WASHINGTON – Facing scathing criticism, Transportation Security Administration officials were a no-show at a House hearing on Wednesday.

During a three-hour hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth took the TSA to task over systemic shortcomings in providing American aviation security throughout the agency’s almost 14-year history.

Despite government funding of more than $7 billion a year, “we remain deeply concerned about [TSA’s] ability to execute its important mission,” Roth said in a report prepared for the hearing.

The IG identified a series of deficiencies in TSA programs and operations through more than 114 audits and investigations since 2005, according to the report.

Among the findings:

• Covert tests which smuggled simulated explosives and weapons found significant security vulnerabilities.
• Billions of dollars spent on technology acquisitions “revealed no resulting improvement” in security.
• Personnel repeatedly failed to follow security protocols.
• Weaknesses in TSA equipment “have a real and negative impact on transportation security.”

“This report is an indictment of the failure of the TSA,” said chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. “Not just in one area, but in almost every one of their functions.”

The hearing also provided further critique of America’s aviation security.

Jennifer Grover, acting director of the Government Accountability Office’s Homeland Security and Justice section, noted TSA shortcomings in addressing screening errors, imaging technology, passenger risk assessment and expedited screening processes.

Although a lot of attention has been paid to passenger screening and security, “little progress has been made securing the far larger portion of the airport where passengers do not have access,” said Rafi Ron, president of transportation security consulting firm New Age Security Solutions.

Absent from the hearing was rebuttal from the TSA itself.

“We’ve had an exceptionally difficult time getting information from the TSA on some very basic matters,” said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

According to Chaffetz, TSA Acting Administrator Melvin Carraway was invited to speak at the hearing, but Homeland Security “felt it was demeaning to have the acting administrator sit on the same panel as a non-governmental witness.”

“That’s absurd,” Chaffetz said. “That’s offensive.”

According to DHS spokesman S.Y. Lee, however, TSA Acting Deputy Administrator Mark Hatfield, Jr. was prepared to testify, but “Chairman Chaffetz declined to allow him to do so.”

“The Department of Homeland Security is respectful of Congress’ oversight responsibilities and is committed to transparency and accountability,” Lee said.

Following the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 on Christmas Day by 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the TSA implemented enhanced screening for passengers arriving from Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, and Cuba.

The new security protocols, which now apply to all inbound passengers traveling to the U.S., “supersede the emergency measures put in place immediately following the attempted terrorist attack on Dec. 25, 2009,” according to the TSA press release.

But was country-specific screening eliminated because it is ineffective, or did implications of racial and religious profiling prompt the administration to abandon the policy?

Some U.S.-based Islamic organizations pressured the Obama administration to repeal the policy, claiming the additional screenings unfairly singled out travelers from predominantly Muslim countries. These advocacy groups lend equal weight to national origin, ethnicity and religion, and consider any form of selective treatment based on those criteria a breach of civil liberties.

Dr. William Reno, a specialist in African politics at Northwestern University, believes that TSA policy directives like this engender negative sentiment toward the U.S. in the countries they single out.

“In places like Sudan and Somalia…people there are very sensitive to any U.S. policy that affects their country,” Reno said. “Actions like the TSA screening become very big news overseas. It fits a narrative that extremists prefer, and it may be that…Washington weighed the benefits with the real costs and decided that it was best to repeal.”

Beyond the promise of equal screening for all, the TSA’s press release can be construed as intentionally vague. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano bats around phrases like “real-time, threat-based intelligence” and “layers of security, both seen and unseen”, but never approaches any kind of concrete new direction for the TSA.

Opponents of the Christmas Day policy might regard this dearth of newness as a political maneuver, a bid to scuttle an unpopular, knee-jerk decision in the guise of a fresh direction. But the possibility also exists that country-specific screening simply does not work.

According to Dr. John Williams, co-author of “Soldiers, Society, and National Security and U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics”, a concern for political correctness was not the primary driver behind the policy change.

“If it was profiling based on ethnicity per se, that would be a problem,” Williams said. “But regarding people from highly problematic countries and giving them special attention, I don’t think that is a problem politically – it’s inefficient, that’s the problem. You have to find something more effective…than screening everyone from those countries.”

Williams references Israel’s method of behavioral profiling as a potentially effective substitute, but cautions that screening under almost any circumstance is a form of profiling, including the “new, enhanced…and random screening measures” outlined by the TSA.

Abdulmutallab was charged Jan. 6 in a six-count criminal indictment in the Eastern District of Michigan for his alleged role in the Christmas Day bombing, and faces life in prison if convicted, according to a Justice Department announcement.