TSA’s $77 Million Canine Units Can’t Detect Explosives, Put Aviation System at Risk

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spent $77 million on Passenger Screening Canine (PSC) teams at airports but the dogs used by federal agents to detect explosives in luggage and travelers are not effective. “As a result, our Nation’s aviation system and the traveling public could be at risk of a catastrophic event caused by an undetected explosive device,” according to a federal audit. You can’t blame it on the dogs, though. Their human handlers at the famously inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA) fail to train them properly or use them in an appropriate fashion, investigators from the DHS Inspector General’s office found. Some TSA managers are also more focused on moving checkpoint lines quicker than using security dogs correctly, the probe reveals.