TSA's Crew Vetting Process 

TSA can be really strict when it comes to being a passenger on one of their aircraft, and who wouldn't be after the tragic events that happened on September 11, 2001. Since then, airlines have become a lot more protective with these flights, employing more federal Air Marshals, and arming the pilots as well as strengthening the cockpit doors to prevent entry for hijacking. Crew Vetting is one of the more important things to do when finding employees to operate your planes. Layers of security can be used to mitigate the threat of an insider attack by being extremely thorough with their hiring process and picking only the best of the best candidate for the job. "TSA receives individual flight crew manifests  from CBP via the secure DHS network and conducts a security threat assessment by running each name on the manifest against law enforcement, immigration, terrorist-related, and intelligence data sources, as well as against the Master Crew List established and maintained by TSA." (Dean, 2004). Once you pass this assessment, you will be added to the Flight Crew Manifest, which then means you are given the good to go on being part of the air crew. This just seems like your standard background check, but just a little bit more in depth because of the terrorist threats and hijackings that had happened previously. I think the layers of security that are currently in place are fairly basic, but do work substantially well for what they are supposed to do. The only way I could see to improve these security layers would be to deep dive into all their credentials and past experience, as well as be more strict when it comes to run in's with law enforcement such as DUI's and other misdemeanors. I believe it should be like the military when it comes to clearance to be part of the air crew, meaning that you should have to get the go ahead from the owners of the company before you are hired if you have previous charges with law enforcement. On top of that, I believe that they should interview and ask all your immediate family members a series of questions to make sure you are a person of good standing and character, also making sure that you are who you say you are. What are your thoughts? 

Sources: 

Lisa Dean, 2004. Privacy Impact for Crew Vetting Program. Retrieved from: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy_pia_cvp_2004.pdf