KRIS VAN CLEAVE:
00:00:39
How much longer can this go on? Well, hopefully, it's going to be over soon. You're right. It gets worse every day as it goes by. But the crazy thing about this is that that's what causes our politicians to get it done. It's just ridiculous to me that it has to get bad before they can get a deal done. But please get the deal done soon. CBS News Homeland Security Correspondent Nicole Sganga is at Houston's airport. Of course, Nicole, those numbers are pretty telling, given what we've seen the last couple of days at Houston, what you've seen on the ground there. And so these TSA callouts, the airports are reeling. What are passengers telling you right now? Yeah, passengers, we've got to give them their flowers because they are packing patience along with snacks, water, portable electronics as they wait in this hours-long line. Some folks waiting as many as three, four hours. And just to give you a sense, you can see the tail end of the line behind me, but this line starts two stories down in the subway corridor here at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. It snakes through the baggage-claim area up through ticketing, goes outside and snakes back and forth through a passenger bus drop off area, and then comes back inside before reaching this point. Take a listen when I asked a passenger about who's to blame. They have to think about other people and everybody else going to the airport through this all the time. We all are not VIPs. They have private jets. We don't have private jets. We've got to go to the same line. And to that point, we have spotted a few different people in line, including, just this morning, former Attorney General Bill Barr, who said he was about two hours and counting, waiting in this very line behind me. So everyone has to go through general screening here. There is no TSA PreCheck. There is no Clear open. It is just one line here in Terminal E. The same for Terminal A. And to your earlier point, yes, the TSA callouts are a concern, but so are the number of people quitting. And we know that already more than 450 TSA officers have quit just in this latest shutdown. There are so many turns to this story, and each detail is worse than the next. That number you gave of people who've quit, I mean, these are people who have committed themselves to security and are now looking for other work, despite perhaps-- Becoming Uber drivers. Right. Nicole, I mean, yesterday when you were on the line snaking through all of the corridors of the airport there, it reminded me of a theme park's hottest new ride when you're on the line for hours and hours. And I'm just-- my heart goes out to people with kids. I don't know what you do. I cannot imagine being in a line like that with-- There aren't enough snacks. --with my three-year-old. No. Seriously. So, Nicole, we understand you have some new exclusive reporting about TSA vulnerabilities. What are you learning? Yeah, so this is interesting. The top watchdog at the Department of Homeland Security came out with a report. Our understanding is last fall around September. And every couple of years, this watchdog does what's known as red-team testing. So they literally try to sneak improvised explosives, inert but dangerous items through TSA security, just to see what the reaction is. And our understanding is that they have found some very serious findings, particularly as it pertains to TSA's recent change in policy allowing travelers to keep their shoes on. CBS News has learned that only 13 people, including members of Congress and a few top DHS officials, have been given access to that report. It has been classified as top secret. And in this case, even TSA personnel have not been able to view its findings. Therefore, they have not been able to respond to the findings and address them within the agency, which is statutorily required within 90 days. We have blown past that deadline. This is, of course, important in the context of what we're talking about today because these vulnerabilities only become more of a concern as TSA becomes more and more overwhelmed. On top of all of this, we know that the TSA acting administrator is testifying on Capitol Hill in just an hour, so it will be interesting to see her comments on this. Nicole, thank you so much. And this comes at a time where the threat environment is high-- Heightened. --as we've been told by many national-security experts. Nicole, thank you so much.
