TSA Lost Control of Over $300 Million Spent by Contractor to Hire Airport Screeners After 9/11

The money was spent in the name of improving security at the nation's airports:

� $526.95 for one phone call from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago to Iowa City.

� $1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee -- $3.69 a cup -- at the Santa Clara Marriott in California.

� $1,540 to rent 14 extension cords at $5 each per day for three weeks at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.

� $8,100 for elevator operators at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan.

� $5.4 million claimed for nine months' salary for the chief executive of an "event logistics" firm that received a contract before it was incorporated and went out of business after the contract ended.

Those details are contained in a federal audit that calls into question $303 million of the $741 million spent to assess and hire airport passenger screeners for the newly created Transportation Security Administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,

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