Word: reports
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Hinson's demeanor was familiar: he was his usual easygoing self. I expected the FAA staff and the Secretary's underlings not to like our findings, but I wasn't prepared for the real point of our meeting: they wanted me to bury the report. The Olympic Games were opening in Atlanta that month. The investigation might have miserable results, but "the threat is low," they kept repeating. What good would it do to upset the public and generate a lot of negative publicity right before the Olympics? I couldn't say an attack was imminent. Still, I knew that...
...contended that the security report was so important that not only should it be released immediately, it should be delivered directly to the President. But mine was the minority opinion in that office that day. The FAA, with the backing of the Secretary of Transportation, agreed to send a copy of the document to the National Security Adviser but remained convinced it was best to withhold the report from the public indefinitely. dot officials insisted that I hold the report; they were requesting that the document be classified...
...knew I could no longer stay in my job. once again, the FAA was manipulating a potential public relations crisis without a thought for the safety issues involved. The Secretary of Transportation's office was assisting the cover-up by insisting the report should be classified, even though the classifiers had already approved it for release. They didn't really care that the airport-security report wouldn't qualify for classification; it would take weeks to figure that out, and by then the Olympics would be over, the goal accomplished, the crisis past...
...expected change, I knew I had to devise yet another strategy to circumvent the FAA, to find a way to offer my concerns about safety and security directly to the public. I had to resign, even though it meant leaving the airport-security report behind and unprotected. The dot was adrift, blown wherever the winds of a media event or crisis carried it. The Secretary offered no leadership, no knowledge or understanding, no accountability. The administrator of the FAA was a figurehead. Neither of them heeded NTSB recommendations; neither followed through on the many reports detailing safety problems...
After I resigned my position as Inspector General at the Department of Transportation, the report on airport security that my office had readied for the Secretary, the White House and Congress was suppressed. It didn't matter that the decision had already been made not to classify the report. It was buried for several weeks, until after the Democratic National Convention. When it was finally issued, all the incriminating information about the FAA had been blacked out, including the failure rates and the FAA's response to our findings...