Lawmakers query TSA on slow response to security-related emails

National Journal
November 3, 2003
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Leaders of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security have asked Transportation Security Administration officials for information on why TSA ignored security-related e-mails from a student who recently placed box cutters, bleach and a simulated bomb on U.S. passenger airplanes.

UPI reports that Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., and ranking member Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, requested that TSA provide the committee with copies of the e-mails written by 20-year-old Nathaniel Heatwole before he placed the materials on the planes.

Cox and Turner wrote that they were "deeply concerned" that despite being told "the exact dates that the contraband was hidden [and] the flight numbers ... TSA did not provide this information to the FBI or Southwest Airlines for more than one month, and then only after the airline accidentally discovered some of the items." The two gave TSA until Nov. 21 to respond.

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