Posted on 05/27/2007 10:11:54 AM PDT by AuntB
Customs Inspectors Claim They Were Ordered By Bosses To Falsify Records
Serious questions have been raised about airport security in Florida, after six customs inspectors at the Orlando Sanford International Airport have told federal officials that they were instructed to falsify passenger information.
The US Customs and Border Protection officers claim that in 2005, supervisors told them to falsify information typically gathered during direct interviews and inspections of international passengers or crew members, according to documents originally obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
The Associated Press received the documents from federal officials Saturday.
The whistle-blowers, Selma Ocasio, Jose Vazques-Quinones, Eilliam Errico and three other inspectors who are not named in the report, allege that supervisors told them to falsify information entered into a computer database, such as race, length of stay and number of bags.
When questioned about the practice, supervisors allegedly said "things were done differently in Sanford."
The inspectors told federal officials that they were instructed to enter the false data because of increased traffic at airport.
The inspectors were also told to enter incorrect codes that would "falsely reflect that the passenger or crew member had been stopped, interviewed and bags inspected in connection with a suspicion of possessing contraband or engaging in unlawful activity," the report stated.
One agent entered the information without ever receiving any security clearance or training, according to the documents.
Customs and Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann declined to discuss the case when contacted by The Associated Press on Saturday, but said the agency takes all allegations of wrongdoing seriously.
Nearly 20,000 customs officers inspect about 1.1 million visitors each day at the nation's 324 air, land and sea ports of entry. Customs officers inspect about 500,000 international passengers annually at the Sanford airport.
The six officers were agricultural specialists, employed to detect and stop introduction of animal and plant pests into the United States. The customs inspectors reported their charges of wrongdoing to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
"Passenger screening by (Customs and Border Protection) is one line of defense in our national security protections, which can ill afford cutting of corners," said Scott Bloch, of the Special Counsel office in a statement.
Airport spokeswoman Diane Crews said Saturday she had no knowledge of any employees who were falsifying reports.
"We would not want any document to be falsified at any location in this airport and in any operation," Crews said. "I don't have any knowledge of the situation with customs, the allegations or the investigation."
Customs officers are federal employees who report to their supervisors and are not under the airport's oversight, Crews said.
Since Sept. 11, The Department of Homeland Security absorbed several agencies, such as U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in an effort to improve national security.
In response to the investigation, Customs and Border Protection stated in another report that supervisors who fail to enforce proper inspections would receive "Letters of Counseling."
Plans are under way for a national inspections policy and officers from a field office in Tampa will perform quarterly visits to the airport to sample and witness data entries, the report stated.
Calls placed to the Transportation Security Administration by The Associated Press were not immediately returned Saturday.
This is the second security breach to hit central Florida this year. Orlando International Airport tightened its security in March when officials broke up an alleged smuggling ring that bypassed airport security checkpoints to send guns and drugs to Puerto Rico.
Note that Sanford airport is not Orlando International. They are 2 seperate airports. I saw a newsclip on this and they showed OIA, not Orlando-Sanford Intl
—Plans are under way for a national inspections policy and officers from a field office in Tampa will perform quarterly visits to the airport to sample and witness data entries, the report stated.—
If the visits are announced in advance, they may be ineffective against hardened cheaters. They need to be random, unanounced, surprise inspections. They also need “blind audits”, i.e. undercover agents posing as passengers.
Another tentacle in the Puerto Rico connection? Odd how there wasn’t any guesses as to why they were doing this.
Seems like security is taking a back seat to self esteem.
I think that this is a separate incident. However, this is still incredibly scary as Orlando-Sanford gets a tremendous amount of international passengers, particularly from Britain.
I love reading news out of Florida.
/sar
What, you weren't impressed by that? lol
The entire bureaucracy needs an enema.
Not having been at this duty station, here's a scenario where I could certainly see this happening:
Ag Inspectors come in Wed and discover that this survey data from Tuesday either was lost or wasn't completed. They call HQ and tell the sup. Sup tells them if they can't find it, to either survey additional people Wed and enter the data as Tuesday's or "Just make something up". Also sounds like a trainee who hadn't been to academy entered some data on the sheet too.
The perfect answer from the sup? No. A breach of National Security? No.
These aggies better hope the sup gets canned and they can get along with the new one, or I know 5 inspectors who will be assigned to the 0200-0900 six day a week airport shift, regardless of how many flights may actually be scheduled. Not a good move on their parts.
Calls placed to the Transportation Security Administration by The Associated Press were not immediately returned Saturday.
CBP PING, fellas, was that part great or what? Maybe they can call INS next...
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
Do you know what discipline follows a Letter of Counseling, several more Letters of Counseling.
The process is a lot like a U.N. resolution. If one doesn’t work just pass another one.
Good point. BTW, please pardon my nitpick, but ‘data’ are plural.
Preferably with Aqua Regia !!
“‘data’ are plural”
Indeed. And pi are round ... cornbread are square.
The Latin plural “data” is also used as a plural in English; each measurement or result is a single “datum”.
Many (perhaps most) academic, scientific, and professional style guides (e.g., see page 43 of the World Health Organization Style Guide) request that authors treat “data” as a plural noun.
There is no required number. Most likely, the Port Director or an Assistant Port Director made a port policy requiring a certain number of screenings.
they were given stacks of forms, called IO25s
No such form exists. The form is a CBP Form 6059b "US Customs Declaration". The information from this form is then entered into TECS under the IO25 function.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, inspectors at the 324 U.S. ports of entry have been tasked with identifying and stopping foreign criminals, smugglers and terrorists among the 1.1 million visitors to the U.S. each year.
In reality, we've been tasked with this since around 1900 and each year we screen about 500 million visitors.
CBP's standard of clearing each foreign flight within one hour means arriving passengers are often screened within a minute or less.
No such standard exists.
The whistleblowers also complained that very few airline crew members were subjected to secondary searches since they tended to pass through the custom check as a group.
Again, this is most likely a port policy and is contrary to regulations. At my port, crew members are screened separately and subject to the same inspections as the passengers.
One of the many problems with CBP is “Port Policy”. Headquarters will institute regulations, and then fails to enforce it, leaving each port to decide how and when to enforce that regulation or law.
Ping to #15.
Thanks, MI. I was hoping you’d give your opinion.
Did you happen to just hear Ted Nugent on the Terry Anderson show? It was great. Nugent contacted Terry when he heard him. Man is he ever against this Senate bill!
http://www2.krla870.com/listen/
http://www.theterryandersonshow.com/
I’ll have to listen to the show, I missed it!
MI, thanks for the added info. I’m going to email the ‘journalist’ tonight and ask a simple question - if you can’t get the factual stuff right, why should we listen to anything else you have to say?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.