Why You Were Waiting in a TSA Line This Weekend
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
Few government agencies invoke more ire and ridicule than the Transportation Security Administration. Especially around busy travel times, such as Independence Day Weekend, the hated ritual of standing in line to strip off shoes, belt, and outerwear is even more frustrating.
TSA was hastily established in the aftermath of 9/11 without much thought as to the costs of nationalizing an industry and creating yet another government bureaucracy. TSA is now housed in the Department of Homeland Security, but there are other far-less intrusive and time-consuming ways to keep the skies secure. Private airport security screening is a proven way to not only improve safety, but also to make holiday travel more bearable.
TSA has nearly 50,000 Transportation Security Officers, inspectors, and air marshals, in addition to over 10,000 bureaucrats. Since late 2012, the American Federation of Government Employees has collectively bargained for TSA screeners. The agreement locks in place inflexible counterproductive staffing rules, as air travel traffic varies drastically throughout the year. This is one reason why the Bush Administration blocked TSA collective bargaining attempts. Even more troubling, combating the threat of terrorism requires flexibility, not rigid union rules and partisanship. AFGE spent $1.3 million on the 2014 election cycle—nearly all in support of Democrats.
Growing personnel costs are one reason why TSA receives nearly $6 billion in taxpayer funds annually, in addition to around $2 billion in air-carrier and passenger security fees. TSA’s total budget is nearly double what it was in 2004.
TSA not only operates airport screening, but also oversees it, creating a conflict of interest. If airport screening were privatized, with oversight duties left in the hands of the government, companies would be free to find innovative ways to meet the government’s security demands.
In addition to saving passengers’ time, monetary savings would also be substantial. About two-thirds of TSA’s budget goes towards passenger and baggage screening, and 85 percent of employees are airport screeners. That money could be better spent within the aegis of DHS to combat the threat of terrorism.
Pointless spending, such as the $200 million a year TSA wastes on the unsuccessful SPOT program to identify terrorists based on suspicious body language, would be eliminated. An examination of SPOT by the Government Accountability Office reveals that even if the science behind the program were sound, the stress people feel at the airport would render whatever could be gleaned ineffective or misleading.
Wasting money has always been part of TSA’s legacy; the other part of that legacy being the appearance of security. The initial one-year effort to staff the newly-created TSA cost $741 million, though it was projected to cost $104 million. TSA also spent $30 million on explosive-detection machines that did not work, and it continues to spend over $1 billion annually on the Federal Air Marshall Service, which is only present on about 5 percent of flights and has never led to a terrorism-related arrest.
Competition would also undoubtedly lead to an increase in customer focus—something sorely lacking from airport security lines across the nation. With the injection of competition, cases of stolen luggage and inappropriate pat-downs would reflect poorly on the screening companies, leading to repercussions for employees who engage in such invasive, wasteful practices.
Security screening privatization is not a radical proposal. In the post-9/11 world, most of the rest of the developed world also updated their airline safety systems, but with far greater prudence. In Europe, which has a much higher risk of terrorism, more than 80 percent of commercial airports are staffed by private screening companies. America’s neighbor to the north Canada only uses private screening. U.S. airports can choose to use private screeners, but few do since they still need to follow inflexible, unnecessary, and overly burdensome TSA procedures.
Studies have consistently shown that private security screening leads to improved results—a leaked internal study from TSA itself found that private security worked much better. TSA employees as Los Angeles’ LAX failed to detect simulated homemade explosives 75 percent of the time, whereas private screeners in San Francisco’s SFO missed 20 percent of the simulated threats.
It is not only that SFO screeners are more effective, they are also more efficient. A report by the House Transportation Committee found screening by the private workers in San Francisco was 65 percent faster than TSA screening in Los Angeles.
Recent tests conducted by undercover investigators found that TSA failed to catch smuggled firearms and explosives a stunning 96 percent of the time. As the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards argues, TSA has become so overly-focused on passenger screening that it has lost its original purpose of promoting transportation security. If screening was instead privatized, DHS could direct its efforts and resources towards intelligence gathering to combat the threat of terrorism instead. Perhaps once it is out of the almost painfully inefficient day-to-day screening operations, DHS could also focus on doing more than implementing reactive measures to terrorists.
TSA has done nothing but grow in size and cost since it was created. Its record at stopping threats is dismal—if not non-existent—and its inefficiencies and disrespect for travelers would be laughable if they were not so disturbing a pattern or practice. Simply put, airline safety is far too important of a priority to be left to what is effectively a government jobs program.
Jared Meyer is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is the coauthor with Diana Furchtgott-Roth of Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America's Young. Follow Jared on Twitter here.
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