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Our History

How We Began

We were created in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to strengthen the security of the nation's transportation systems. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by the 107th Congress on November 19, 2001, established our agency and gave it three major mandates:

• responsibility for security for all modes of transportation;
• recruit, assess, hire, train, and deploy Security Officers for 450 commercial airports from Guam to Alaska in 12 months; and,
• provide 100 percent screening of all checked luggage for explosives by December 31, 2002.

In the largest civilian undertaking in the history of the U.S. government, we met these Congressional deadlines. In March 2003, we were moved from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Homeland Security that was created on November 25, 2002 by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, unifying the nation's response to threats to the homeland.