marine highway and get to alaska that way but for people in remote parts of our state what happens is that oftentimes their first time away from those remote places because of operations have to fly out of the state and they are a patient at that time i hope that they get consideration at that time when they go out we don't have the level of screening because it is metallics in the metal detector that we get screened with so far that is what would have them felt up but after they come back after they have the operation when they leave the operating scene and the hospital what happens is they are picked up by maybe a taxi they are taken to an airport and they become not a patient anymore they are just a standard citizen that is part of what i have heard from many of the caregivers in remote alaska are talking about is that they then not only is it the  examined mine was not anything compared to what it would be for these people and this is alaska this the experience that they go through under the current system and that is what the legislature prosthetic device or some other implant or something like that in theory should not actually pass or get through those whole body imaging machines and others so do you have a suggestion on what we do as an october pardon me november but i have had many many letters from many many different people who have traveled all over the world been through all kinds of different screening devices as i understand there that i have had close friends go through in this last year both in holland and israel they have extraordinarily successful screening devices that  but from your personal experience going back to the fourth amendment unreasonable search and seizure these pat downs are invasive to say the least and somebody who doesn't have based on what you have experienced in these pat downs how would you relate that to the fourth amendment and the definition of an assault ms cissna i think it is absolutely an assault and it is the worst kind of assault in that essentially very similar to ptsd and the kinds of reactions that people get with that what i haven't seen are studies what i am not seeing is the oversight that really gives us a chance to really look at effective process on that and that is what i think the proper oversight is going to try to get us on that path in my opening statement i made reference to the fact that there is apparently a technology out there now that is being tested that would not give  been not having done adequate study for there not to have been really the time taken to make sure that we are doing no harm and that is the most critical rol some responsibility for that after the so called underwear bomber or shoe bomber whatever they were faced the confrontation doing nothing which didn't seem i guess in their collective wisdom to be the way to go because the situation was there so they did what they thought was best at the time and were being told that that was effective but my real question on this particular one was if there was not an image of your individual being up there but some sort of a gumby or stick figure or whatever and if there was an anomaly t thing that is the most troubling to me is as i look at all of the people on the airplane as i am getting on understand they are all guilty before they are proven innocent and we have to get away from that we have to really start respecting our people can understand what you have been through both my daughter and i have had the misfortune of triggering these machines with anomaly and the search we both endured was very invasive and you have the greatest sympathy from me let me ask you one of the things that you have not addressed or if you did i was reading through your testimony and didn't hear it but my question is would you be willing to submit to some form of  background checks surrendering your fingerprints or retinal data in order to get into a trusted traveler program where you are able to undergo a less strenuous level of security would you consider that to be a reasonable alternative  procedures that actually help create a profile not a racial and not a cultural profile but one that actually will a scan th at identifies people who are obviously up to no good and there are ways of coming up with that that has been found in other places but it is a matter of actually looking elsewhere and seeing if there  a pleasure to see you this morning i am not on this committee but i am the ranking member and former chair of the transportation security committee with oversight over tsa and on the homeland security committee i will tell you that many of my waking hours address the question of professionalism and more training for the transportation security officers and i think you would venture to say as someone who needs flying as a mode of transportation that in most or many instances our tso officers work within the realm that they have and use the skills in an appropriate manner but you are right we have to look at those issues that as our colleagues have indicated may impact the fourth amendment may impact the dignity of all travelers i do want to put on the record that i am going to join with the ranking member of our committee homeland security mister thompson and will be writing a letter to ask for alternative protocols for individuals in your situation and also individuals who are traveling committee so i look forward to utilizing your written testimony i listened to my friend and colleague from texas about the trusted traveler and there are a lot of options that we could look at my question to you would be to establish the fact that there are threats to the united states you still believe that that is the case is that true representative you have to be oral on the record so they can  thank you yes i certainly do agree with you and it is absolutely essential living where we do on the northwest perimeter of our country we are right there are at the place where we really need to be constantly alert and that is exactly why i have the feelings i do is that i need to keep my population safe and strong so that they can be watchful too we are the ones who are going to see trouble coming from another direction ms jackson lee well you have the eyes and ears so we lay that groundwork and we know that the transportation security officers play a valuable role in that and you too watched that fateful christmas day when we saw a unique effort of trying to blow up a plane and harm the united states the christmas day bomber that generated this enhanced review if you will the list of things that you are asking for some kind of either exemption or some kind of way that people can avoid the more intense kinds of screening  kind of prosthesis at all is a problem any kind of not just medical but when people have pacemakers and the things that people are going through is just amazingly severe and i agree with you that the tsa employees that i have seen are doing a really good job of improving their attitude their treatment of the public seems to be improving  we need to look at protocols that then respond to how we address individuals with medical concerns devices prosthetics and my commitment to you is that we look forward to addressing that question with that mister chairman  you for being here today sometimes when we are addressing issues that are very personal it is very very difficult because what it says is that we are opening up ourselves to the public folks will be watching you on c span tonight some of them are watching you right  now so you not only become exposed to a few folks but you basically become exposed to the whole country and for that i thank you because you said some things that really touched me and there are two elements that kind of hit me one you talked about the training and whether this person was properly trained and you talked about courtesy then you also talked about the invasiveness and the medical am just trying to make sure that we strike this balance now one thing is for sure we certainly can try to make sure that the tsa administrator brings some type of sensitivity training if they don't already to their folks they need to know what people go through i have relatives that have experienced medical situations where they have certain devices that might send off any machine or so i can understand that but they need to be sensitive to that too and there is nothing that is worse than somebody not being courtesy to another human being are millions upon millions upon millions of people who travel who never even have an idea even think about trying to bring any kind of harm so it is a tough one so again i want to thank you because i believe that your testimony will help us try to get to that balance that we need i have often said this so often when we go through something it provides us with a passport because we have experienced it t help other people and to help address their problems because we become the greatest witnesses somebody just saying it talking about it is one thing but when you have been through it that is a whole other thing so i don't really have any questions i just wanted to thank you i wanted to thank you after going through all that you have been through and being exposed all the ways that you have been exposed and now to even go through another exposure for the sake of balance for the sake of safety for the sake of the rights of all of our citizens on behalf of our congress and of our nation i take this moment that all of this has brought to me over the last several weeks that i have been really the focus of a huge number of people coming and telling me things they haven't told other people is that the sense i have gotten is there are many people who have been losing the trust of their government through this kind of thing and that doing this right that is one of the things that we really do is we win back the hearts of our people and i believe in government i think government is the answer in its own way and it needs to keep that  ea in a balance we need both public and private but government can answer a lot of problems that we have but without trust we are not going to keep the kind of democracy we ha chaffetz thank you thank you i appreciate your time your bravery for being here and sharing a very personal story you represent the story of a lot of americans we thank you for the time and effort that you have taken to be here it is a long trek to be here but i assure you that it is very worthwhile we thank you may god bless you for now we are going to go into recess here for about five minutes or so while we prepare for the second panel thank you