The United States can have "all the technology in the world," but if it doesn't properly vet and investigate people with access to airports, that marks the greatest threat to aviation security, Rep. Peter King said Monday.
"There are close to 1 million unionized people," including cleaners, technicians and more working for airlines or airports, the New York Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program.
"They have access that . . . gets them inside the zone. That I think is the greatest threat we face in aviation security. Not the passengers. But the hardest to stop will be insiders."
The threats continue from ISIS leaders calling for "lone wolf" attacks in the United States, and King said the threat is very real.
"This is not just a centralized command coming out of a cave in Afghanistan," King said."You have a combination of lone wolf and people who can be reached over the internet. [They] reach out beyond their own narrow world. Anyone who supports their own ideology and Islamist terrorism is free to carry out an attack."
There are many who have carried out attacks who were inspired by ISIS, even if they are not "card-carrying members," said King.
King's statements were in line with those made over the weekend by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul.
On Sunday, McCaul warned on the
"Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" program that he is concerned "insiders" were behind the crash of an EgyptAir flight last week.
"You can have the best technology but if you have an inside job of a worker that has access to the plane that's corrupted or bribed or radicalized, they can get a bomb on that aircraft and blow it up," McCaul told Wallace.
King said it's still too early to tell what caused the Egyptian plane to crash, but "we have to start off with the presumption it's terrorism and work our way back."
"The fact that no one claimed responsibility seems to take it more away from terrorism," King said. "But you shouldn't make a definitive statement like that unless you know. We have to find out what it was. It could well end up being mechanical error."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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