Stolen laptops held sensitive airport-screening data

By Cheryl Phillips and Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporters

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The seriousness of the theft remains unclear.

The trainer who reported it described it as a "breach of national security."

But a spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin, the contractor training new screeners at Sea-Tac, said the training information on the laptops, while sensitive, was not a security risk. She said trainers are told to report any such thefts as a risk to national security so the FBI will get involved, just in case.

"When we talk 'sensitive,' we're talking about information we prefer not to have out there but obviously not detrimental to the safety and security of the nation in any way, shape or form," said the spokeswoman, Wendy Owen.

Several employees with the Transportation Security Administration said the training information contained on the laptops is designated "sensitive security information."

The Department of Homeland Security defines sensitive security information as material that could be "detrimental to the safety of passengers in transportation," and the agency prohibits its public release.

The laptops contained standard instructional programs used to train TSA screeners, Owen said.

Information used in such training usually includes details such as how to read X-ray machines and how to use a wand to scan passengers. That information is generally held closely by the agency. Such information could alert a terrorist how to get around security, said TSA employees.

"You're basically looking at a blueprint of the training process for TSA," said Carlos Yeager, a former TSA screener at Sea-Tac. "That's shocking. That's not supposed to be out there for everybody to have."

FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs of the Seattle FBI office said agents were assured by both Lockheed Martin and TSA that there was "nothing sensitive" on the computers. As a result, the FBI decided last week that the theft was a local matter and did not warrant a federal investigation.
 
But Burroughs said that may change in light of the acknowledgment by Lockheed that the computers contained sensitive material.

"It is certainly interesting," she said.

In October, a similar theft at a hotel near Philadelphia International Airport prompted the TSA to re-evaluate its security procedures for off-site training classes. In that instance, reported by The Associated Press, one laptop computer was stolen from a hotel meeting room.

TSA requires that all trainers and contractors store laptops and other property in a secure location such as a locked hotel room, locked car trunk, or locked training room. All laptops are password-protected, and all training documents have additional secure-password protection.

After the Philadelphia theft, the agency began requiring that contractors and TSA employees in charge of such information sign statements acknowledging the security procedures.

If a theft happens because of negligence, the contractor is held accountable, said TSA spokeswoman Jennifer Marty, adding that most thefts have not been due to negligence but because someone broke into a secure area.

TSA's internal-affairs office is investigating the theft of the six laptops, Marty said, declining to comment in detail.

The laptops were stolen after a training session at the Doubletree Hotel, according to a King County Sheriff's Office report. On July 27, after teaching, a Lockheed Martin trainer asked for the laptops and other equipment to be moved to a storage area. The next morning, she discovered that one of her aluminum shipping crates with six laptops was missing.

The trainer told a sheriff's deputy she was "astounded" when she realized the storage area was just 10 feet from the hotel's back door, open to employees and easily accessible.

The trainer "was concerned about the theft particularly because the computers contained training information concerning airport security and training methods for airport screeners," the deputy wrote.

Attempts to contact the trainer were unsuccessful.

Cheryl Phillips: 206-464-2411 or cphillips@seattletimes.com; Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com