of management investigations and oversight will come to order the subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony on protecting the protectors examining the personal personal challenges facing the federal air marshal service and before i give my opening comments i do want to acknowledge that mr adler is not with us at the current time he will be here shortly there was a clerical error and a letter an invitation letter that had the wrong time you guys are here air marshal service of the fams and before we go any further i want to point out that in two thousand and eight thirty seven percent of all new hires of the federal air marshal service were veterans i'd like to commend you for this accomplishment as a veteran myself i'm glad to see you value the skills of our men and women in uniform i would encourage you to continue seeking qualified air marshals from their ranks federal air marshals are deployed on domestic and international flights to protect passengers and crew from harm in the past the fam organization has struggled with numerous personnel issues that have impacted morale and cause the agency public embarrassment recently it appears improvements have been made and that said i'm interested in learning about what has been done to overcome past challenges also i'm particularly interested in hearing your thoughts as to whether or not there is room for further improvement i know that members have questions on a number of topics today including policies aimed improving air marshal anonymity steps that have been put in place to foster better communication between line level ai marshals and management and they need to implement consistent guidance on disciplinary actions that the entire fams including feel officers are to follow lastly on july ninth two thousand and nine the full committee marked up and approved h r eight hundred eighty one the transportation security workforce in hands of an act of two thousand and nine this bill will bring all t s a employees including air marshals under title five of the u s code what that means is that their pay structure will eventually be the same as general service or g s and the g s truck sure that exist other federal agencies and i will be interested in hearing how this legislation brings more fairness and equity into the fam system i thank the witnesses for their participation in today's hearing i look forward to hearing from mr bray mr lord and miss traveler and now turn it over to my appreciate very much i'd like to welcome our witnesses here today please the subcommittee is meeting to consider personality shoes at the federal air marshals service air marshals provided vital layer of defense in our  employee concerns and further enhanced security i think many of the initiatives instituted by the federal air marshal service such as the listening sessions and the website for anonymous employee feedback should be considered as best practices for other department of homeland security components i look forward to our witness testimony today specifically interested in hearing about the initiatives that fame's plans to implement in fiscal year two thousand and ten to further enhance the service what i also like to hear are witnesses thoughts on providing criminal investigative training to air marshals i believe that providing this training which used to be provided to air marshals proud to september prior to the attacks will have the dole effect of enhancing both the skills and morale of air marshals that's why i supported congressman long dreams amendment to the transportation security authorization act that would have required this director robert s spray mr bray became t s a as assistant administrator for law enforcement and director of the federal air marshal service in june of two thousand and eight he began his career with the federal air marshal service on may fifth two thousand and three as the assistant special agent in charge of the mission operations center at the f a a technical center in atlantic city new jersey in november of two thousand and three mr bray was appointed as a deputy assistant director for the office of training and development and subsequently selected as the assistant director office of security services and assessments and march of two thousand and six during his twenty year career with united states secret service he was assigned to offices in denver colorado palm springs california tulsa oklahoma and washington d c mr ray service supervisor of the vice presidential protective division under vice president gore and as a supervisor on the presidential protective division under president clinton and president bush mr gray as a special agent in charge of the office of ministration united states secret service supervised the development and execution of the an budget for the secret service mr brady began as a law enforcement career as a police officer for the metro dade police department miami florida he then worked as a police agent for the lakewood colorado police department prior to his appointment to the united states secret service he holds a vast sort of science degree in criminology from florida state university our second when this is mr stephen lord and director in the government accountability office homeland security and justice team mr lord is responsible for directing numerous o engagements on aviation and surface transportation issues in two thousand september of two thousand and eight while completing geos executive development program mr lorre testified before a house homeland security subcommittee on t progress in introducing the twix biometric identification card in the maritime sector in march two thousand and nine he also testified before a house homeland security subcommittee on t s a its progress and challenges in meeting the statutory mandate for screening air cargo on passenger aircraft before his appointment to the s c s he legit ailes worked on iraq reconstruction and was a key member of the two thousand and seven iraq benchmarks assessment team and received a g a o integrity award for exceptional analysis of the iraq governance progress and meeting eighteen legislative security and economic benchmarks mr lord is a recipient of multiple g a o awards for meritorious service outstanding achievement and teamwork he holds a b a in foreign affairs and the diversity of virginia an m b a from george mason university and m s and the actual security studies for the national war college he also completed the senior executive fellows program at harvard university's john f kennedy school of government in may two thousand and eight our third and final witness is mr john adler and this traveler thank you for being here we had a mix up with the letters at the wrong time the invitation letter actually had the wrong starting time on it that went out appreciate you coming in and making here so thank you so much for being here mr rather is the national president of the federal law enforcement officers associate mr rather began his law enforcement career a revenue officer in one thousand nine hundred one and became a special agent with the i r s criminal investigation division shortly thereafter he has spent most of his career in the southern district of new york working a variety of criminal investigations at the end of  nine he was selected as a resident lead instructor for use of force training at the federal law enforcement training center after serving as an acting use of force program manager mr adler joined the united states attorney's office in a cell in division of new york as a criminal investigator he is presently assigned to the major crimes unit mr adler has been an active member of fiala for over fourteen years and also a member of the international law enforcement educators and trainers association prior to his election as the national president mr adler served as if leo as national board as executive vice president first vice president as secretary john also served as an officer with the in the glencoe chapter as well as the agency president for the united states attorney's office members in addition to his investigative duties mr abbott continues to serve as the use of force coordinator for the u s attorney's office criminal investigators in the southern division of new york without objection the full witness is the full statements will be sort of the record and i now ask each witness to mr  within t s a india i would like to thank the subcommittee for this opportunity i appreciate your support and the support of the full committee and i look forward to continuing our partnership in the future no one who remembers nine eleven disputes the importance of our mission mr chairman we can only accomplish this mission because of the outstanding men and women of the federal air marshal service the stanhope of the fans was an unprecedented undertaking the federal air marshal service grew from thirty three people under the f a full fledged federal law enforcement organization the t s a with thousands of men and women deployed now as we speak on flights across the united states and around the world we have come a long way in a few short years and we are fully committed to further progress the millions of passengers who fly safely each year benefit from the robot like commerce that fans provide fans provide this like coverage on a twenty four seven basis in addition to active participation on the f b i led joint terrorism task forces and detail assignments at the national counterterrorism center federal air marshals are also part of visible intermodal prevention response a t s a program specifically authorized by the nine eleven commission that viper teams  move around in any part of the transportation sector and show up without being announced they are a good example of security activity that brings together assets from a variety of state local and federal entities in coordinated action to protect the homeland i would like to think i would like to especially knowledge the support of the federal law of working off of socialization which is helping us build the fans organization for the future without the support of flow of we cannot be the successful work organization we are today are now in a maturation period for family my goal is to work with our employees to continue to continue to build the institution create more open inclusive and responsive organization and continue the blueprint for the future as part of that process we've developed thirty six working groups representing personnel in all workforce categories our employees have great ideas on a myriad of issues including quality of life mission scheduling performance and person standards voluntary lateral transfer and medical issues the contributions of these three hundred field and non headquarters personnel have led to major policy changes and significantly improve the quality of life for a workforce i'm very proud of their work the progress we have made as validated by the g a o as reason report the g a o recognize the fans operational protests to achieving our core mission and our positive actions to address issues affecting our workforce i believe we are succeeding in changing our culture for the better for our workforce the feedback i receive from the fans i speak with in listening sessions working groups are family advisory council and in the many meals i've shared with friends and fans provide the best validation of our program with the chairman any organization is only as good at the people the men and women are the fans are our most valuable asset i am committed to continuing to seek out the views of our people at all levels their involvement is critical to helping us achieve our goals and sustain our forward progress i would like to reiterate my desire to work with a subcommittee of policy in personnel matters are discussed and i will be happy to respond to any questions you and the members of the subcommittee may have thank you thank you mr bray i now recognize mr lawrence summers just name a five minutes thank you mr chairman and members of the committee thank you for inviting me here today to this important hearing on the federal air marshals service our family my statement highlights the findings of our january two thousand and report with some selective updates i would now to discuss some of the key points first or january two thousand  report discuss operational approach so called concept of operations for deploying air marshals on flights considered higher risk since it's not feasible for fans to cover the almost twenty nine thousand daily flights operated by u s airlines uses a risk based approach for assigning air marshals to higher risk flights and these flights include those in and out of the national capital region and nonstop long distance flights such as those targeted by the nine eleven hijackers it's important to note that federal air marshals also have ground based responsibilities for example participate in the so called viper teams visible intermodal prevention and response teams that provide ground based security in the first quarter of this fiscal year about forty percent of these viper deployments were conducted in non aviation areas such as mass transit and maritime facilities  second we found that sam's previous director undertook a number of efforts to address workforce related issues and proven efforts produce some positive results for example to help ensure anonymity of its air marshals amended its check and boarding procedures to help address health concerns now allows more flexibility and scheduling work and rest breaks and to help improve workforce quality of life fans implemented a lateral transfer program third chances plans to conduct a workforce survey every two years building on the survey that conducted in two thousand and seven we reviewed the results of the survey and found that a majority of respondents indicated there had been positive changes undertaken from the prior year however the overall response that's right it was forty six percent this is substantially less than the eighty percent response rate encouraged by the office of management and budget and its federal surveys a report also found that the potential usefulness of future surveys could be enhanced by and sharing that the survey questions and the answer options are clear and unambiguous and if you cases they combine multiple questions in this single survey question making it difficult to answer it clearly today's hearing is an opportunity to clarify sam's plans for conducting an additional workforce survey will it be this year or later and what steps will fans take to ensure a higher response rate finally it's clear to fans has made progress in addressing various operational and quality of life issues that affect the ability of its air marshals to perform their mission in addition mr bray has expressed a commitment to continue these unproven efforts however today's hearing also provides an opportunity to discuss other related oversight issues related to fans first how can say strike the proper balance between meeting its in flight responsibilities and supporting new ground based responsibilities such as viper and second how do you really measure fam success what performance measures being used to gauge their effectiveness because to be most effective as operated they're largely invisible to the flying public and third what is the best way to balance operational needs with a healthy work life balance you have to consider both factors when  assessing improvement initiatives and mr chairman that concludes my statement i look forward to any questions that you or the other members of the committee may have thank you thank us all if your testimony and i now recognize mr as to summarize his statement for five minutes  distinguished members of the committee on behalf of the membership on the we have the membership of the federal law enforcement officers association i thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today my name is john adler and on the national president of leo i'm proud to represent approximately thirteen hundred federal air marshals and share their views with you regarding personnel and workforce issues as the boots on the plane the flying air marshals perspective and insight apparel on to the success and effectiveness of the agency since the horrific events of september eleventh two thousand and one the federal air marshal service has struggled to grow beyond us to mulch us past furthermore after enduring executive management staff that was more fixated on dress codes than air marshals safety the agency's beginning to come together under the strong leadership of direct bob rae the emotional wounds inflicted by the fams executive staff during the two thousand and three to two thousand and six period all of which predates director bray still unfortunately lingers nonetheless i am modules of alan lee trying to regain your agency's credibility and reassemble a splinted work boss that plays a vital role in our homeland security to their credit they are succeeding we can see to success by examining the progress directive bray and the marshals have made with the visible into mobile protection response program otherwise known as viper while it was initially rolled out with many flaws that is ultimately evolved into a viable program on august ninth two thousand and seven leo met with secretary chertoff to discuss the flaws in the program subsequent to the meeting chertoff directed then t s a administrator edmond kip hawley to ensure that the air marshal safety would not be compromised working ground based missions after being appointed the fams direct the mr bray embrace this and instituted a policy that corrected the operational and safety issues intelligence reports continue to indicate that subversive groups are still searching for vulnerabilities in the public transportation system it is important that congress recognizes this and provides fams with the necessary funding to operate this important program our allies in israel who run the el al airlines have succeeded by running a similar proactive program geared towards ground based missions we should learn by their example while direct the brain has done an admirable job elevating morale in the fams the attrition rate continues to be high anecdotal feedback from our membership indicates that this is largely a result of the fans being trapped in a two thousand and four interim t s a pay for performance scale unlike all the d h counterparts such as i c b p and the secret service launches do not get in step pay increases the logical solution to this problem is the place the fams on the same g s which is general schedule pay scale at their counterparts or on another factor that impacts attrition it limits your limitation of their training air marshal carry out a mission that entails more than just security functions specifically air marshals should go through the criminal investigative training program like their counterparts in d h s so what value does this bring first it would provide them with the right training to perform ground based assignments the training places heavy emphasis on interviewing skills report writing surveillance legal procedure and work in crime scenes it will also empower the force multiplier a concept within d h s s this means that the h s could use the air marshals to augment that la variety of ways an example the southwest border initiative un general assembly protection details national emergencies such as hurricane katrina or etc last in an effort to remedy some of the personal hardships brought on by those who spoke out in the past  recommends that t s a conduct retroactive case reviews of past whistleblower cases within the agency revell marshals such as frank de rary who's here today as well as robert mcclain and others were punished in two thousand and five and two thousand and six prior to direct a break coming on for blowing the whistle on past pants bam policies that endangered the public at the same time flee or executive management in the height of its aipac recy continue to televise false bravado news segments that publicize a martial op original protocol i appealed to this committee to support all efforts to review these cases and return them those who were victimized the full flying duty in closing i would like to leave this committee with one point to consider if you look at a t s a organization chart you will see that the fans are placed on the fourth row there isn't a person within t s a to has more credible or enforcement security experience than director bob ray furthermore i know what the boxing match art represents the wealth of lawrence bossman and security experience at the m marshall workbooks in bodies shouldn't they be at the top of the chart leading t s a i thank you for taking the time to consider the viewpoint of flying air marshals and as the others i'm vailable i'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you mr adler and thank you all for your testimony and i remind each member that  program we just had a large piper operation in seattle when they opened a new rail transport system there so we would send fans from the other cities from other cities other than seattle so i thought their homes that are within a large group of fans who are trained in viper missions up there who are dedicated of our permissions that's doesn't say fans the t s a so no one's really sure who they are and we worked with leo to develop all those processes and procedures so i think we have a strong program now for protecting the anonymity of the fams michelle are you would you agree with that that things have proved yes i first well i think you need to ask whether these activities are compatible with the core mission of fans especially since about half of them are conducted on non aviation to sell it's this is totally outside the context of protecting passengers protecting their crews that's the first question is this to what extent does this represent mission creep the second issue i have is how do you actually measure the effectiveness of the viper deployments conducted to date we've had some discussions with t s a on this and they recognize the importance of this yet these performance measures are still being rolled out yet at the same time t s a is seeking fifty million dollars to fund these activities from  sams i think in referencing the organization chart it would be something a matter of modifying and an acronym i'm more concerned with the threats and how work were prepared to respond to them then being overly fixated on the fact that the fams a stands for air i think they are they are that law wasn't component in t s a and they are responsible i mean there was no other lawrence wasn't component there and if something were to happen on the airport grounds which is not up in the air there was no federal presence in any of our airports that can respond as a first responder and set up a crime scene and deal with the crime which is a federal violation other than the federal air marshals so i don't see it as mission creep i see it as long overdue responding to real threats and getting out there in a proactive manner to deal with it so local law enforcement doesn't fulfill that mission i don't think so in fact in airports you may find one officer there and it seems their primary function is just to deal with lawrence was in office is flying armed and should something happen it's a federal violation they don't have the jurisdiction and in the appropriate person to immediately deal with the situation whether it's a pursuit apprehension set up a crime scene interview witnesses it's not their jurisdiction mr ray first thank you mr chairman with a with a regard to the statement about mission creep when congress authorized the viper program and as part of the fulfilling the obligations of the nine eleven act they specifically authorize the federal air marshal service and t s a more full time employees to fulfill that role so we put a fam into a viper program there is no mission degradation regarding our coverage of flights and in the air we still have a robust coverage of those flights but the fam that is dedicated to the bipartisan is assigned to the viper team and they do work the viper program is part of t the core element with regard to all our focus on the entire transportation venue if you recall after and after the train bombings in madrid in london there was an emphasis on t s a to focus on areas in addition to aviation and this was our response to be a strategic deployment of assets and it doesn't collude t s a does include other federal agencies it doesn't bleed local law enforcement and the transit systems when we when we have a viper team go into that program so it's a very good very well collaborative program now  in a mass transit mode some of the transit officials we met with raised this question about additionality they said we already have a security force so they wondered out loud about what these additional viper deployments really provided so anyway adler as i mentioned before when this committee considered h r twenty two hundred the t s a authorization act congressman lungren offer an amendment that would have restored the criminal investigative training program to to the federal air marshal service are you in support of this effort and if you can if you are can you please tell me why we are we we are definitely in support of it and my membership watches we represent are very much in support of it i think it's important to look at the actual program to understand the value it would bring to the air marshals and its flying air marshals the criminal investigative training program is not as glorious as maybe hollywood might suggest in terms of what actually goes on in the academy they emphasize a lot of things like interviewing skills legal procedure report writing even surveillance and also setting up in establishing a crime scene and i think these things are very important you know we have some guys within the law enforcement community who go out and do great work and then when it comes down to documenting what they've done the whole thing just goes belly up i think the value that you get out of c i tepee would transform into real meaningful training experience or to do their job to detect to turn defeat terrorism and i believe i strongly believe that the addition of criminal investigator training program to our arsenal of weapons if you want to put that way to provide our people with that as john said the enhanced interview and interrogation skills  the behavior detection skills and the report writing skills that really gives them the training they receive now is the training that is really basic police officer training this will allow them to be proactive in their interdiction capabilities the training they receive now if you could change the paradigm of thinking is to respond after the event occurs i want to change that thinking to be able and give them the tools in their arsenal to be able to go forward and interdict before the event occurs when they see something that's suspicious and have that repertoire of knowledge and in initiatives that we have underway that are underway right now is a program called the senior federal air marshal program the recognizes those people who have privately for half years of flying time and equals out to about eight hundred hours of flying time per year fam assisting that person with their introduction indoctrination into the federal air marshal service with both those programs to help build our corporate culture to move us forward in what i call the culture of accountability well the program that we started to help everyone recognize that we all need to take care of each with a person that's about to get in trouble going to get into trouble try to have them interdict that and help that person before that person makes a mistake in their life that will affect their career or their family much one last question for m lord your report notes that the positive results of many of the fams initiatives to address workforce issues in your opinion how would you rank the federal air marshals services outreach to its employees on workforce issues compared to the efforts of the other federal agencies and departments and do you believe that any of the fans initiatives could be used as to best practices for other components within the department of homeland security or federal government wi e let me respond to you when your letter questions we didn't do a comparative analysis comparing your outreach efforts with other federal agencies but we certainly were impressed by the scale and scope of the improvement initiatives  would probably be best left to a follow on review to compare what they're doing with other t s a components perhaps or other components within the department of homeland security thank you very much thank to recognize other members or questions they may wish to ask the witnesses in accordance with our committee rules and practice i will recognize members who were present at the start of the hearing based on seniority subcommittee alternating between majority and minority those members coming in later will be recognized in order of their arrival the chair now recognizes for five minutes the gentleman from new jersey mr pascrell german  it's my understanding that many what i would consider positive policy and procedural changes that are going on within the federal air marshal service that deal with the workforce were brought to light by air marshals in fact some of those and marshals blew the whistle voiced their concerns about past policies and past actions many of the same air marshals found themselves in mashed and legal battles following their revelations and october of two thousand and seven  a couple of years ago in your seat sat t s a administrator kip hawley and i asked them about federal air marshal robert maclean's terminations because he blew the whistle and as many of the marshals he blew the whistle and what he blew the whistle on was implemented by a but he lost his job administrator holly promised me in this panel that he'd get back to me on the case and yet he's gone and i never received a response i don't like those kinds of things that's not way to do business but i have a good memory still  also very concerned about is that these officers who blew the whistle on wrongdoing still have not gotten their jobs back i've read we're fact according to tom divine the legal director for the government accountability project fams has not made an attempt to restore whistleblowers that lost their jobs for bringing to light issues that were later found to be valid in fact many of them we have changed the notification either from sensitive to classified and then we've unconscious of why the information that was i mean this is serious and we need to treat it sears i find this completely unacceptable and i'm sure you do to direct and bright even in the face of progress you've made and you have made progress and i congratulate you after having being terminated for doing the right thing shouldn't these folks be reste the lord in jobs can you tell me what the service intends to do in regards to restoring former whistleblowers that lost their jobs for bringing to light issues that were later found to be valid the rector brain so i think the response to use a two part response the first we have to talk about is why these people felt it was necessary to bring it to light rather than to go by going to the media and going on t v and things like that and i think that's a problem that we've been trying to solve for the last several years with the they weren't responded to mind in the barn that's what i mean  i mean when they now we're trying to engage the workforce to i just recently establish what i call the fam advisory council where we have representatives in each office that meet with me personally on a on a regular basis i engage the people in the listening sessions i often get people on the fans in other ways listening sessions we have what i call breakfast with bob or i regularly go out and have breakfast with stranding fans and what i say when i meet meet with the fans of the first thing i open it with is that when you tell me there's a problem in your office there's not going to any retribution retaliation for you bringing these issues forward so we're trying to open that line of communication and if we have any whistleblowers to come forward now we just finished a training period with all of our front line supervisors with the e o we had actually had the office of equal employment opportunity commission come in and provide training for all of our front line supervisors on eal matters discipline matters and with the blower matters so we're trying to get that push that down from from the top down to our frontline supervisors who are dealing with the fans every day during gauging everyone much more than we did in the past so that's one thing for the whistleblowers we fully support the all the rights and all the rights and the privileges they have one of the with the blower protection act and one third of their cases now  you know or in the legal system so i'm i'm encumbered from making a comment on that until those cases are resolved but i think we've we've really tried to outreach to our people now to solve the problem why they felt it was all necessary to what a blow in the first place is one way to get them out of the the judiciary system and that is to be in their jobs back pure and simple the only reason why this is before the court because the department did not give them back their jobs and they deserve job tha misconduct by your marshals what process do you have in place to address misconduct when we have an initial report of misconduct by federal air marshals automatically forward to the office of inspection which is a separate entity within t s a they will normally review that case with the department homeland security inspector general to see who's going to get the get the case and they will go out very rapidly investigate the claim of misconduct and so we we do not when the rest of her dui is thirty days off which is a significant for first offense or thirty days off at the minimum it could be more that depending on the circumstances around the incident do you think that you need to change your background check  organization and finally what rules and policies of the federal air marshals have in place to ensure a minimum rest for federal air marshals to ensure that we have an alert workforce that's something we worked on since i ran that program back in two thousand and three and the one of our initiatives that should've mentioned earlier where we have now what's called the sixty hour rule that whenever the person's friday evening occurs at six p m we give them at least sixty hours  off for their next flight when they have an international flight there are work rules for how much time they have off on a national flight we've offload internationally we realize there's jet lag many issues with time change that we try to work with them on that is also we have the mission exchange program where a person has a family event or some crisis that comes up and they don't want to use leave or rather they have the ability within their field office to contact the federal air marshal if they can change that mission with someone else so we've been proactive on that we are also working in the future we're working on it now working on the future do what we call scheduling consistency program if a fan has a flight that starts a certain time period say eight am on a on their monday whenever it is obviously work twenty four seven organization but we try to if there is a fourth light of their am working to make that a consistent throughout the week so that when within that within a three hour window of that time slot throughout the week and we think that will help with the issues with we have with any sleep disturbance patterns or circadian rhythm patterns and things like that  usefulness of the federal air marshals and workforce satisfaction survey and recommend some changes to future surveys aside from those recommendations are there any other issues you believe that the our air marshals should address to improve its core mission or improve its workforce that's an excellent question our latest were our latest report focused on recommendations related to improving the usefulness of the workforce survey we previously looked at federal air marshals made recommendations to improve in other areas such as amending their policies and check in boarding procedures they dump them in a doze the director bray noted so those are our most current recommendations one related to the workforce quickly would you kindly dress a piece of legislation h r eight hundred eighty one the transportation security workforce enhanced that act of two thousand and nine it was passed out of this committee are you familiar with its or it is  belief that this will address some of the fairness and equity issues with reference to salary can you briefly tell me if you have a similar opinion or i do have a similar opinion that we're always looking over things that will answer our workforce i believe this will be a strong advancement of our workforce my support this program as the administration does i believe and i support with the ministries that work for doing answer program now moving to another topic quickly we talked about the downtime for marshals in between flights is there a downtime or do they work an eight hour day one hour after another how do they receive some degree of relief in the course of a day depends on the flights we generally try to they do work a little more than eight hour day on average their flight time averages about five hours a day so they will have a little downtime within the airport as we all know when you travel you know with weather and othe r issues with airplanes sometimes a tactic but we do work with them various that us lead to make sure they have the downtime on their days off we have a certain amount of training days scheduled every quarter we have a certain amount what we call non mission status days so they don't fly all the time we try to get them in the office to help with their training we're very strong advocates of training so we have a number of initiatives to help with their downtime are you receiving without getting into a specific complaint complaints about downtime still  i don't believe i am not i don't hear much of that when i when i engage with the fans on we do at the practices or in the in the advisory council are marshals permitted to identify themselves to members of congress that's that's up to them sir i mean is it a violation of any rules to do so not that i'm aware of but i ask because a person has identified himself as a marshal to me i have talked more than what i think and  perhaps it's just the way that i look that causes people to tell me their wells but but i will tell you that that is a concern that has been expressed to me by a it true that you had about seventeen thousand applications yes sir it is true and my assumption is that you had a great deal of diversity within the applications tell me what it currently what is the the breakdown statistically with reference to ethnicities within the force so i don't have that in front of me but it is not as good as we would hope would it is it true that we have about four point three seven four point seven percent women i believe that's true yes or can you go on to give me any additional intelligence but i don't i don't have it in front of me we will certainly get that back to you we can get it back to you today but is it true that about seventy three percent of the workforce is anglo i think that sounds about right or is it true that you do not have an african american hispanic nor do we have an asian that is an s e s that's not true sir help me yeah we do have  african americans or s e s either it's field offices providers or in the headquarters staff as assistant directors and how many do we have totally as iesous african american total positions total within the federal air marshal service twenty one twenty one what would you be kind enough to give me a written response that will include the statistical breakdown of positions and various ethnicities by the way i don't ask this question because i think that you have to be of a certain ethnicity to serve i think all capable competent qualified person should serve if given if they desire to and they apply so what i'm interested in is making sure that all capable competent and qualified persons will have the opportunity to serve and we want the numbers to reflect that we live in a world where it's not enough of things to be right they must also look right and we want to make sure that notwithstanding stats being right that we have the proper appearance for work purposes to getting the job done capable competent qualified person i thank you for your responses are they in terms of time off in terms of disciplinary in terms of in terms of promotion that sort of thing to answer the first part of the question because it's a different policy and promotion but the policy we actually have a uni called policy compliance unit looks at that very issue with regard to time off discipline actions and those certain matters where we work with the policy compliance unit and with the office of inspection and see if they offer them to counsel to try to ensure that we do have that quality across the across the entire spectrum of our office for discipline matters as far as promotion at that competitor promotion process that we go through and the persons that are interested in that do but on the promotion there's a panel  that we get together a level of supervisors that review the application and then we go through that long process for that is there a written guidance goes out to all of the offices field offices for disciplinary administrative procedures morale issue i think is being addressed so that's one thing certainly and i really applaud your lines of communication there but what steps do you take beyond that to make sure that these field offices are unaffected lee you know they're following procedures and by the way compliance with administrative standards look at make sure everybody is performing their physical fitness standards and their and their requalification scores on a regular basis they go through the office on a pretty thorough basis and it's done on a regular basis and we can also they've been very helpful to us whenever we had an issue in the office we wanted them to go out and look at it do a special inspection they then respond to us we get a report on that we'll go over that report or my level with the various assistant directors to see what's going on in the office to make sure we're up to standard ok mr lord how how consistent are these rules applied do you think that's a great question unfortunately i was outside the scope of the review we undertook an issue to know nine we we focus on what process these rules and procedures were enacted in response to the concerns raised by the air marshals that would be the logical next step to what extent are the procedures that weren't put in place to what extent are they being adhered to  ever heard if this is of that we unfortunately we have that in every agency there isn't anything out of the ordinary or exclusive to be a marshals you know my membership consists of federal law enforcement officers a compromise sixty five different agencies and i will have one member from every agency will assert that we'll start there there is an inconsistent application of policies and procedures and favoritism anytime you involve people in egos and personalities are going to come across it but it isn't anything that i've seen and having my agency president here with me who was my liaison with the air marshals that was brought to my attention to say there was anything that we needed to address it discuss with director bring along those lines ok i had to count to change the direction slightly mistrial and as you may know the full committee held a markup a couple of weeks ago for h r eight hundred eighty one the transportation security workforce enhanced one act the focus of the act was not only p s but all t s a personnel including fams please elaborate on your thoughts about providing the workforce a voice through employee representatives of collective bargaining yes  somehow impact the president's ability to deploy these folks in a group in a national crisis and we were offended by that commentary you know we considered union employees and i grew up in union families some of the most patriotic people in this country that look at the military roles you know who enlisted in the service who the first people to step up so i think allowing them those collective bargaining rights is reasonable it's what our country is about it's about due process it's about transparency and open dialogue nothing to be intimidated by nothing to suggest that there's going to be some sort of secret coup among the t s a screeners to usurp the authority of the administration we support any vehicle that allows for this open communication reasonable discussion association our membership in the air marshals who we represent are precluded from from engaging in collective bargaining some of what we do may seem to be similar to the function of a union such as engaging in elected officials coming to hearing such as this providing legal representation for our members i think that vehicle in and of itself has been very important and very supportive to the air marshals so although not necessarily a collective bargaining situation when you have a director like director brady who has a real open door things are great and the membership feels as though their voices being heard unfortunately other directives aren't necessarily as receptive as directed bray is to getting that stakeholder input so that's where collective bargaining kind of makes it more of a formal setting where they're somewhat required to could some quality of life issues and challenges faced by air marshals be addressed simply by increasing the number of arab marshals really that would increase the quality of life we would have to work with the congress because congress  does have an interest in the amount of missions that the fans fly but yes that would that would be a definite benefit to our force i mean we do operate pretty much a maximum capacity for what they can do and allow us more time for training and and ploy development in other areas so yes i very strongly favor of that mr allen yes we completely agree i think a lot of a lot of the the issues that have been raised and that director bray and myself and flee or have been working on to address really are the result of a workforce that should be larger you know whether it's a health issue it's a scheduling issue that we already hit upon we have more air marshals better coverage then they'll be in a situation where they can take their annual leave vacation time the number of health and medical issues would be reduced and obviously we would more people to better protect travel and airplanes and other modes of transportation so we fully support and recognize the real value to getting more and marshals within the service thank you thank you one more question for you come a long way and i touched upon it in my statement and not to reopen old wounds but it wasn't the case back in two thousand and three two thousand and four two thousand and five where the director at the time would engage us referred to the acronym for  gone from that ridiculous to the sublime sort of thing and moved way past that now we have a great working relationship with the director comparatively speaking we generally have open door access with most other agency directives the difference i don't think i think what really distinguishes director bray and puts him in a top category with maybe three other directives is the sincerity the ability to listen and act upon what is recommended and follow through i think he takes the recommendations that we bring to him and again you know every agency says they have their internal process to bring recommendations and raise them up through the ranks they all have this process this idea box if you will but the problem is employees generally are reluctant to express their real views for fear of reprisal if the supervisor doesn't like them they're considered a troublemaker and i think director bray is done a tremendous job getting past that you know that whole you know i'm a beach and i should say something and it could hurt me i think the environment changing really to his credit i think that's what really distinguishes him whereas some of the other directors it's more of a smoke and mirrors relationship very good thank you service for your testimony thank you for your service and i also want to commend you for hiring veterans minutes we sure don't see it very frequently but it's a good feeling to know that you mean i hope we can say that a year from now when we really got to say director frank  director brownie who determines whether information is going to be categorized as sensitive security information or classified information who makes that determination just give me a brief answer if you would sort of any questions like that t s a has an office called the s s a office they make that determination so the sensitive a the ministre to lana standing is no i will get back to you on that let me ask you this question you mentioned in your testimony the fact that the check in boarding proceed you said been modified to help preserve air marshal anonymity correct that is correct yes sir and the majority of those changes don't require action on the part of the air carrier is that not correct that is correct sir so that's out of your hands basically is it not we work in concert with the air carriers through the aircraft operators security plan to set that up and it was a long process that changes that's why it took us a while to change the boarding procedures because we had and we had to work with all of our stakeholders in that plan but yes you are correct what it what is being done to ensure that airline personnel are fully aware of these new procedures and are training their employees are they training their employees on how to interact with air marshals in an appropriate manner what's being done to get to the goal line or initially we issued a security directive on this program and then we also have an aggressive outreach with the various airlines as far as and then we have feedback from from the fans if they have an issue they can c liaison section immediately and bring this up to our liaison section who reaches out to their points of contact in the various airlines and but the issue we do see the amount of turnover at the various gates that we deal with on a scale of one to five how would you say long you know the airlines are cooperating or not cooperating five being the highest form of cooperation i would say very close to five sir very close to fine would you agree that mr adler in terms of airline cooperation with not just the marshals but with the total law enforcement workforce i'd give them a or rating would you give them you know it's a very frustrating point because every airline every airport is different in terms of how they engage us and interact with us so one may get want to get a number one rating at one particular airport one airline may get a two or three are they consistent no they are not so in other words it depends on which airport you go out of or come into it's going to determine whether the part of the determination of cooperation yes you ever get any hostility from the carriers absolutely what you give me a give me an idea of what kind of hostility here you're providing service to the airlines we're gone back to when we got rid of rent a cop you know so you're giving a service to the airlines and what's their reaction to at some of the airports their reaction is while they may publicize their intent where the passenger safety comes first and we all hear those announcements in the airport on the planes i think sometimes the reality tends to be different an example to address your question we have to interact with the gate you know there's obviously a showing of identification right they are required to indicate if other people are on the plane and if thing isn't going through this process and without my getting too specific on it what happens is that when they engage us if we show identification they may make a ridiculous display hold up our credentials obviously it's not the greatest environment whether you're at the ticket  your credentials they will hold them up there or make an announcement that there's an air marshal going on to the airplane what they'll do it and where you see need what they'll do sometimes they'll ask them well you know about the boarding process and that's all been change they will sometimes call you want to p a system oh say mr adler please come to the counter so everyone now obviously is looking and now i sometimes think maybe i should start limping as though i need pre boarding you know help or something and you still got fellows that have not gotten their jobs back thank you but let's continue with something that was that was broached briefly and that has to do with that disciplinary  action is generally perceived that if you are to have consistent disciplinary action you have to have some codification of policies and procedures with reference to disciplinary actions or persons will perceive the actions taken with reference to dis discipline as unfair because it can be argued that one person breached one rule and received a certain act of discipline and another perceived a different act of discipline so can you tell me do we have codified rules with reference to to look at it like you but if you've been to one airport you've been in one airport everything is different you can't put a set of rules than for each action but we have general parameters that we review and as i said we have the policy compliance unit and the office of inspection that review the action and they make the recommendation on the proposed discipline and then that's it reviewed by the supervisors in the offices and the in the office supervisors at headquarters to look at that as i said earlier but we do have certain rules like i said one person across the force with this with this paradigm that you have so i believe it's as consistent as an organization our size can make it and with the number of offices we have across the country i meet with the people that run the as i said earlier we had a three day training session for all of our frontline supervisors just on that one of the topics covered with that very issue to make sure that this plan for one person say they missed a flight was equivalent to the person and another person the myth of light and we try to there's always action  get fairly good results as a result of codification would it surprise you to know this no sir i would not let me move quickly to another area we talked briefly about the  stats and i have been accorded some information that i'd like to just go over with you we talked about the s e s positions and i'd like to ask you now about females who are in the s e s positions how many females do we have sorry off the top of my head to serve and when with a hard place both were at the beginning of the organization at the beginning with that be prior to april nineteenth i'm sorry sir i believe it's three now three and where they hired prior to april one thousand nine yes or they were ok are you allowed to to give the names that not i don't want you to give them out here but after the hearing are you allowed to give  absolutely i ask because there may be some incorrect information that i'd like to have an opportunity to correct that connotes that with reference to females yes you have  some but let me go even further and ask you about minority females how many do you have so i don't know that off the top of my head i have some data in front of me that shows minorities that shows that we have of all family one hundred sixty seven females within the organization it would surprise you to know that you have zero zero supervisors s but we do have a very strong i think diversity outreach program i attended as i said earlier women a federal law enforcement conference in tucson arizona recently sunday i believe to attend the national organization of black law enforcement executives down in norfo we have a very large contingent that attends all i think we have almost the largest container from any federal law enforcement agency that attend these diversity conferences we do that to recruit people we do that to let everybody know that we think we have a great organization that you be valued if you work here so we do a great deal of outreach we worked with the white house initiative on historically back black colleges and universities for recruiting and we do what we do have an active recruiting program or issue that you're referring to as far as the to six is the way the agency was stood up when it was stood up in two thousand to were under a mandate to quickly hire a large number of people at that time the direction that was taken was to hire a large focus on people with former law enforcement experience that really narrowed the pool of people  are eligible for that are jobs so now we've greatly expanded our pool like i said last year we are thirty percent thirty eight percent veterans we do recruit actively in than already programs and so we're trying to make progress but we don't have that much year we used to do our own hiring on our private contractor now for efficiency of government to enable us to focus on our mission more fully that was assumed by the t s a department office of human capital under a a throughout the federal government to go over that very information based on that we have a transportation security operations center who does our flight scheduling and they also are a twenty four seven domain awareness center for all of t s a they monitor the aviation environment and many other environments the national infrastructure protection of the organization and they focus on the mission scheduling we as you saw in two thousand we had the london liquid aerosol gel threat on american carriers that were destined for united states there was a plot to blow up airlines around united states at that time we had a very small handful of federal air marshals in in great britain and overnight do the flexibility we have in our scheduling program of the people we have the freedom center we're able to get a large number of federal air marshals to handle all the flights from great britain to the united states where a period of time until the sided with the number of arrests over there and we do have that flexibility we are intel driven risk based operation so we do routinely very routine basis examine our where we're flying and go over our flights with the intel community to see what areas we should be covering whether it's domestically or internationally and that information mr lord what would you say would be the optimal number of sams to have across the system can the studies i think in the studies we've done of the approximate double what we have right now approximately double first of all i don't have a number but i think in answering that question you have to evaluate sam's contribution to providing security relative to other related protective measures such as hard enough cockpit doors and arming flight crews i don't think you can answer that question isolation without taking a more holistic approach to this also i always pose questions the fans are really doing their job they're invisible to the flying public so the question i have is obviously people know that are out there they'll know who they are provides a deterrent value could you achieve to saying the turns level it reduced numbers have a different question if since they are invisible to don't fly and fly in public could you achieve the same level of the currents what a different level whatever it is it was actually my next shut down we had to restore order down there when you saw the people that were being airlifted off the roof and deposited at the airport there was no plan several hundred fans went down there restored order and also helped all the people who were either injured or in see that that's horrible and shouldn't happen now can you provide the chair some point very soon kind of a list of those airlines to do it well and those who aren't so good at  protecting your anonymity i also sit on the transportation infrastructure committee so you know that really kind of steps on both my my areas of interest so please provide that i i would certainly hate to see that that's kind of a  problem with that an airline policy or more perhaps it's just you know some some just person who doesn't really understand what's going on here but if you theory is kind of a trend and some airlines versus another that we really need to know that  for going to protect the flying public so i really appreciate that mr mr bray i'm following along the lines of the questions in terms of hiring minorities and females  individuals and to interviewed commented favorably about the workforce and hammett and hampton's made by the federal air marshal service please discuss the improvements your members have experience over the last several years  well one of the issues we've been speaking about which is just freedom of speech in and of itself has been a tremendous well factor into increasing morale and has improved prior to direct abrade director brown dana brown was on he did a very good environment where you feel like you're on the double secret probation so certainly first and foremost being valued for what you do was something that came about was a very positive change i think scheduling was a big issue when it comes back to your earlier question in terms of do we need more air marshals you know the big that the number one issue we were wrestling with probably even prior to director break coming on was the scheduling dilemma and how it impacted the air marshals in terms of their quality life their health issues leave and even just the attrition rate how it impacts and they say well i'm going to go to another lawrence was a component in d h s s and i'll work monday to friday have a nice take home car and it's just a different lifestyle so i would say that there commit when to working the schedule and some of the things that director bray discussed such as implementing training or other ground based assignments so you don't have any emotional flying five days straight and just being completely exhausted i mean everyone up here knows the airlines do not run on time consistently so i think the question was a question earlier maybe congressman green had asked in terms of the downtime it's such a crazy existence because i've seen him launches literally land and have to run to catch a flight only to get there and maybe find out it's delayed or maybe the plane isn't in fact in the know it's just such a kind of live by the seat of your pants sometimes existence because of the nature of the airline scheduling so i think the improvements have been in recognizing the impact that the rough schedule has and coming up with these other  simon's encouraging people to express their views whether it's the breakfast function of direct abrade does he also engaged us and director brown did this as well director brown set up a forum where we set up a fleet marshall working group and we had representatives from across the country come down and meet with the director director bray is continued out for him that was also a very positive improvement in terms of the work was there interested in knowing why i'd be interested in knowing if there has been some conclusion that the males don't want to do this type of work i'd be interested in knowing how you go about the process of publishing your applications i would have a number of questions about why you have a dearth of female applicants we'll get that information to you but we did do a barrier analysis  we don't have enough to live within and we there were many interesting points in there one of those how the organization was that up another was perception of the applicants what does that mean how the organization was going there was a great up as a law enforcement experience to be eligible for the job in two thousand and two when which which would then connote a dearth of well few of the males because you have more males that are already in the field is that what you're saying with law enforcement experience right or so so you start out with a concern if you will with reference to females being fairly represented in the applicant pool correct part of his perception of the applicants of the agency that it's all just flying and it's very mundane but we saw a great difference divide versus the people who are females who are on board and doing the job they look upon the job very favorably so part of it is the communication of how we advertise and recruit but as far as how we do advertise the job it goes on the o p m website p m dot jobs and along with everyone else so it's out there for everyone to look at thank you let me ask mr lloyd question rather quickly mr lloyd do you maintain statistical information on the number of female applicants  the number of females who are currently serving we have yes we maintain statistics on the number of female employees currently employed as our agency at multiple levels of the organization are you familiar with the position that i call to your attention the the means by which the employees actually perform their service and you question your query is whether or not we might reduce the force because of the means is that correct  just phrased a question i would like for you to answer that question if you would i'm sorry could you repeat again so what is the question that you ask yourself well what's the right level what's the right number no you know you you made the statement your basic premise was given that they secret themselves on the plane given that they are not readily identifiable because of the deterrent impact of knowing that they may be on the plane can reduce the force i think that accurately reflects your commentary is that a fair statement just sir ok now answer that question you posted i my position was it's important to ask the question i would have to think about that a little more carefully before offering any option on what's the appropriate level i think but i think it's important to think about when considering any print placing about it let me ask you this if we do this let's assume that we impact we maintain the same level of the terrorists we will in fact as a matter of fact diminish the level of response because we will have a people true you could problem that's that's a fair argument that you have this and now you go you're going to force me to ask you some other questions that will cause you to say yes to that now you if you have fewer people and if you have incidents that you have no way of controlling and you have no way of knowing where they will occur you have to conclude as a matter of fact that you're going to reduce the opportunity to respond with a physical person who was a train having your marshals on the flights and that it provides a certain measure of competence in the air flying public knowing that we have i hope fully staffed air marshal service and i certainly would not want to see us have to reopen the kind of debates over whether or not we should have armed pilots or other airline officials on planes because they get worried because we have a decrease in the air marshal service that is not a law enforcement opinion just a pin you know somebody somebody who flies and have has listened to some of the the debate over the years  and i apologize if this issue has already been covered missed here but the the issue of communication ability between the federal air marshals on flights or aired and air to ground communications i understand that air marshals have reported experiencing frequency alle years from their personal digital assistants their p t a communication devices and i wanted to know how the air marshal service is responding to that reported problem and make sure that and the carrier will begin issuing the new new devices and the federal air marshals in the very soft as well the option of several devices as they can choose of previously they only had one device and that device was last issued in two thousand five hundred have been replaced in two major carriers starting now it will take a couple years to be installed but we have worked with all the carriers and the provider of that service to get what we call the fans priority service so that what they have in is in the plane they need to report to either the  order march or operation center or their field office they'll be able to do that because what we're concerned about of that we have a nine eleven we want to communicate both ways either have them report to us or we report to them and obviously the more nine eleven service will be overwhelmed so we have to have an ability to cut through the chatter if that's what you want to call it and give our fans ability to communicate so we think up with the new devices and with the services being rolled rolled out that we will be subscribers to the priority service will have a good robust robust service for the federal air marshal i think mentioning nine eleven one of the lessons that i think law enforcement public officials need to take away from that is communications during an emergency is at the highest important seven or seven center in northern virginia they have people from the f a a customs and border patrol the secret service norad other the department of defense so we have that environmental awareness of any incident occur throughout our d through the aviation domain or any other demain that we are concerned with we get very quick reporting into the operations center and then part of the job is to get back out to our federal air marshals our federal security directors and everyone else within t s a to make them aware that something's happening  do what else is needed you know we always know we can always do more what are your priorities or do you think we ought to be mr lord miss traveler i think we've discussed them we need to focus on workforce enhanced and we need to continue to focus on  them the all the morale building items whether the training the workforce and that they need to engage our workforce to build for the future we have made great progress but we can never think that we're finished i think as our first thing we do is make sure that they're ok that they're safe and work with the airlines to get them out of there so those are the issues i try to focus on during my tenure we commend director bray for adopting a continuous improvement philosophy and maintaining the thirty six task team devoted to various improvement areas we think that's really important sustained the progress was initiated under the former director  the funding that would obviously alleviate address some of these issues so i think that that would certainly help as well and also and i think coming back to to congressman green's point in terms of addressing mr lord on the question of the parents and so forth i think the perspective that needs to be maintained and i think congressman green hit it was not only our air marshals providing a deterrent effect a role they're also a response vehicle to respond if something happens and that needs to be considered as well in terms of measuring measuring how effective they are it's important to maintain that keep side on not only the scorecard in terms of how many times how many incidents occur but how well trained and able are they and if you look at the training they are probably that in a tactical sense the best trained in federal law enforcement they need to maintain that level of training so they can respond that they can do what the public expects them to do and maintain the public confidence through superior training proper scheduling taking care in addressing health issues and keeping the the workforce at a size that workable when we don't hit the wall and suddenly collapse very good i want you all to know that this committee and subcommittee is very open to working with you we want to make sure that the flying public is safe and what we know that there are some times constraints on candor and in terms of actually saying publicly what you need in addition to what you're allowed to well and we will pursue this and we want to continue the conversation thank you very much a screening for the questions no further questions but i do appreciate the opportunity to express my gratitude to those who served and to mr bray tough job difficult circumstances great appreciation for what you do and of course i'm always in awe of what the people who monitor i missed the lord capable of communicated that you communicate that to the air marshals to do the job and who fly every day and to stand sometimes it may be morale issues or they may think they're anonymous and then seen and appreciated but at least today let them hear from us that that is far from the case thank you thank you and i do want to thank all three of you for your valuable testimony and certainly members for their  good lines of of questioning today the members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for you and if they do so please respond in writing quickly don't let it hang out there we get a little bit antsy about stuff