Kristi Noem caught covering up key flaw in her own security policy for months

By Matthew Chapman
Published February 27, 2026 7:08 PM ET

A policy championed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to speed up Transportation Security Administration lines at airports in fact had a key security flaw — but when it was reported to her, the Department classified it and kept it buried for months, reported the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

The policy is one of the few undertaken by Noem's DHS that has enjoyed considerable bipartisan support: ending requirements for people to remove their shoes at airport security lines, a policy enacted after a thwarted shoe bomb plot over two decades ago that the traveling public has long considered a nuisance.

However, "a classified November report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, the agency’s top watchdog, found that some of the TSA full-body scanners that most airline passengers pass through can’t scan shoes, according to people familiar with the report’s contents," said the Journal. "The report determined Noem’s policy move had inadvertently created a new security vulnerability in the system. Some White House officials have been made aware of the report."

https://www.rawstory.com/kristi-noem-tsa/

Hey Snow Queen, as someone that use to work in the aviation industry I have seen many, and I mean many transformation of being on the AOA, first of all do you know what AOA stands for?.................if not resign and take that side kick dude Lewandowski with you...............with your blanket............and just maybe you and him should revisit the FAA rule about the sterile cockpit..............if I had been the pilot I would have landed ..............end of story................

14 CFR § 121.542 - Flight crewmember duties