TSA Creator: The Whole Thing is a Fiasco. Screeners Should Be Privatized, Agency Dismantled
HUMAN EVENTS -- "A decade after the TSA was created following the September 11 attacks, the author of the legislation that established the massive agency grades its performance at “D-.”
“The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” said Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said. “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion." As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”
“Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of shoe-bomber Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids,” Mica said. “It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” Mica said.
It cost $1 billion just to train workers, which now number more than 62,000, and “they actually trained more workers than they have on the job,” Mica said.
“The whole thing is a complete fiasco," Mica said. "Screeners should be privatized and the agency dismantled."
HT: Tim Dodson
23 Comments:
according to some of my DC insider friends, the view there is not that TSA is even really a security program.
it's a jobs program.
once you start looking at it that way, all the idiocy and inefficiency start to make sense.
it's not to keep airplanes safe, it's to provide employment to nitwit nephews.
“The whole thing is a complete fiasco. Screeners should be privatized and the agency dismantled."
I couldn't agree more. Individual airlines should be allowed to establish their own security protocols. Such a scheme would provide free market incentives for them to come up with the least intrusive and most effective security in order to win our business.
@Che wrote: "Individual airlines should be allowed to establish their own security protocols. Such a scheme would provide free market incentives for them to come up with the least intrusive and most effective security in order to win our business."
Yeah, let the free market decide! If their security was ineffective, you could sue to get your fare back....oh, wait, you're dead.
I suppose Che thinks that'd be a great idea for food and medical safety, too. And product safety is a scheme by the Communists, of course.
"If their security was ineffective, you could sue to get your fare back....oh, wait, you're dead." -- Steve
If I felt that their security protocols were ineffective I would not get on one of their planes, giving airlines an incentive to establish meaningful security protocols. You, on the other hand, have been conditioned to trust the state to establish those protocols and to do that assessment for you. How did that work out on 9/11?
Steve - Have you heard of UL? It's a private group that certifies the safety of electronic devices and it does a good job.
Government does not need to provide these functions.
You have to come to understand that the government does not ensure perfection. Far from it. It's oten less effective than private solution.
"I suppose Che thinks that'd be a great idea for food and medical safety, too. And product safety is a scheme by the Communists, of course." -- Steve
Let's take a look at the federal agency that sheep, like you, trust to help guard their financial security - The SEC:
Big Reason to Shut SEC, Start Over
Grassley Calls for More Firings After SEC Porn Charges
SEC cedes leasing power after putting taxpayers on line for $550 million SNAFU lease
SEC can't be held liable to Madoff victims for its gross incompetence
SEC head says she relied on counsel tied to Madoff account to sort out any conflict
S.E.C. Hurt by Disarray in Its Books
How's that been working out for you?
Obaaahhhma.
Steve says: "Yeah, let the free market decide! If their security was ineffective, you could sue to get your fare back....oh, wait, you're dead"...
Well as someone who has to deal with these moronic TSA parasites every work day, I think che's idea is much better...
Far to many TSA employees (and I use the term loosely) look at passenger and luggage screening as an opportunity to do a little early christmas shopping at the flyers' expense...
BTW Steve what makes you think that just because the person inspecting one's food or safety conditions then it must be alright?
steve-
"Yeah, let the free market decide! If their security was ineffective, you could sue to get your fare back....oh, wait, you're dead."
nice straw man.
first off, the TSA does a terrible job, so it's not liek the hurdle rate is high.
second, stats would rapidly get out if an airline were shirking.
third, third party agencies would doubtless review the security. they would grade it, just like consumer reports grades washing machines.
there would be a helluva lot more accountability with competition that there is with the TSA.
We taxpayers are happy to provide $9 Billion a year to John Mica and the House Transportation Committee for their bureaucratic education, in a program that will save no one and never be dismantled, and ruin convenient air travel forever.
One question: Who was the guy that suggested leaving airport security in the hands of private carriers, but was voted down? We want him to take your job.
Check out this actual photograph at Denver airport documenting the TSA motto: "Thousands Standing Around"
http://wjmc.blogspot.com/2011/08/tsa-thousands-standing-around.html
He sounds a lot like Mitt Romney.
"Who knew my beautiful program would run way over budget, cause insurance companies to go bankrupt and withdraw coverage from Massachusetts?"
"Who possibly could have guessed that doctors would be so overwhelmed that they would stop taking new patients and that emergency room admissions would actually rise?"
Good people who rely on government programs to solve big issues are often disappointed in the results.
Who knew?
Yeah, let the free market decide! If their security was ineffective, you could sue to get your fare back....oh, wait, you're dead.
The odds of dying in a terrorist attack on an airplane are 1 in 25,000,000. That's another way of saying "zero".
I'll take my chances.
Not to engage in shameless self promotion, but I couldn't help the coincidence:
http://mises.org/daily/5611/TSA-and-Unproductive-Labor
Once the airline placed into service, security doors and allowed Captains to carry firearms, 90% of the problem was solved.
I and my family have avoided buying over 60 airline tickets over the years and we drive now, to avoid the security hassle.
On a recent flight from Atlanta to England, I had a chance to compare and contrast TSA vs private, contracted security. I experienced the usual badgering and hectoring and barely concealed hostility of the TSA in Atlanta. The flight connected in Amsterdam where a company called G4S has the security contract. The agent was thorough, taking pains to identify every piece of electronic equipment I had in my carry-on. After the search, the agent thanked me for my cooperation. It wasn't a pleasant experience but it didn't raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels either.
So to sum up:
TSA - rude, ineffective.
G4S - polite, effective.
what happens if a good percentage of the public no longer feels safe flying?
we have this huge infrastructure (for lack of a better word) to include the FAA and the NTSB to essentially assure the public that flying is safe.
My sense is that most of us would not be comfortable with the airlines having their own air traffic controllers or accident investigators.....or security.
who would you actually trust to put out for low bid - contractors with no pension and no health insurance to do air traffic control, accident investigation and gate security?
in short - you'd have to charge a fee to pay for the function.
should the airlines charge the fee and implement the function
or should the govt.
both the airlines and the govt would be free to hire private contractors but in the end - would you want low bid workers doing these jobs?
who would set the standards?
who would the public trust to set the standards?
my sense is that the public would trust big, bad nasty and incompetent govt more than they would the big, bad nasty profit-seeking airlines.
Larry,
You pay a fee either way, but since dealing with rude incompetents groping your wife and child's genitals and theft of your belongings is part of the fee you pay for government incompetence, it's a much higher expense than private security.
I trust the airline companies. Why? Well, they have airplanes that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars they don't want to see blown up. Plus, if they do a bad job and let a terrorist onboard, the surviving family members will sue the airline into the ground. To avoid that scenario, the airline will do everything it can to prevent terrorists getting on board.
However, the airlines are all competing with each other for customers, so their other incentive is to provide security without scaring off customers by molesting them, exposing them to radiation and stealing from their bags.
What happens to the TSA if they let a terrorist onboard? You can't sue them, it can't lose customers and it gets carte blache to sexually assault you and your children with more gusto.
Incentives matter, Lar.
@methinks -
do you think the public would be okay with the airlines running air traffic control and NTSB?
are there any airlines in the world where they do safety instead of the government of the country they fly in?
the govt could disband TSA and put the contract out for bid - just as easily as the airlines could - right?
what would be the difference between an airline contractor or a government contractor?
if the independent contractor paid minimum wage with no benefits - would the kind of employee hired to perform security be the right kind?
I ACTUALLY AGREE that TSA has distinguished itself as a bone-head agency....
but I've yet to see any airline point to a better model or advocate that airlines take on that job...
or perhaps I'm not very educated on the issue.. but as far as I know... airlines worldwide don't do airport security.
Yes, Larry. El Al, for instance.
airlines worldwide don't do airport security.
Incentives matter.
So what? Does that mean it is not a superior way to provide security? No, it does not.
Larry, don't worry. I didn't actually expect you to understand anything I wrote (which, judging by your response, you didn't).
Most of my responses to you are not really for your consumption.
Privatizing just creates too many incentives to do the same thing the TSA does - except with no visibility or accountability. Forget knowing what that company does, since they'll just invoke "private company, you can't know" instead of knowing the TSA.
Perhaps if you didnt try hassling them about their job, they wouldnt want to do all the bad things in return.
morganovich said...
it's a jobs program.
So? As incompetent as they are alleged to be, it's a lot better for them to be employed - given that employers aren't hiring them otherwise - or would you rather have . Give the TSO's a raise and some better training.
Go charter a private jet if you don't want the TSA. Or fly El-Al, which knows how to do such a job.
if the independent contractor paid minimum wage with no benefits - would the kind of employee hired to perform security be the right kind?
No, and for the fact that it's an independent contractor. They work on disposability of workers and nothing else - to the detriment of both worker and property secured.
Methinks said...
What says the airlines won't all ask for the same immunity, and apply the opacity of the private sector?
What you have is a police state with incompetent employees. So much for increased safety or liberty.
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